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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Ādi
Takshaka's son Aśvasena escapes the Khāṇḍava fire
Classical
When Agni burned the Khāṇḍava forest, Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna stood guard to let no creature escape, while Indra poured down rain to put the fire out. Arjuna covered the sky with his arrows, so that the rain dried up before it reached the flames. The forest became a cage of smoke, fire and arrows. Takṣaka, chief of the Nāgas, was away at Kurukṣetra that day. But his son Aśvasena was in the forest. He tried to escape, but he was shut in by Arjuna's arrows. His mother, a snake, decided to save him by swallowing him. She swallowed his head first, then began swallowing his tail, and tried to rise out of the earth and escape with him inside her.
Arjuna saw her rising and cut off her head with a sharp arrow. Indra, who wanted to protect his friend Takṣaka's son, then raised a violent wind. Arjuna was stunned for a moment, and in that moment Aśvasena slipped out and fled. When Arjuna realised how he had been tricked, he was furious. He cut in two, three or more pieces every creature that tried to escape through the sky. Arjuna, Agni and Kṛṣṇa all cursed the escaped snake: "Never shalt thou be famous." Arjuna was so angry that he went for Indra himself, covering the sky with a cloud of arrows. Indra threw his own weapons at him. The winds roared, the oceans stirred, and clouds full of lightning gathered.
Arjuna used the Vāyavya weapon and dried up Indra's clouds, and the sky cleared. Then Agni, glad that none could stop him, blazed up, and the birds and snakes that attacked Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna were destroyed. The escape is remembered because of what it sets up. Takṣaka survived, with a deep grudge against Arjuna's family. In the later story of Parīkṣit (told in the Adi Parva), it is Takṣaka who kills Arjuna's grandson, and Parīkṣit's son Janamejaya who holds the snake sacrifice in revenge. The single snake that slipped out of a burning forest is the first thread in a chain that ends with the snake sacrifice and, in a sense, the retelling of the Mahābhārata itself.
The burning of Khāṇḍava is the first great exploit of Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa together, and it has a victim's side that the epic does not hide. Most of the forest's creatures die, and the survivors have reason to hate. Aśvasena and Maya are the two who live, one by Indra's help and the other by Arjuna's mercy, and they have very different outcomes. Maya becomes a friend and builds the Pāṇḍavas a hall; Aśvasena lives for revenge. In the Karṇa Parva he reappears as a snake who wants to be shot by Karṇa as an arrow to kill Arjuna, and Karṇa, who refuses to shoot the same arrow twice, fails him. The curse 'never shalt thou be famous' is said by Arjuna, Agni and Kṛṣṇa together.
Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya
Who: Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa, Agni, Indra, Aśvasena, Aśvasena's mother, Takṣaka
Bound to
Khāṇḍava-daha origin
Parikshit's curse: the dead snake and Takshaka origin
Uttanka urges the snake sacrifice origin
Gandiva: from Brahma to the sea origin
Places: Khāṇḍava forest, Kurukṣetra
Where this comes from
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (Roy edition, archive.org full text) Adi Parva, Section CCXXIX (Indra's rain; Aśvasena's escape)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CCXXXV (Mandapāla and the Śārṅgaka birds, same fire)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Adi Parva, Section CCXXXVI (Agni sated; Indra's boons)