Sūta said: ‘Thus addressed, the radiant Śṛṅgī, seized by anger, hearing that his teacher [-father] bore a corpse, blazed with fury. Looking at [his friend] Kṛśa and uttering words of truth, he asked: "How is it that my father now carries something dead?" Kṛśa said: "By king Parikṣit, who was ranging in the hunt, O dear one, a dead snake has now been hung upon your father’s shoulder." Śṛṅgī said: "What evil did my father do to that ill-natured king? Tell me the truth, Kṛśa, and behold the power of my austerity." Kṛśa said: "That king Parikṣit, son of Abhimanyu, having gone out to hunt, alone pursued a deer wounded by a feathered arrow. Not finding the deer, wandering through that great forest, the king, as soon as he saw your silent father, questioned him. [The sage,] standing motionless as a post, was asked again and again by the king — tormented by hunger, thirst, and weariness — about the lost deer. But [your father], keeping a vow of silence, gave him no answer at all; and the king, with the tip of his bow, hung the [dead] snake upon his shoulder. O Śṛṅgī, your father sits there still today, firm in his vow; and that king returned to his own city, [the city named] after the elephant (Hastināpura)." Sūta said: "Hearing this, the sage’s son stood as if transfixed, propping up the sky; his eyes red with rage, blazing as if with fury, seized by anger, he then cursed the king — touching water, the radiant one, driven by the force of the surge of his wrath: ‘That sinner, disgracer of the king[’s own rank], who hung a dead serpent upon the shoulder of my old father — who, moreover, was in distress — that sinner let the venomous Takṣaka, best of serpents, of fierce might, impelled by the force of my word, lead away after seven nights from here to the abode of Yama — the insulter of the twice-born, who brought disgrace upon the Kurus.’"