Devalok
From the epics · 2 tellings · Pan-India

Parashurama and the thousand-armed king

The thousand-armed king Kartavirya Arjuna takes Jamadagni's cow; Parashurama cuts off his arms and kills him; the king's sons kill Jamadagni in his hermitage; Parashurama clears the earth of its warrior kings again and again, fills lakes with their blood at Samantapanchaka, gives the earth away and goes to Mount Mahendra.

Who is in it

Places: Samantapanchaka, Mount Mahendra · Texts: Mahabharata, Bhagavata Purana

The story, beat by beat

  1. Kartavirya Arjuna, king of Mahishmati, comes to the hermitage and takes the sage's cow and calf by force.
  2. Parashurama goes after him and cuts off his thousand arms with arrows and the axe.
  3. The king's sons come while Parashurama is away and kill Jamadagni.
  4. Parashurama burns his father and vows to end the warrior caste; he does it again and again.
  5. At Samantapanchaka he makes lakes of blood and offers them to his ancestors.
  6. He gives the earth to Kashyapa and retires to Mount Mahendra, where he still lives.

vengeance kingship cow renunciation

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Mahabharata, Vana Parva 116 to 117

Pan-India Vaishnava

While the sons are out, Arjuna son of Kritavirya, the thousand-armed king, comes to the hermitage and is received by Renuka, and repays her by carrying off the calf of the homa cow and breaking the trees. Rama hears, follows, and in battle cuts off the thousand arms with arrows, and the king dies. His kinsmen come to the hermitage when Rama is away and shoot the old sage, who does not fight, crying Rama, Rama. Rama comes home and grieves: the blame is mine, father, that you were shot like a deer. He burns his father and vows to kill the whole warrior race. He kills the king's sons, three times he kills their followers, and seven times he clears the earth. At Samantapanchaka there are five lakes of blood. He gives the earth to the priests at a sacrifice and a golden altar to Kashyapa, and goes to Mahendra, where Yudhishthira meets him.

Mahabharata, Vana Parva 116 to 117, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883 to 1896)

Primary text (translation)

Bhagavata Purana 9.15 to 9.16

Pan-India Vaishnava

Jamadagni feeds the king and his whole army from his wish-granting cow, and the king wants her and takes her. Parashurama goes to Mahishmati, cuts off the thousand arms and the head, and brings the cow home; his father tells him that killing a king is worse than killing a brahmin and sends him on a year's pilgrimage. Later the king's sons find Jamadagni at the fire, cut off his head and take it, while Renuka beats her breast and calls Rama. Parashurama makes a mountain of heads in Mahishmati and a river of blood, and rids the earth of kings twenty-one times; at Samantapanchaka there are nine lakes. He sets his father's head back on the body, sacrifices, and Jamadagni lives and becomes one of the seven stars of the Great Bear.

Bhagavata Purana 9.15 to 9.16 (Vedabase)

Sources: Mahabharata, Vana Parva 116 to 117, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883 to 1896); Bhagavata Purana 9.15 to 9.16 (Vedabase)

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