Okay, here’s the answer to the question I asked in this entry. Recall the hint I had posted there:

The grateful snake asked him piteously, O King please take me ten steps away from this fire and then put me on the ground. Accordingly, Nala began to count each step. At the tenth step, the snake bit him.

The moment Nala says “ten,” the snake bites him. The Sanskrit word for “ten” is dasha. Dasha also means “bite.”