Legend of Sunahsepa is one of the few narratives of the Brahmanas which has come down in its entirety and in a compact form. The story goes that Harishchandra, a king of the race of the Iksvakus, had a hundred wives but not a single son. Once Narada told him to approach Legend of Sunahsepa and ask him for a son, and promise to sacrifice him to the Lord after he was born. Lord Varuna granted him his wish and a son was born to Harishchandra whom he named Rohitaswa (Rohita). When Varuna asked him for the sacrifice, Harishchandra cited a number of different reasons for which the child could not be immediately sacrificed .Among the reasons he gave were a sacrifice cannot be made before it is ten days old, or until it has teeth and so and. Varuna accepted all these reasons for while. In a similar manner Harischandra puts the god Varuna off until Rohita has attained the age of manhood.
Once Rohita has attained manhood, he at last he desires to sacrifice him, but Rohita escapes into the forest, where he wanders about for a year. As punishment, Varuna afflicts Harishchandra with the disease Dropsy. Rohita hears of it and desires to return, but Indra confronts him in the form of a Brahmin, extols the fortune of the wanderer and advises him to continue wandering on. He wanders about in the forest for five years. Again and again he wishes to return, and again and again Indra confronts him and urges him to further wanderings.
As he was wandering about in the forest the sixth year, he met a rishi who, tortured by hunger, was wandering about in the forest. The latter had three sons, Sunahpuccha, Sunahsepa, Sunolangula by name. Rohita offers him a hundred cows for one of his sons, in order to ransom himself through him. As the father does not wish to part with the eldest and the mother does not wish to part with the youngest son, he receives the middle one, Sunahsepa. With the latter, Rohita goes to his father. And as Varuna agrees that Sunahsepa shall be sacrificed to him, for "a Brahman is worth more than a warrior," said Varuna, he is to be offered in the place of the sacrificial animal at the sacrifice of the consecration of the king (Rajasuya sacrifice).
Everything is prepared for the sacrifice, but no one is found who will undertake the binding of the sacrificial victim. Then said the sage, `Give me a second hundred, and I will bind him.` And for a second hundred cows he binds his son Sunahsepa to the sacrificial stake. For a third hundred he offers to slay him. The further hundred cows are given to him, and with a sharpened knife, he steps towards his son. At this point Sunahsepa thought to himself that since they were slaughtering him as if he was not human being he would take refuge with the Gods.
He thus went on to praise in turn all the most prominent gods of the Vedic pantheon in a number of hymns which are found in the Rig Veda Samhita. But when, finally, he glorified Goddess Usha, the Goddess of Dawn, in three verses, one fetter after another fell from him, and the Dropsical stomach of Harischandra became smaller, and with the last verse he was free of his fetters and Harischandra was well. Thereupon the priests received him into the sacrificial gathering, and Sunahsepa saw (by intuition) a particular kind of Soma sacrifice. Visvamitra, however, the Rishi about whom there are so many legends, who occupied the position of Hotar at the sacrifice of Harischandra, adopted Sunahsepa as his son, and neglecting his own hundred sons, solemnly appointed him as his heir.
Thus discussed is the legend of Sunahsepa as found in the Brahmanas.
