Jayadratha’s Death
Seeing Bhurisrava dead ended up discouraging many soldiers and once again panic spread among the Kaurava troops; others, on the contrary, indignant and thirsty for revenge, felt their spirits on fire. Karna, accompanied by his troops, arrived in a fury and shouting threats at Satyaki, he launched an attack. The battle flared up again.
For his part, Krishna was not at all happy with the resurgence of fighting.
“Arjuna, the sun is close to the horizon,” he said, “and this afternoon you don’t have time to face the son of the Suta. Also don’t forget that he still has Indra’s shakti with him. That weapon is indisputable and will be inconvenient for you to face. Let’s get out of here, and focus our efforts on Jayadratha.”
Leaving Satyaki, now reassured, the task of facing Karna, the two left the scene of the clashes. Realizing that Arjuna was getting too close to his target and also seeing that the sun’s rays were losing their intensity, so the day would be over soon, the Kaurava soldiers stood as a shield in front of Jayadratha and fought with great commitment, even at the cost of their own lives. It was their only hope of winning the war.
By now the sun was a few centimeters from the horizon, in a few minutes it would set.
And as the chariot sped towards Jayadratha, Krishna reflected: that way they would never make it, they had to try to distract the soldiers and attack the enemy from a distance, so as to avoid even a duel against him. So he resolved to call his personal weapon, Sudarshana, and ordered him to darken the sky. When the divine disc was placed between the soldiers who populated the plain of Kurukshetra and the solar star, everyone believed that the day was over.
The Kuravas exulting with joy, shouted and banged on the drums, causing a deafening din, while the Pandava allies threw their weapons to the ground in despair: now, in obedience to his vow, Arjuna would have to take his own life.
Krishna at that moment smiled and called Sudarshana: as if by a miracle the light returned to illuminate the vast plain. Everyone was dumbfounded, surprised, they didn’t know what to do. And in that instant Arjuna invoked the Pashupata and shot an arrow in the direction of Jayadratha: detached cleanly, the monarch’s head blew up.
Now, in order to continue the story, it is necessary that we take a moment back in time, to the day of Jayadratha’s birth. On that occasion an ethereal voice boomed in the hall:
“Whoever drops this baby’s head to the ground will die with his head broken in a hundred places.”
So Jayadratha had grown up with the awareness of that curse that hung over his enemies. He soon became a valiant warrior. And he was still in the prime of his youth when his father had decided to leave him the throne to retire to a meditative life in a hermitage right near Kurukshetra. He felt certain that his son was practically invincible and that whoever killed him would die immediately anyway.
It was natural that Krishna was aware of that aspect of Jayadratha’s life and had taken care to tell Arjuna about it, recommending that he make sure that that head does not touch the ground because of him.
The Pandava, therefore, with a continuous stream of arrows, kept it in the air and pushed it to the hermitage of Jayadratha’s father, making it arrive on his lap.
When the ascetic awoke from meditation, at the sight of his son’s head on his knees, screaming in pain and horror, he rolled it to the ground. Struck by the celestial curse, he himself died, his head fractured into a hundred pieces. Once again, thanks to Krishna’s intervention, Arjuna was saved from death.
In front of the astonished Kauravas, the sun shone for a few more moments, then set; and in Kurukshetra, that terrible theater of death, darkness descended.
All returned to their respective camps.
This is a section of the book “Maha-bharata, Vol. 2”.
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