Gandharva’s unsatiable hunger

Once upon a time, Agastya was going in a dense forest, when he came upon some Gandharvas singing and dancing there. While the sage was observing and enjoying this, one of the Gandharvas approached a dead body lying near by a lake and started eating it with ravenous hunger. After eating the same, the Gandharva got up and prostrated to the sage. The sage asked the gandharva reason for the strange behavior. The gandharva explained that he was the king of Vidarbha in his previous birth and was named as Swetha. After ruling the kingdom for thousands of years and after doing great penance towards the end in his Vanaprastha years, he went to heaven. But he was always hungry and could not get satiated. He went to Lord Brahma to find out the reason for this constant, ravenous hunger and was told by Lord Brahma that when he was a king, he did not give any charity to any one and hence was afflicted with this unending hunger. Lord Brahma asked him to go back to the place where he did his tapas and eat the dead body lying there, at which time he will be blessed with the appearance of sage Agastya. Lord Brahma gave a divine bracelet to the gandharva and asked him to present the same to sage Agastya and assured him that he will be freed from the curse of the unending hunger. So saying, the gandharva asked sage Agastya to kindly accept the bracelet and release him from the past sins. By Agastya’s blessings, the gandharva was freed from the unending hunger and went back to heaven.