Parashurama

The Brahmin who took up the axe

Parashurama was the youngest son of the sage Jamadagni and his wife Renuka, of the line of Bhrigu, a Brahmin by birth with a warrior's temper. The sages who visit the Pandavas in the forest tell his early story: after the sons of King Kartavirya killed his father, he took up his axe and cleared the earth of kshatriya kings twenty-one times, filling five lakes with blood at Samantapanchaka. At last he gave the conquered earth to the Brahmins and withdrew to Mount Mahendra to do penance. The Puranas later build a wider cycle around him as an avatar of Vishnu.

Teacher of Bhishma and Drona

Though he had no love for kings, Parashurama taught one. Ganga brought her son Devavrata, the future Bhishma, to him, and he gave the prince the whole science of the bow and the celestial weapons.

Drona came to Mahendra later, poor and hungry, having heard that Parashurama was giving away all his possessions before retiring to penance. By the time Drona arrived the gold, cattle and land were gone. Parashurama had only his weapons and the knowledge of their use left, and he gave them to Drona entire. That gift made Drona the master of arms at Hastinapura.

The duel with Bhishma over Amba

Amba, the Kashi princess whom Bhishma had carried off and whom Shalva then refused, came to Parashurama through her grandfather Hotravahana and his friend Akritavrana. He had vowed to protect anyone who came to him in fear, so he summoned Bhishma to Kurukshetra and ordered him to take her back. Bhishma refused, citing his vow of celibacy, and teacher and pupil fought for twenty-three days with celestial weapons.

Neither could win. When Bhishma prepared the Praswapa weapon, Narada and voices from the sky stopped him, and Parashurama's own ancestors made him lay down his arms. He told Amba that he had done what he could and returned to his mountain.

The curse on Karna

Karna, who could not be taught as a charioteer's son, went to Mahendra disguised as a Brahmin and learned the great weapons from him. One day Parashurama slept with his head on Karna's thigh, and a worm bored into the thigh. Karna bore the pain without moving so as not to wake him. When Parashurama woke in the blood, he knew no Brahmin could endure such pain, and he cursed Karna that the Brahma weapon would fail him at the hour he needed it most.

On the seventeenth day of the war, Karna still turned the Bhargava weapon on the Pandava ranks, but in his duel with Arjuna the mantra of the Brahma weapon left him, as the curse had said.

The teacher of the other side

Parashurama never fights at Kurukshetra, yet his teaching runs through it: the three greatest commanders of the Kaurava army all learned from him. He embodies the epic's unease about anger and caste, a Brahmin who became the fiercest of warriors and who punished a deception about birth as harshly as any king.