॥ ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय ॥
Skandha IX : Chapter 16 PARASURAMA'S EXTIRPATION OF KSHATRIYAS
Renuka's Mishap (1-8)
Sage Shuka narrated:
1. Oh King! Respecting fully the father's command, Rama spent one year in pilgrimage and returned to the Ashrama.
2. One of those days when Renuka had gone to the Ganga, she happened to see there the Gandharva Chitraratha, decorated with a garland of lotuses, sporting with Apsara women.
3. She had gone to the river to fetch water; but seeing Chitraratha sporting, she was a bit attracted to him, and forgot that it was time for the Rishi's Homa (fire sacrifice).
4. When she became conscious of her delay, she got frightened by the prospect of incurring the wrath of her husband. She returned post-haste with the water, and placing it before her husband, stood there with palms joined in a worshipful pose.
5. The Muni divined her mental adultery, and ordered in great_anger: "Oh sons! Kill this sinful woman." But none of the sons ventured to obey him.
6. When, however, Rama was ordered to do so, knowing as he did the great powers acquired by his father through austerity and concentration, he killed the mother along with her other disobedient sons.
7. When the highly pleased Jamadagni, the son of Satyavati, asked him to choose any boon, he chose that those dead persons should come back to life and that they should have no memory of what took place.
8. Immediately they all got up in full health like a person awakening from sleep. Rama did this heinous act of killing his own near and dear ones, only because he was sure of his father's great powers of Tapas, by which he could get them revived.
Avenging Jamadagni's Murder (9-27)
9. Now the sons of Arjuna could never have any peace of mind, thinking over the slaughter of their father and their defeat at the hands of Rama.
10. Once when Rama with his brothers had gone to the forest, the sons of Arjuna went there, deeming it an opportune moment to wreak vengeance.
11. Finding Jamadagni sitting in his sacrificial chamber, with his mind concentrated on the Lord, those evil ones who murdered him.
12. In spite of the very earnest and pitiable appeals of Renuka, the mother of Rama, those extremely cruel-hearted Kshatriya warriors decapitated Jamadagni and carried away the head with them.
13. Overcome with grief, the virtuous lady Renuka now began to beat her breast in grief and cry aloud, "Oh, Rama! Oh, Rama! Dear one, come quickly!"
14. Rama, who was then at some distance from the Ashrama, heard these distressing cries, and hastened back to see his father lying murdered.
15. He was stunned with agonising grief and blinding anger at the sight, and cried aloud, "Oh father! Oh holy one! Oh righteous one! How is it that you have gone to your heavenly abode, leaving us all here!"
16. After bemoaning his father's death in this way, he entrusted the body to his brothers and started, battle-axe in hand, on a campaign of extirpation of the tribe of Kshatriyas.
17. Oh King! He first went to Mahishmati, a city accursed due to the murder of a holy man, and he made in the middle of the city a hillock of the heads of the Kshatriyas he killed.
18-19. Making his father's murder the occasion, he let flow there a stream of blood through the slaughter of those evil Kshatriyas, to stand as a warning to those indulging in the persecution of holy ones. He launched twenty-one such campaigns, almost effacing the whole tribe of Kshatriyas from the earth, and created five pools of blood at the place called Samanta-panchaka.
20.Then, recovering his father's head, he united it with his trunk at a Yajna, and worshipped the Supreme Being, the embodiment of all Divinities, through the performance of several Yajnas.
21. He gifted the country to the east to the Hota, the sacrificing priest; that to the south, to the priest; that to the south, to the priest Brahmā; that to the west, to the priest Adhvaryu; and that to the north, to Udgātā.
22. The countries between, he gave to the other sacrificial priests; and the middle region to Kashyapa Prajapati. He gave Aryavarta to the priest Upadrashta, and whatever remained, to the members of the sacrificial assembly.
23. Then he took the final ceremonial bath (Avabhrithasnana) in the Saraswati, the holy river. Liberated from all sins, he now shone like the sun freed from the clouds.
24. And Jamadagni, adored by Rama, was restored to life with a body characterised by a continuity of consciousness from the earlier body and became the seventh among the Saptarshis.
25. The lotus-eyed Rama, the worshipful son of Jamadagni, will be the propagator of the Veda in the next Manvantara.
26. Extolled by Siddhas, Charanas and Gandharwas, he lives even today in the Mahendra mountain as a peaceful contemplative, having given up his fighting propensities.
27. In this way Bhagavan Sri Hari, the Supreme Lord and the indweller of all, incarnated Himself in the line of the Bhrigus and several times destroyed the rulers who had become a burden to the earth.
The Line of Kausikas (28-37)
28. Gadhi had a son Viswamitra, who was born with the splendour of a well-lit fire. By Tapas he got himself elevated from the state of a Kshatriya to that of a Brahmana.
29. Viswamitra had a hundred and one sons. The middle one among them was named Madhuchchandas. So all the brothers were known collectively by the common name of Madhuchchandas.
30. But Viswamitra adopted Sunasshepa who was of Bhrigu's line and a son of Ajigarta, whose life had been saved by the Devas. Viswamitra commanded his sons to recognise him as the eldest among them.
31. Sunasshepa, being the middle son of his parents, was sold by them to Harischandra's son as a sacrificial victim for Harischandra's Yajna. But he was saved by his prayers to Devas and Prajapatis as directed by Viswamitra.
32. This Sunasshepa, who was saved from immolation in the Yajna by the Devas, though belonging by birth to the line of Bhrigu, became a famous ascetic among the descendants of Gadhi because of his being adopted by Viswamitra (the son of Gadhi). He came to be well known under the name of Devarata.
33. Of Viswamitra's own sons, the first fifty Madhuchchandas did not look upon this adoption as a commendable act. Viswamitra became angry at this and cursed them that they would become heinous Mlechchas (barbarians outside the Vedic pale).
34. At this, the middle one among the Madhuchchandas, along with the remaining fifty of his brothers, said: "We shall obey whatever you order." Thus agreeing to obey him, these fifty brothers accepted Sunasshepa, who was a knower of Mantras, as their eldest.
35. Thereupon Viswamitra said to his sons: "Those of you who have obeyed me and made me a father of virtuous children, will yourself become blessed with noble sons.
36. Oh members of Kusika's line! This Devavrata (alias Sunasshepa) is one of your line. Therefore obey him!" He had also other sons like Ashtaka, Harita, Jaya and Kratuman.
37. Thus the family of Kusikas came to have many lines sprung from the different sons of Viswamitra (Kaushika Gotra). By giving seniority to Devarata, this line has got a distinct Pravara.
