01Born lifeless
Ashvatthama’s Brahmashira, turned on the wombs of the Pandava women, struck Uttara’s child, and Krishna promised then that the boy would live. Months later, while the Pandavas were away fetching wealth for the Ashvamedha, Uttara gave birth to a son who did not breathe. Kunti, Draupadi and Subhadra wept and begged Krishna. He went into the birth chamber and swore by his own truth: if I have never told a lie, never turned from battle, if dharma and brahmins are dear to me, let this child live. The boy stirred. He was named Parikshit because he was born when the Kuru line had dwindled away.
02King after the Pandavas
When word came that Krishna had left the world, Yudhishthira crowned Parikshit at Hastinapura, gave Indraprastha to Krishna’s great-grandson Vajra, set Kripa over the boy as his teacher and asked Subhadra to watch over both. Then the Pandavas laid down their ornaments and walked away. Parikshit ruled well, the Adi Parva says, like his grandfathers, and married Madravati, who bore him Janamejaya.
03The serpent in the fruit
Out hunting, he lost a wounded deer and asked a sage in the forest, Shamika, which way it had gone. The sage was keeping a vow of silence and said nothing. The tired, angry king lifted a dead snake on his bow and hung it round the sage’s neck. Shamika’s son Shringi cursed him: within seven days Takshaka would bite him. Parikshit shut himself in a guarded tower. Takshaka met the healer Kashyapa on the road and paid him to turn back, then sent nagas disguised as ascetics with fruit for the king. In one fruit was a tiny insect; it became Takshaka, and the king died. In the Bhagavata Purana those seven days are spent hearing the Bhagavata from Shukadeva; that katha is not in the Mahabharata.