Chapter 22

“Sauti said, ‘The Nagas after consultation arrived at the conclusion thatthey should do their mother’s bidding, for if she failed in obtaining herdesire she might withdraw her affection and burn them all. If, on theother hand, she were graciously inclined, she might free them from hercurse. They said, ‘We will certainly render the horse’s tail black.’ Andit is said that they then went and became hairs in the horse’s tail.

“Now the two co-wives had laid the wager. And having laid the wager, Obest of Brahmanas, the two sisters Kadru and Vinata, the daughters ofDaksha, proceeded in great delight along the sky to see the other side ofthe Ocean. And on their way they saw the Ocean, that receptacle ofwaters, incapable of being easily disturbed, mightily agitated all of asudden by the wind, and roaring tremendously; abounding with fishescapable of swallowing the whale and full of makaras; containing alsocreatures of diverse forms counted by thousands; frightful from thepresence of horrible monsters, inaccessible, deep, and terrible, the mineof all kinds of gems, the home of Varuna (the water-god), the wonderfulhabitations of the Nagas, the lord of rivers, the abode of thesubterranean fire; the residence of the Asuras and of many dreadfulcreatures; the reservoir of water, not subject to decay, aromatic, andwonderful, the great source of the amrita of the celestials; immeasurableand inconceivable, containing waters that are holy, filled to the brim bymany thousands of great rivers, dancing as it were in waves. Such was theOcean, full of rolling waves, vast as the expanse of the sky, deep, ofbody lighted with the flames of subterranean fire, and roaring, which thesisters quickly passed over.'”

And so ends the twenty-second section in the Astika Parva of the AdiParva.