Arjuna Destroys the Paulomas and Kālakeyas of Hiraṇyapura

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This story is Arjuna's own account, told to his brothers on Mount Gandhamādana after five years in Indra's heaven. Indra had asked him to destroy the Nivātakavacas, a host of Dānavas who had won a boon from Brahmā and held a city under the sea. Arjuna set out with Mātali as his charioteer. They reached the ocean, with its rolling waves, ships carrying jewels, sea beasts like drowned rocks, and shells glimmering like stars hidden behind thin cloud. Not far from the shore stood the Dānava city. Mātali drove the chariot beneath the earth and into it, and the rumble of the wheels frightened the people within. The Dānavas, thinking Indra himself had come, took up their weapons, closed the gates and armed the walls. Arjuna blew his conch Devadatta, and the sound filled the sky. The Nivātakavacas came out in thousands, armoured, with spears, maces, hatchets and swords.

The fight was long. The Dānavas at first fought unseen, using illusion, and Arjuna answered with visible weapons from the Gāṇḍīva, striking them where they stood. They then rained boulders from the sky and others burrowed into the earth to seize the horses' legs and the wheels. Buried under falling rocks, Arjuna felt as though trapped in a mountain cave. Mātali told him not to fear and to use the thunderbolt weapon. Arjuna loosed thunderbolt arrows and the demons fell like cliffs.

Arjuna entered the city, which was grander than Indra's own. Mātali explained that it had been Indra's city, taken by the Nivātakavacas through austerity, and that Brahmā had told Indra he would destroy them in another body. That body was Arjuna. In the same passage of his story Arjuna also tells of the floating city Hiraṇyapura and of the Paulomas and Kālakeyas who lived in it, and how he destroyed them; that part I could not open and is told only in outline here.

When the work was done Arjuna returned to heaven. Indra praised him, said no mortal could now defeat him, and gave him a golden garland, the conch Devadatta, and celestial armour. After five years the gods told him it was time to return, since his brothers were thinking of him. He came back to the foot of Gandhamādana. Yudhiṣṭhira embraced him and, in his joy, felt as if the earth were already won. He asked to see the weapons used against the Nivātakavacas, and Arjuna promised to show them in the morning.

Told by Arjuna → Yudhiṣṭhira; framed by Vaiśampāyana

Who: Arjuna, Mātali, Nivātakavacas, Paulomas, Kālakeyas, Indra

Bound to

Arjuna and the armoured Nivatakavachas origin

Five years in Indra's heaven origin

Agastya Humbles the Vindhya and Drinks the Ocean mirror

Places: Ocean, Hiraṇyapura, Gandhamādana

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section CLXVIII (Arjuna reaches the ocean and the Dānava city)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section CLXXI (battle with the Nivātakavacas)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Vana Parva, Section CLXXIII (Arjuna's return)

See it on the tree · All stories

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