Parikshit

The Varaha Purana mentions an interesting story about Raja Parikshit (परिक्षित्). Parikshit is popularly regarded as the posthumous son of Abhimanyu of the Kuru clan who inherited the throne of Hastinapur from Yudhisthira. At the end of the Mahabharata war, Aswathama, who was the son of Dronacharya and himself born from the blessings of Rudra, to avenge the killing of his relatives by the Pandava-s decided to wreck havoc on the next generation of the Pandava warriors. He entered into their camp at night slaughtering all the sleeping progeny of Pandavas and finally in anger fired his Brahmastra at the womb of Uttara, who was carrying Parikshit. Scared of the weapon’s infamous power of destruction, Uttara prayed to Sri Krishna and the Lord entered into her womb and stopped that weapon from causing any harm to the unborn child. Parikshit of course experienced the effect of that incident, though he could not comprehend what was happening. All his life he remembered that he had felt himself being protected and secured by someone or something vast and infinitely powerful, but he had not idea who or what it was. In life, therefore, whenever he would meet anyone new he would try and test them and see if that individual has the same energy as the One whose protection he had felt while in the womb. This behaviour earned him the name Parikshit, one who tests.