Chapter 10

Sauti said, ‘And Ruru, on hearing those words, replied, ‘My wife, dear tome as life, was bit by a snake; upon which, I took, O snake, a dreadfulvow, viz., that I would kill every snake that I might come across.Therefore shall I smite thee and thou shalt be deprived of life.’

“And the Dundubha replied, ‘O Brahmana, the snakes that bite man arequite different in type. It behoveth thee not to slay Dundubhas who areserpents only in name. Subject like other serpents to the same calamitiesbut not sharing their good fortune, in woe the same but in joy different,the Dundubhas should not be slain by thee under any misconception.’

“Sauti continued, ‘And the Rishi Ruru hearing these words of the serpent,and seeing that it was bewildered with fear, albeit a snake of theDundubha species, killed it not. And Ruru, the possessor of the sixattributes, comforting the snake addressed it, saying, ‘Tell me fully, Osnake, who art thou thus metamorphosed?’ And the Dundubha replied, ‘ORuru! I was formerly a Rishi by name Sahasrapat. And it is by the curseof a Brahmana that I have been transformed into a snake. And Ruru asked,’O thou best of snakes, for what wast thou cursed by a Brahmana in wrath?And how long also will thy form continue so?'”

And so ends the tenth section of the Pauloma Parva of the Adi Parva.