So the god waited till the boy had received his armor, and then he demanded the sacrifice.

Thereupon, the king called his son, and said unto him: 'I will sacrifice thee to the god who gave thee to me.' But the son said, 'No, no,' and took his bow and fled into the desert.

Then Varuna caused the king to be afflicted with dropsy.[68] When Rohita heard of this he was about to return, but Indra, disguised as a priest, met him, and said: 'Wander on, for the foot of a wanderer is like a flower; his spirit grows, and reaps fruit, and all his sins are forgiven in the fatigue of wandering.'[69] So Rohita, thinking that a priest had commanded him, wandered; and every year, as he would return, Indra met him, and told him still to wander.

On one of these occasions Indra inspires him to continue on his journey by telling him that the _krita_ was now auspicious; using the names of dice afterwards applied to the four ages.[70] Finally, after six years, Rohita resolved to purchase a substitute for sacrifice.

He meets a starving seer, and offers to buy one of his sons (to serve as sacrifice), the price to be one hundred cows.