Janamejaya had done snake sacrifice Yagna, why?

Janamejaya had done snake sacrifice Yagna, why?

 This story is related to the last emperor of Pandava clan Janamejaya (great-grandson of Arjuna). Janamejaya once performed a snake sacrifice to eradicate the existence of snakes from the earth, in which almost all the snakes present on the earth were eliminated. However, in the end, due to the intervention of Astika Muni, due to the complete destruction of snakes, otherwise snakes would not exist on earth today. Let us know who was Janamejaya and why he had vowed for complete destruction of snakes?


Rishi cursed King Parikshit

For a few years after the war of Mahabharata, the Pandavas ruled Hastinapur. But when he left the throne and started going to the Himalayas, Raj's job was given to Abhimanyu's son Parikshit. Parikshit carried forward the tradition of Pandavas. But here, Vidhata was playing some other game. One day Raja Parikshit went to the jungle for hunting when he was sad. He passed through sage Shamik's ashram while playing hunting.



The sage was sitting at that time meditating on Brahman. He did not pay attention to the king. On this, Parikshit got very angry and put a dead snake in the sage's throat. When the sage's attention was removed, he too got very angry and cursed King Parikshit that you would die by snake bite. King Parikshit tried hard to get rid of this curse but to no avail.



How King Parikshit died

King Parikshit tried his best to ensure that he did not die due to snake bite. He took all measures to build a house in a place where Parinda could not even kill. But the sage's curse could not be false. When King Parikshit secured himself from all four sides, one day a Brahmin came to meet him. As a gift, the Brahmin gave flowers to the king and the Kaal Serpent ‘Takshak’, biting Parikshit, was sitting in the shape of a small insect in the same flower. Takshak was the king of snakes. As soon as he got a chance, he took the form of a snake and bitten Raj Parikshit.
After the death of King Parikshit, King Janamejaya sat on the throne of Hastinapur. Janamejaya was the last king of the Pandava dynasty.


When Janamejaya came to know the reason for his father's death, he took a vow to destroy all snakes from the earth and to complete this vow, he organized the Sarpamedha Yagna. Due to the effect of this yajna, all the snakes of the universe were falling in the Havan Kund. But Takshak, the king of snakes, whose bite had killed Parikshit, clung to the chariot of the sun god to save himself and his fall into the havan kund meant the termination of the existence of the sun which could end the speed of creation. was.

How snake sacrifice Yagna ended: -


To protect Suryadev and the universe, all the gods started urging Janamejaya to stop this yagna but Janamejaya wanted to avenge the murder of his father in any form. To stop Janamejaya's yajna, Astika Muni had to intervene, whose father was a Brahmin and mother was a Nag Kanya. Janamejaya had to obey Astika Muni and end the Sarpamedha Yagna and free Takshak.