The Slayer of the Sand-Demon

The deathless sage Markandeya told the Pandavas of King Kuvalashva, who slew the terrible demon Dhundhu that lay hidden beneath the desert sands - a tale of heroism and of the great cost at which the world is sometimes saved.

There was a fearful demon named Dhundhu, a being of enormous power who could not be slain by the gods, and who, fleeing their wrath, hid himself away in a strange and terrible fashion: he buried himself deep beneath the sands of a vast desert, coiling himself in the deep earth and covering himself over with the sand, and there he lay, sunk in the ground, unseen by all. But though hidden, he was not harmless. Once each year the demon, breathing in his sleep beneath the sands, would send up such a blast that the whole earth shook with it - earthquakes rocked the land, smoke and fire and storms of dust burst up from the desert, and the world for miles around was filled with terror and calamity. The cause of these yearly disasters was unknown to men; they knew only that the earth shook and the sands belched fire, and they were afraid.