they slay each other? Whose daughter also was this
Tilottama for whose love the maddened brothers killed each other? Was she
an Apsara (water nymph) or the daughter of any celestial? O thou whose
wealth is asceticism, we desire, O Brahmana, to hear in detail everything
as it happened. Indeed, our curiosity hath become great.'"

SECTION CCXI

(Rajya-labha Parva continued)

"Vaisampayana said, 'Hearing these words of Yudhishthira, Narada replied,
'O son of Pritha, listen with thy brothers to me as I recite this old
story, O Yudhishthira, exactly as everything happened. In olden days, a
mighty Daitya named Nikumbha, endued with great energy and strength was
born in the race of the great Asura, Hiranyakasipu. Unto this Nikumbha,
were born two sons called Sunda and Upasunda. Both of them were mighty
Asuras endued with great energy and terrible prowess. The brothers were
both fierce and possessed of wicked hearts. And those Daityas were both
of the same resolution, and ever engaged in achieving the same tasks and
ends. They were ever sharers with each other in happiness as well as in
woe. Each speaking and doing what was agreeable to the other, the
brothers never were unless they were together, and never went anywhere
unless together. Of exactly the same disposition and habits, they seemed
to be one individual divided into two parts. Endued with great energy and
ever of the same resolution in everything they undertook, the brothers
gradually grew up. Always entertaining the same purpose, desirous of
subjugating the three worlds, the brothers, after due initiation, went to
the mountains of Vindhya. And severe were the ascetic penances they
performed there. Exhausted with hunger and thirst, with matted locks on
their heads and attired in barks of trees, they acquired sufficient
ascetic merit at length. Besmearing themselves with dirt from head to
foot, living upon air alone, standing on their toes, they threw pieces of
the flesh of their bodies into the fire. Their arms upraised, and eye
fixed, long was the period for which they observed their vows. And during
the course of their ascetic penances, a wonderful incident occurred
there. For the mountains of Vindhya, heated for a long course of years by
the power of their ascetic austerities, began to emit vapour from every
part of their bodies. And beholding the severity of their austerities,
the celestials became alarmed. The gods began to cause numerous
obstructions to imp