गविजात

{ gavijāta }

Puranic Encyclopaedia

GAVIJĀTA   (ŚṚṄGĪ). The son of a sage named Nāgabhūṣaṇa, Gavijāta cursed that King Parīkṣit should die of snake-bite. The curse was made under the following circumstances. King Parīkṣit went hunting one day in the forest and he who had chased a deer in hot haste for some distance felt naturally very weak and tired, and requested a sage he saw there in the forest for some water. Immersed in meditation the sage did not hear the King, and mistaking him to be a haughty fellow, the King, with his stick, lifted a dead snake and placed it round the neck of the sage. Yet he did not stir. The King returned to his palace. Gavijāta, son of the sage and a devotee of Devī heard of the insult heaped on his father's head while he was merry-making in the forest with his companions. The companions derided him by saying that though his father was Nāgabhūṣana (having snakes as ornament) the nāga was I feless. Enraged at this and not waiting to study details about the incident he pronounced the following curse. “Whoever might be the person who threw a dead snake about my father's neck, he will be bitten to death by Takṣaka within seven days from today.” Only after the curse was pronounced did he understand that it was King Parīkṣit who had become the object of the curse. And, he despatched his disciple immediately to Parīkṣit to inform him about the curse. The King's reaction was, “when the time for death comes let me die.” [Devī Bhāgavata, Dvitīya Skandha] .

प्राचीन चरित्रकोश

गविजात n.  एक ब्रह्मर्षि (च्यवन तथा शृंगिन् देखिये) ।

A Sanskrit English Dictionary

गवि—जात  m.  m. ‘cow-born’, N. of a मुनि, [MBh. xiii, 2682 ff.]

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गवि जात