Parashurama

Kartavirya Arjuna and the wish-giving cow

Arjuna (Kartavirya, Sahasrarjuna), king of the Haihayas, had won a thousand arms and great strength by serving Dattatreya (Bhagavata 9.15.17-19). Once, out hunting, he came to Jamadagni’s hermitage. Through his wish-giving cow the sage entertained the king, his ministers and his whole army (9.15.23-24).

Seeing the sage’s plenty, the king grew greedy; he paid no regard to the welcome and had his men take the lowing cow and her calf to Mahishmati (9.15.25-26). When Parashurama came back and heard this, he was enraged, took his axe and bow, and in battle cut off Sahasrarjuna’s arms and slew him (9.15.27 onwards).

Jamadagni’s murder and the twenty-one times

The Bhagavata (9.16.1-8) goes on to tell how, at his father’s command, Parashurama killed his mother Renuka and his brothers, and then asked his pleased father for the boon of their life again; they rose up as if from sleep. Later, while Parashurama and his brothers were away in the forest, Sahasrarjuna’s sons took revenge: they killed Jamadagni as he sat in meditation in the hermitage and carried off his head (9.16.9-13).

Taking his father’s murder as the cause, Parashurama rid the earth of kshatriyas twenty-one times and made pools of blood at Samantapanchaka (Kurukshetra) (9.16.19). Then he joined his father’s head to the body, performed a yajna, and as the fee gave the quarters of the earth to the priests and the middle land to the rishi Kashyapa (9.16.20-22). Jamadagni became the seventh star of the Saptarishi (9.16.24).

The meeting with Rama, and today

According to the Bhagavata (9.10.7), on the way back to Ayodhya after his marriage to Sita, Shri Rama humbled the pride of Parashurama, who had destroyed the kshatriyas twenty-one times. The Bhagavata (9.16.25-26) says Parashurama will be one of the seven rishis in a coming manvantara, and that he still lives on Mount Mahendra, his rod of punishment laid down, at peace; this is why tradition counts him among the chiranjivis (the long-lived ones).

Parashurama Jayanti is kept on Vaishakha Shukla Tritiya. In 2027 Drik Panchang gives it on 8 May, because the Tritiya prevails at pradosh that evening; Akshaya Tritiya is the next day, 9 May. In the traditions of Kerala and the Konkan, Parashurama is said to have thrown his axe into the sea and so won this land back from the sea.

Where the sources differ

• The story of his mother’s death: it is in the Bhagavata (9.16) and in the Mahabharata (quoted by Wilson in his note on Vishnu Purana 4.7); the Vishnu Purana’s own text does not tell Parashurama’s story at length.
• Why twenty-one times: in the commentary on the Bhagavata, Shridhara Svami (according to Tagare’s note) gives the tradition that Renuka beat her breast twenty-one times, hence the twenty-one.

Frequently asked questions