The Warrior With the Axe

The sages told the Pandavas of Parashurama, the brahmin who took up the axe of a warrior - the sixth descent of the Lord upon the earth, the master of arms who would one day teach Bhishma and Drona and Karna themselves, and whose terrible story holds within it both the highest obedience and the long, exhausting fury of vengeance.

Parashurama was the youngest son of the great sage Jamadagni, of the line of Bhrigu, and of his wife Renuka, a woman famed for her chastity and devotion. He was born a brahmin, a sage's son, destined by his birth for the quiet life of penance and learning. But there was in him from the first a fierceness and a martial gift unusual in a brahmin, and by his devotion he won from the great god Shiva a mighty axe, the parashu, from which he took his name - Parashurama, Rama of the Axe. With that axe, and the brahmin's spirit joined to a warrior's wrath, he would carve a terrible path through the history of the world.