After the Pandava's were banished from hasthinapuram, they were given a new territory to rule.
Pandava's made their new territory a promising country, where everyone was happy and all thrived.
Once they were done, they went on a picnic.
Arjunan & Krishnan went to the Khandava forest to hunt. There, they saw one destitute person. They were moved by that person's plight.
He looked poor & very hungry, they asked him, do you want anything to eat.
That person, yes I want to eat. They asked him, what do you want? We have lot of delightful food, fruits & meat. That person said, no matter what you feed me will not be enough, until I eat this forest.
Now they are perplexed, who would want to eat a forest? So they asked him, why do you want to eat this forest and how can you?
That person transformed to Agni deva & said, I have stomach trouble and Brahma suggested me to digest this forest to get myself back in action.
Arjunan & Krishnan asked, what is the cause of your stomach trouble?
Agni told them the story of his stomach trouble.
There was a king named Swetaki, he was notorious for conducting very long & arduous yagams. His priests conducted these yagams, till they got very tired & were practically blind from the smoke of the yagams. And they retired to their ashrams.
But Swetaki was not satisfied, he wanted to conduct a great yagam that no one has ever attempted. The king decided to conduct a 100 years long yagam, his priests were furious. They told him, you are too much & refused to conduct or help him. And they told him "may god help you".
The king took it literally & did a hard penance to get an appointment with Shiva, Shiva was pleased with his penance and appeared before him. Swetaki, asked Shiva to help him conduct the 100 years yagam. Shiva told him, the gods do not do yagams to satisfy themselves.
Shiva told Swetaki that, you lead a brahmachari life for 12 years, and conduct a yagam pouring Ghee continuously 24/7 in to the fire. Then I will show you the way ahead.
Swetaki embarks on this journey & he succeeds in satisfying all the conditions set by Shiva.
Shiva is pleased, he appears before Swetaki and says that he still cannot help Swetaki to conduct the 100 years yagam, Shiva tells Durvasa to conduct Swetaki's yagam.
Swetaki with the help of Durvasa completes the yagam. The yagam was a great success. When Swetaki's time came, he dies & goes to heaven because of the fruits of his yagam.
Now because Swetaki poured Ghee 24/7 for 12 years into fire, Agni is unable to digest all this Ghee. So he is very uncomfortable, and he rejects all that is Ghee. Because of this others are unable to conduct yagam, cook food & so on, otherwise life simply could not sustain.
When Agni is not himself, all that depends on fire & heat comes to a standstill, that is everything.
Agni goes to Brahma and asks him for a remedy. Brahma says, eat the Khandava forest for your digestion problem.
Agni tells Arjuna & Krishna, that is the reason I have come here to eat the Khandava.
So Arjunan asks agni, you are fire & the forest is wood, why dont you consume? Whats the difficulty & why need our help?
Agni tells them that a friend of Indra, namely Takshaka, is staying in this forest. So whenever I try to consume this forest, Indra pours rain and stops me. So I want you guys to stop Indiran from doing this.
So they say "ok we will do this", but you need to give us the weapons to stop Indiran.
So Agni gives Arjunan the Kandibam, two inexhaustible quivers & Krishnan the Sangu & Chakaram.
Agni then says to them, I have given you the weapons you wanted. Now I am going to proceed.
After that Agni starts to consume the forest.
There were many animals, birds, snakes in that forest. They all start fleeing from the fire, but they are unable to escape the arrows of Arjunan or the chakra of Krishnan. They both slay, all the living beings that tries to escape from the forest fire.
Indiran tries douse this fire by pouring rain, but Arjunan with his Kandibam and unlimited supply of arrows, stops the rain from reaching the forest fire.
Meanwhile, there were hordes of animals being killed either in the fire or by the arrows of Arjunan & the Chakra of Krishnan.
In the animal kingdom, the fathers die protecting their wives, the mothers die protecting their children, uncles, aunts all die.
And when this fire was raging on, the chief architect of the asuras called Maya, came out asked for the protection of Arjunan. Arjunan granted him protection, saying you asked for my protection, so you are me now.
And all the children cry for help were futile, when the elders come, both the children & elders are killed.
It was a cruel killing field.
Takshakan, father of the snakes, was unfortunately not in this forest at this time. But his wife & son are in the forest. Takshakan's wife is desperate to save her son, so she swallows her son head first and tries to escape. But the cruel arrows of Arjunan cuts her throat while escaping, since she had swallowed her son head first, he escapes with his life.
So the complete forest was consumed by Agni, with the help from Arjunan & Krishnan.
And from this fire only 6 living beings escape, 1 Takshakan's son, 2, Maya the architect of the Asuras, +4 Swans.
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