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INTRODUCTION
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by name. There was a king named Sahasrabahu. His queen Vicitramati gave birth to a son, Kệtavīra by name. Vicitramati's sister Srimati was married to king Satabindu. A son was born to them and was named Jamadagni. Owing to the death of his mother in early childhood, Jamadagni became a tāpasa ascetic. Satabindu and his minister Harišarman also became ascetics under Jainism and Hinduism respectively. After death Śatabindu was born in the Saudharma heaven and Harišarman was born in the Jyotiska heaven. They both wanted to test the piety of Jamadagni, assumed the form of a couple of sparrows, built their nest in the beard of Jamadagni, and talked something insulting to him. He then got angry with the birds and threatened to kill them. One of the birds thereupon said to the sage that he did not know that he could not obtain heaven as he did not beget a son. Jamadagni was then set to thinking, went to his maternal uncle, and sought a girl for marriage. Owing to his oldage however, no girl was prepared to marry him. He thereupon cursed all the girls of the town to be dwarfish or hump-backed, which town thereafter became known as Kanyakubja ( Modern Kanauj ). He however found his uncle's daughter, all dusty, called her Reņuká (Dusty), attracted her by showing her a plantain, made her sit on his lap, and married her, as, he said, she liked him. In course of time she gave birth to two sons, Indrarāma and “vetarāma. Her brother gave to her a gift of a cow that would yield everything desired, as also a charm (mantra ) of axe (Parašu). Renuka and her husband Jamadagni thereafter lived happily.
One day king Sahasrabahu with his son Kệtavira came to her hermitage. They were both treated to a royal feast by Renukā. The king and his son were struck with the excellence of the food and asked Repuka how she, the wife of an ascetic, could treat them so sumptuously. She said that her borther had given her a cow that yielded desired things. Kộtavira wanted that cow, and, inspite of Renuka's protests, carried her off. In the fight that ensued between Kệtavīra and Jamadagni, Sahasrabāhu killed Jamadagni. His sons Indraráma and Svetaráma were away, but when they returned and learnt from their mother that their father was killed by Sahasrabahu and his son Kftavira, and that their cow was carried off by them, they got angry. Renukā taught them the Parasumantra. They then went to Saketa, killed Sahasrabahu and Kștavīra, and all other members of the Ksatriya race twentyone times. After the extermination of all living Ksatriyas they gave the earth to Brahmins who thereafter ruled over it. Vicitramati, the queen of Sahasrabahu, was pregnant at this time, and bore in her womb the soul of a former king Bhûpala by name, who was destined to be a cakravartin. She ran for life into the forest, and was offered shelter by a sage named Săpdilya. There in his hermitage she gave birth to a son who was named Subhauma.
LXVI. Subhauma passed his childhood in the hermitage of the sage Sandilya in the forest, and grew to be a strong and powerful youth. One day he asked his mother how it was that he did not see his father and pressed her to tell him his whereabouts. Thereupon Vicitramati narrated to him how his father Sahasrabahu was killed by Paraśurāma.
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