What is the authenticity of the story that Parikshit M stayed in a tower to protect himself?

What is authenticity of story like Parikshit maharaj built a one pillared tower where he took shelter of, to get away from takshak’s bite..a brahmana brings a fruit and in it takshak stays…etc etc.,

This story questions surrendered nature of Parikshit maharaj. I came across this story in my child hood Sanskrit text books…probably chapter name “sarpa yag”.

To hear the answer

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Kiran Prabhu. What is the authenticity of story like Parashit Maharaj built a one-pillar tower where he took shelter to get away from Takshak’s bite, a Brahmana brings a fruit and here Takshak stays, etc., etc. This story, question surrendered nature of Parashit Maharaj.
I came across this story in my childhood Sanskrit textbooks, probably chapter named Sarpayee. Actually, these stories are not necessarily authentic. Similar version comes in the Mahabharata.
And basically, the scriptures talk about different yugas and even different kalpas. So, the Mahabharata is described which are not from the kalpa from above, which Bhagavatam is describing about. So, this story doesn’t necessarily question the surrendered nature of Parashit Maharaj.
It essentially is a different approach to facing death. Actually speaking, when death comes, one approach is that one just renounces everything, goes and focuses on remembering Krishna and gives up everything else. That is the Bhagavatam approach.
That is the pure devotional approach. But the Mahabharata is not explicitly talking about pure devotional service. It is primarily focusing on Karmakand because it caters to the large mass of people who are interested in material religiosity, religiosity for material benefits.
And with that overall theme, there is the devotional understanding of the Mahabharata also, but that we can get only from the devotees. So, if we look at the full story, for a Kshatriya, if he is unfairly, unnecessarily sentenced to death, it is perfectly okay for him to try to protect himself. And still, if we look at the story properly in the Mahabharata, eventually what happens, Parashit Maharaj, when that fruit comes, when the fruit is given to him and inside the fruit, Takshaka is about to bite, at that time Parashit Maharaj just holds his hand and accepts the will of destiny.
So, at the Karmakand level of religion, to try to protect one’s life is natural. And the Bhagavatam also talks about something similar when Vasudeva tries to protect the life of Devaki. Of course, they are devotees and Krishna is going to be born, so the context is different, but protecting one’s life and arranging for that is not necessarily wrong.
Now, a king can think that I have to represent dharma in the world and I have my service to do. And for doing this service, whatever is required, let me do that. So, as devotees, if some devotee gets cancer, that devotee may just accept, okay, this is Krishna’s will, let me just fast to death or let me accept it.
Some other devotee may say, let me go and take treatment, because there’s so much service for me to do in this world. So, a devotee may go through a rigorous, painful treatment and recover so that the devotee can continue serving Krishna. And that is also glorious.
Now, we have ISKCON leaders who are very close to death and they are fighting to continue on the service, that is also glorious. There are other devotees who, when they found that their body was weakening, they just decided, let me fast to death. And that is also fine.
So, both approaches are valid. It is not that necessarily one approach of trying to protect and fight back is not a devotional approach. It can also be a devotional approach, but with a different modality of implementation.
And these differences are primarily because the scriptures are narrating past times as they happened in different millennia, in different basically, yugas or kalpas, depending on the