Paraśurāma Clears the Earth of Kṣatriyas

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The sage Akṛtavraṇa tells Yudhiṣṭhira how the war began. Jamadagni of Bhṛgu's line mastered the Vedas and married Reṇukā, daughter of King Prasenajit. They had five sons, the youngest Rāma, who surpassed the others in virtue. One day Reṇukā, bathing in the river, saw King Citraratha of Mārtikāvata playing in the water with his wives and was seized by desire. Jamadagni saw at once that her purity had slipped and rebuked her sharply. Then he ordered his sons, one by one, to kill their mother. Stunned, the four elder sons could not move or speak, and he cursed them to lose their wits. Rāma, the last, took an axe and cut off her head.

Jamadagni's anger passed and he offered Rāma any boon. Rāma asked that his mother live, that he be free of the memory and sin of the act, that his brothers be restored, that he be unmatched in battle, and that he live long. All were granted. Some time later Arjuna Kārtavīrya, the thousand-armed king, came to the hermitage when the sons were away. Reṇukā welcomed him, but he proudly took the sacrificial cow and tore down the trees. When Rāma returned and heard the story, he followed the king and cut off his thousand arms with arrows.

Kārtavīrya's sons took revenge. While Rāma was in the forest they attacked the hermitage, and the old Jamadagni, doing penance and unwilling to fight, was killed with hundreds of arrows while calling out his son's name. Rāma came back carrying firewood and found his father dead. He grieved bitterly: this was a gentle man who harmed no creature, killed by men who had no quarrel with him. Rāma blamed himself for not being there. He performed the funeral rites and swore to destroy the whole warrior class. Taking up his weapon, he first killed the sons of Kārtavīrya, then their Kṣatriya followers, and went on to strike down the warrior clans across the earth, a feat the text counts as more than once; later tradition says twenty-one times. At Samantapañcaka he made five lakes of blood and offered water to the Bhṛgus, his ancestors. The sage Ṛcīka appeared before him there and gave counsel.

Rāma then performed a great sacrifice and gave the earth to the priests. He built a golden altar ten vyāmas wide and nine high and presented it to Kaśyapa, whose Brahmins cut it into shares and became known as the Khaṇḍavāyanas. Having given the earth away, he went to Mount Mahendra to practise penance. On the fourteenth lunar day he appeared before Yudhiṣṭhira, his brothers and the Brahmins, who worshipped him. Yudhiṣṭhira gave rich gifts to Brahmins, and Rāma spent the night on Mahendra and set off for the south.

Told by Akṛtavraṇa → Yudhiṣṭhira

Who: Paraśurāma, Jamadagni, Reṇukā, Kārtavīrya Arjuna, Akṛtavraṇa, Kaśyapa, Ṛcīka

Bound to

Kārtavīrya / Jāmadagnya origin

Parashurama meets Rama and trains Bhishma, Drona and Karna mirror

Karna's curses: the beetle, the cow, and the sinking wheel origin

Places: Samantapañcaka, Mahendra mountain, Mārtikāvata

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section CXVI (Reṇukā, Kārtavīrya and Jamadagni's death)
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (ibiblio sripedia mirror) Vana Parva, Section CXVII (Rāma's vengeance)

See it on the tree · All stories

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