(The KSH in this name is pronounced like 'cti' in 'action'. The TH is pronounced like 'th' in 'with'. )
( One king among Paandavas'ancestors too was named Pareekshith. He was son of Anashva.)
Pareekshith was the posthumous son of Abhimanyu. He was born dead due to the stroke of Ashvaththaama's Brahamashira asthra to his mother Uththara's womb, but Krishna vivified him. He was so named because he was born with depleted life or born at the point of end of his lineage .He became king of the kuru empire at the age of 36 years at the time of the renunciation of the paandavas. He ruled for 60 years. He once went to a forest for hunting when he felt thirsty and searched for water. He saw a meditating sage named Shameeka, and asked him for water. As the sage in deep meditation didn't respond, the thirsty king grew angry with him. He hooked a dead serpent around the sage's neck with his bow and went off. Shringi, the sage's son returned home and saw the dead snake around his innocent father's neck. He learnt what had happened and grew so furious and cursed that the arrogant king would die of the bite of the serpent lord Thakshaka, within seven days. Shameeka came out of his trance and felt sad for what his son had done. He repremanded his son for his uncontrolled anger and soon sent his disciples to Preekshith to inform about his ill-fate. Pareekshith took great care to save himself from Thakshaka. He confined himself in a tall single-column building with day and night protection.
At the maturity time of the curse, Thakshaka was goaded by Shringi's curse and he was going to Pareekshit to bite him to death. Midway, he incidentally met a Braahmana named Kashyapa who told him the he was going to Pareekshith to save him from Thakshaka's bite. Thakshaka told him that it was impossible for any one to save the king from the deadly bite. But the braahmana maintained his confidence. Then Thakshaka disclosed his identity to Kashyapa and challenged him to prove his powers against his bite and bit a big tree there. The tree soon burnt into ashes. Kashyapa gathered the ash and enchanted it to turn it into the original tree. Thakshaka wondered but persuaded him to withdraw from his efforts avering that a braahmana's curse cannot go futile and no efforts against it will become succesful. He offered him a great lot of gold too as reward. Kashyapa too understood that the curse is irresistible and went back. A citizen of the nearby town was on the tree when it was burnt and was enlivened along with the tree. Thus the incident became public.
Thakshaka on his part went to see the well protected king for killing him. Some serpents aided him coming in the guise of braahmanas offering some fruits to the king as a benedict to him. As the dead-line is about to pass and the visitors were braahmanas, Pareekshith allowed them and accepted their fruits. When he took one of the fruits into his hands and was about to eat it, Thakshaka came out of the fruit in the form of a minute red insect. Instantly he turned into a gigantic and terrible snake and bit the king hard and vanished off. The people around the king were afraid at the ghastly incident and and ran away in terror. Pareekshith was burnt into ashes with his single-column structure.
Later, instigated by a sage Udanka, Pareekshith's son Janamejaya wanted to avenge his father's killing and undertook the serpent sacrifice to annihilate the race of serpents altogether but it was to be dropped unfinished in the middle, at the behest of Aastheeka. It was during this sacrifice that Janamejaya asked Vyaasa about the rift between paandavas and kouravas to answer which the sage told his disciple Vyshampaayana to relate the epic to the king.