The Thousand-Armed King

There was a king of the Haihayas called Arjuna, son of Kritavirya, and he had a thousand arms. He had won them by worship. With them he had conquered the whole earth, and there was no one he feared.

One day he came, with his followers, to the hermitage of the sage Jamadagni. The sage's sons were out in the forest. Renuka received the king, as a sage's wife receives any guest, with water and food and respect.

He repaid her by taking what he wanted. He had his men seize the calf of the sage's sacred cow, the cow whose milk was used for the fire offering, while the cow cried out for it. And as he went, his men broke down the trees around the hermitage.

When Rama came home, his father told him what had happened. Rama said nothing. He saw the cow crying, and he took his bow and went after the king.

He caught him, and they fought. Rama cut off the king's thousand arms, one after another, with his arrows, until the king fell and died.

The king's kinsmen were furious. They waited until Rama was away from the hermitage, and then they came there. Jamadagni was sitting alone, an old man, at his prayers. He did not fight them. They shot him with arrows, as hunters shoot a deer, and he died calling out his son's name.

"Rama," he cried. "Rama."

When Rama came back with fuel for the fire, he found his father dead.

"Father," he said, "the blame is mine. Because of me you were shot like a deer in the forest. You were old. You were at your prayers. You never hurt any living thing. How could fate let you die like this? How will they face their friends and say they killed a man who could not fight?"

He burned his father's body on the pyre. And standing by it, he made a vow.

"I will kill them all," he said. "Every warrior on the earth."

He went alone, with his axe, and he killed the sons of the king. Three times he killed all their followers. Then seven times over he cleared the whole earth of its warrior kings.

At a place called Samantapanchaka, which is Kurukshetra, he made five lakes of their blood. There he offered the blood to his ancestors, the sons of Bhrigu, and his grandfather Richika appeared to him and gave him counsel.

Rama held a great sacrifice. He gave the whole earth to the priests who served at it. He gave a golden altar to the sage Kashyapa. Then he laid down his weapons, went to the mountain called Mahendra, and sat down there to do penance.

He is there still, the Mahabharata says. Long afterwards, when the Pandava brothers were wandering in exile, they came to Mahendra, and on the fourteenth day of the moon he showed himself to them.

In the Bhagavata Purana, Jamadagni's cow is no ordinary cow. She is Kamadhenu, the wish-granting cow, who gives whatever is asked of her.

The thousand-armed king comes to the hermitage with his whole army, and the sage, with the help of the cow, gives a feast to them all. The king sees what the cow can do, and wants her. He takes her and her calf, and drives them home to his city, Mahishmati, on the river Narmada.

Parashurama goes to Mahishmati after them. He cuts off all the king's thousand arms and his head, and brings the cow home.

His father is not pleased. "A king is a god on earth," Jamadagni tells him. "To kill a king is worse than to kill a brahmin." And he sends his son away for a year, to go round the holy places and wash himself of the deed.

The king's sons do not forget. One day, when Parashurama is away in the forest with his brothers, they come to the hermitage and find Jamadagni at his fire. Renuka begs them for his life. They cut off his head and carry it away. She beats her breast and cries out, "Rama, my son, Rama!" And far away, Parashurama hears her.

He comes back and finds his father without his head. He goes to Mahishmati and makes a mountain of the heads of the king's sons. Then he rids the earth of its kings twenty-one times, and at Samantapanchaka he fills nine lakes with their blood.

At the end he sets his father's head back on his body, and makes offerings, and Jamadagni lives again, and goes up into the sky to be one of the seven stars of the Great Bear.