(One day) when the king, whom the greatly powerful Vishvamitra desired to make his spiritual disciple, was proceeding through the forest afflicted with hunger and thirst he met with that best of Rishis, the high-souled son of Vasishtha, the illustrious perpetuator of Vasishtha's race, the eldest of the one hundred sons of the illustrious Rishi Vasishtha, known by the name of Shakti, coming along the same path from an opposite direction.