Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.1952

c8.1952

Jamadagni's wife Reṇukā went in search of her husband and to her grief found him lying dead. Reṇukā wept beating her breast twentyone times and by that time her son Paraśurāma came there and he declared that he would travel round the world twentyone times, the number of times his mother beat her breast, to kill and exterminate the Kṣatriyas from this world. Then the dead body of Jamadagni was placed on a pyre and they were singing Viṣṇugītā before placing fire on the pyre when Śukramuni appeared there and brought Jamadagni to life by invoking the art of Mṛtasañjīvanī. By that time Suśīlā somehow escaped from the custody of the King and came there without the calf. Then Paraśurāma vowed that he would bring the calf soon and taking with him his disciple Akṛtavraṇa he left for the city of Māhiṣmatī the abode of Kārtavīryārjuna. They fought a grim battle and after killing Kārtavīryārjuna and many of his followers brought back the calf. To atone for the sin of this massacre Jamadagni advised his son to go and perform penance in Mahendragiri. Taking advantage of the absence of Paraśurāma from the āśrama, Śūrasena son of Kārtavīryārjuna, with his followers went to the āśrama of Jamadagni and chopped off his head. Paraśurāma returned from Mahendragiri at once and cremated the dead body of his father. Reṇukā, his mother, jumped into the funeral pyre and abandoned her life. From that moment onwards started Paraśurāma's fierce programme of mass massacre of the Kṣatriyas.