The Sage Whose Blood Was Sap

The sages told the Pandavas of the sage Mankanaka, whose body had become so purified by penance that vegetable sap flowed in his veins in place of blood - and how, when pride at this marvel made him dance with joy, the great Lord Shiva humbled him with a single quiet sign. It is a tale of the subtle pride that can creep even into the holiest of souls, and of the cure for it.

Mankanaka was a sage of immense austerity, who had practiced penance for so long and so fiercely that his body had been wholly transmuted by it. His flesh had become as pure as the elements themselves; the gross blood of an ordinary man no longer ran in him, but something finer. He dwelt by a sacred ford on a holy river, absorbed in his devotions, a being of great power and great purity, honored by all who knew of him; and he had grown, perhaps without quite knowing it, conscious of his own greatness.