Ekachakra and Bakāsura

Disguised as begging brāhmaṇas, the Pāṇḍavas settled in the quiet town of Ekachakra, in the house of a poor brāhmaṇa who sheltered them, going out each day for alms and sharing them with their mother. But one day loud weeping came from their host's inner rooms, and Kuntī went in to find the family in despair: the father unable to give up wife or daughter or baby son, the wife insisting she must go, the daughter bravely offering herself, even the baby lisping that he would kill the monster with a stick of firewood.

For the town was terrorized by a cannibal demon, Bakāsura, and by an old agreement each household in turn must send him a cartload of food, two buffaloes, and a human being, whom he ate along with the rest; and now it was this family's turn. And Kuntī, without hesitation, declared: do not weep; I have five sons; one of them shall carry the food to the demon and save your family. When Yudhishthira heard, he was alarmed, for it was on Bhīma's strength that all their hopes rested; why risk him? But Kuntī's answer stood on the highest ground.

We have lived in this good man's house and eaten his bread, she said; gratitude is the highest of virtues, and to repay kindness with kindness is a sacred duty; and I know Bhīma's strength; he who carried us out of the flames will crush this demon. And so Bhīma went, and calmly ate the demon's food before his eyes, and in the great combat that followed tore Bakāsura apart, and freed the town.

Mark Kuntī's reasoning, for it is the heart of the chapter. She did not weigh her own son's safety against a stranger's; she felt the host's suffering as her own, and held that a kindness received creates a debt that must be honestly repaid, whatever the cost. The suffering of the one who shelters us must be felt as our own; and true worship is not ceremony but exactly this, the active repaying of kindness with kindness, the treating of another's peril as a claim upon our own strength.