Babruvahana kills his father; Ulupi's jewel

Classical

Arjuna was killed by his own son, as foretold by Ganga, to atone for Bhishma.

Arjuna is following the sacrificial horse that Yudhishthira has set loose for the great horse sacrifice. Wherever it goes, kings must either submit or fight. The horse wanders into the country of Manipura, and there Arjuna meets his own son.

Babhruvahana, the king of Manipura, hears that his father has come into his land. He goes out humbly to meet him, with Brahmanas and gifts of treasure. It is the polite thing to do, but Arjuna is angry about it. He is the guardian of the horse, and a son who greets him with offerings, instead of a fight, is behaving, in Arjuna's words, "like a woman." That, he says, is unworthy of a warrior.

It is at this moment that Ulupi, the daughter of the snake-king, rises up out of the earth. She finds the boy downcast. She tells him she is his mother and urges him to fight his father. It will bring him great merit, she says, and Arjuna himself will be pleased.

The prince is convinced. He puts on golden armour, climbs into a chariot with a lion on its banner, and rides out against Arjuna. First he has the sacrificial horse seized by men who know horses, and Arjuna is pleased to see it.

The fight is serious. Arjuna is on foot and the prince wounds him with many arrows, then pierces him through the shoulder with a straight shaft. Arjuna sits down and rests. He seems lifeless for a while, then comes to and praises his son. He then shoots at the prince, but Babhruvahana cuts down the arrows. Arjuna cuts down the prince's banner and kills his horses.

Babhruvahana jumps down and fights on foot. This time, with a winged arrow that reaches a vital spot, he pierces his father in the chest. Arjuna falls, unconscious. When the prince sees his father go down, he too loses consciousness. The text names two causes: his weariness after the fight, and his grief at the sight.

Chitrangada, Babhruvahana's mother and Arjuna's wife, hears what has happened. Believing her husband dead and her son fallen, she goes to the field in distress and sees her husband there.

That is where the page I read ends. It does not describe Arjuna being killed outright, and it says nothing about a jewel. Popular tellings add that Arjuna dies and that Ulupi brings him back with a magical jewel. I could not confirm that from the text I read, so I tell it only as the popular version.

The scene matters in the epic for the way it sets father against son and puts the instigation in the hands of a woman who loves them both. Arjuna, who spent the war killing relatives, is struck down at last by his own child, and the child is crushed by it. It also echoes an old theme of the Mahabharata: dharma sometimes demands that a person fight someone he would never choose to fight, and the cost lands on the whole family.

Who: Arjuna, Babruvahana, Ulupi, Chitrangada

Bound to

Who revives Arjuna? Assamese and Manipuri versions same-story-other-version

Ulupi drags Arjuna underwater curse→payoff

Chitrangada and the condition of the son causes

Places: Manipur (disputed)

Where this comes from

vulgate (Ganguli) · Ganguli translation of the Mahabharata (read via MahabharataOnline) Ganguli, Ashvamedhika Parva, Babhruvahana episode (Section number not shown on the page read.)
commentary · Wikipedia: Ulupi Ashvamedhika
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Ashvamedhika Parva, Section LXXIX (as labelled on the page): Babhruvahana and Arjuna

See it on the tree · All stories

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