Skandapurana 5.67

Sūta said: / In the meantime, Rāma arrived, accompanied by his brothers, / holding fruits, roots, and tubers, facing toward the hermitage. // 1

He saw his hermitage destroyed and thronged with many Pulindas, / and that cow battered by blows of clubs and stones. // 2

He asked: "What is this distress that has overtaken everything, / and the grounds of the hermitage surrounded by Ābhīras and Pulindas?

"By whom has this cow of mine been battered with blows? / And why are all these female and male ascetics weeping?

"Where is my old father today, and my mother who loves her son? / Why does she not come out to meet me with affection today as before?"

Then all the ascetics, afflicted with deep sorrow, / related the event to him just as it was seen—the deed of Sahasrārjuna.

Then all those brothers, hearing that word like a thunderbolt's strike / and seeing their own father cut to pieces with weapons,

and their mother, all her limbs wounded, with only her breath remaining, filled with pain, / wept, consumed by grief, except for the mighty Rāma.

Having wept for a long time and lamented again and again, / they then performed his funeral rites according to the rule declared in the Vedas.

Then, at the conclusion of the cremation, having dug a pit as was customary, / the sons, except for Rāma, offered water mixed with sesame seeds to their father.

Then Rāma, the best of weapon-bearers, was addressed by other ascetics: / "Why do you not offer a handful of water to your deceased father?"

Then, being spoken to in many ways by the ascetics, that son of Jamadagni, / counting the wounds made upon his mother by sharp weapons,

then sighed deeply and said to those lords of sages: / "Listen to the reason for the refusal to offer water that was made by me.

"Without any fault, my father was slain by a kṣatriya; / twenty-one wounds remain on the body of my mother.

"Therefore, O brahmins, if I do not make the earth devoid of kṣatriyas / according to the number of those blows, may all that sin be mine—

"the sin born from the murder of father and mother committed here by that wicked one, / that vilest of kṣatriyas, and whatever other vile act [there may be]!

"Then, having filled this pit intended for the paternal water with the blood / of that very one and of other evil-minded kṣatriyas, / I will gratify my father with blood, not with water!"

Sūta said: / Hearing his terrible vow, those best of ascetics / were filled with supreme astonishment and said nothing further.

Then, after the period of ritual impurity had ended, Rāma, filled with rage, / took his sharp axe and set out toward Māhiṣmatī,

together with all those Śabaras, Pulindas, and Medakas, / wearing leather armguards and finger-guards, bearing excellent arrows and bows.

Arjuna too, hearing that he, the best of the Bhṛgus, had arrived / accompanied by a great army and bound by a vow,

then, having seen [him], went out to face [him] for battle / accompanied by various warriors, all resembling gods and asuras.

Then, O best of the twice-born, a great battle took place between the Pulindas / and the warriors of the lord of the Haihayas, who resembled gods and asuras.

Then all those Haihayas were slain in battle / by the Śabaras roaring repeatedly, with arrows resembling venomous serpents.

Then, by the sin arising from the murder of a brahmin, / all of them were deprived of their splendor and fell down upon the surface of the earth.

None there was able to display manly prowess; / all intent on flight, they were struck down by sharp arrows.

Then, seeing his army broken, the lord of the Haihayas in rage / desired to string his bow in haste, / but though he made a great effort, he was unable to string it.

Then he drew his spotless sword from its scabbard, / but was unable to wield it, having fallen into supreme bewilderment.

The mace by which fierce Rāvaṇa, the terror of the world, was vanquished, / even that fell from his hand at that very instant onto the surface of the earth.

Those auspicious hands, called a thousand, by which the flow of the Narmadā / had been held back—all of them became overcome with trembling.

Due to the power of fate, they could not lift any weapon whatsoever, / and all the mantras of the celestial weapons passed into oblivion.

In the meantime, Rāma arrived, stupified with fury; / raising his sharp axe, he then said harsh words to him:

"O sinful lord of the Haihayas, those hands with which / my father was struck down by you—show them to me quickly now!"

Stricken by brahminical power, though spoken to so harshly by him, / he did not speak any reply, like a figure painted in a picture.

Then Rāma, the best of weapon-bearers, repeatedly rebuking him, / cut down the forest of his arms little by little.

Then, having severed his head with the axe, that scion of Bhṛgu / himself carefully took the blood from the wounds, O twice-born.

Having filled large jars, he then gave them to the Śabaras, / Mlecchas, and hunters, and then respectfully said:

"In the sacred field of Hāṭakeśvara, a pit has been dug by my brothers / for the sake of gratifying my father, [now] filled with water.

"Go quickly and pour this great blood into it— / the blood of this sinful enemy—by my command, beyond doubt;

"so that, having gratified my own father with devotion according to the rite, / there may be liberation for me from the paternal debt."

Thus ends the sixty-seventh chapter, entitled "The Description of the Slaying of Sahasrārjuna," in the Māhātmya of the Sacred Field of Hāṭakeśvara in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [section], in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a collection of eighty-one thousand verses.