O Srinjaya, if even Bharata had to die and he four times more blessed than you and more pious than your son then I say to you do not suffer for your child. Cry not the name of one whose life was so miserly and so profane.
narada spoke:
69.1
O S
rinjaya. W
e know of a king now gone called
Prithu son of
Vena whom great seers anointed at his imperial coronation. Men celebrated the broad dominion that earned him his name. He kept safe their lands and so they called him regent. They whom Prithu son of Venu ruled adored him and because they adored him they named him lord.
69.5
69.10
Under Prithu the whole of the earth yielded its bounty unfurrowed by the plough, and all its cows yielded pail after pail of sweet milk at the merest touch of the farmer’s hand. The grass in the meadows was gold and soft beneath hand and foot and the people wove it into quilts for their beds. Honey and fruits and roots tasted of ambrosia and all were in abundance nor was there ever any want. Man lived in cave or wood or wherever he pleased and there was no fear, disease or lack. There were no walls around kingdoms or cities and all the king’s subjects were contented and fulfilled and lived together in harmony. The seas petrified to sup- port his tread, the mountains laid themselves open when he passed and his flag was never cast into the dust. One day as he sat in peace all the trees, rocks and snakes, men, demons and gods, the Seven Seers and the Holy Ones, gandharvas and apsarases and ancestors all stood before him, and they spoke to him.