Parikshit

Mythic king in the Lunar Line, who
serves as an example that one’s fate cannot be escaped. Parikshit is the grandson of Arjuna, one of the five Pandava
brothers who are the protagonists in the
Mahabharata, the later of the two great
Hindu epics.
Parikshit inherits the throne from
Yudhishthira, Arjuna’s elder brother,
and according to tradition rules righteously for sixty years, but it is his death
that is best remembered. Fond of hunting, Parikshit one day comes across a
meditating sage while he is chasing a
wounded deer. When the sage refuses to
answer to his inquiries about the deer,
Parikshit grows angry and, with his bow,
drapes a dead cobra around the sage’s
neck. The sage remains unaware of this,
but his son finds out about it when his
playmates jeer at him. Furious, the son
lays a curse that the person responsible
will be fatally bitten within seven days
by the great serpent Takshaka. When he
discovers that the king is responsible,
the son repents his curse to the King.
Parikshit takes all possible precautions to avoid his fate. He builds a house
on a huge pillar, has anything brought
into the house carefully searched, and
surrounds himself with physicians who
can cure snakebite. After six days without incident, the king begins to relax his
vigilance. As the seventh day is ending,
Takshaka conceals himself as a worm in
a piece of fruit, changes into his real
shape when the fruit is cut open, and
bites the king, killing him.