The King Born of a King

The sages told the Pandavas of Mandhata, who was born in the strangest manner of any king in the old tales - conceived not in a mother but in his own father, and suckled by the king of the gods - and who grew to be one of the mightiest and most righteous emperors the world has ever known.

There was a king of the ancient solar line named Yuvanashva, a good and powerful ruler, but he had one great sorrow: though he had many wives, he had no son to continue his line and inherit his throne. He longed for a child with all his heart, and grieved that his house might end with him. At last, leaving his kingdom in the care of his ministers, he went into the forest to the hermitages of the great sages, to beg them to help him obtain a son by their sacred power.