Karttavirya

Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 24 Jul 2011 06:42 and updated at 24 Jul 2011 06:42

VISHNU PURANA NOUN

vp.4.7 "It happened on one occasion, that, during the absence of the Rishi s sons, the mighty monarch Karttavirya, the sovereign of the Haihaya tribe, endowed by the favour of Dattatreya with a thousand arms, and a golden chariot that went wheresoever he willed it to go, came to the hermitage 16 of Jamadagni, where the wife of the sage received him with all proper respect. The king, inflated with the pride of valour, made no return to her hospitality, but carried off with him by violence the calf of the milch cow of the sacred oblation 17, and cast down the tall trees surrounding the hermitage. When Rama returned, his father told him what had chanced, and he saw the cow in affliction, and he was filled with wrath. Taking up his splendid bow 18, Bhargava, the slayer of hostile heroes, assailed Karttavirya, who had now become subject to
vp.4.7 the power of death, and overthrew him in battle. With sharp arrows Rama cut off his thousand arms, and the king perished. The sons of Karttavirya, to revenge his death, attacked the hermitage of Jamadagni, when Rama was away, and slew the pious and unresisting sage, who called repeatedly, but fruitlessly, upon his valiant son. They then departed; and when Rama returned, bearing fuel from the thickets, he found his father lifeless, and thus bewailed his unmerited fate: Father, in resentment of my actions have you been murdered by wretches as foolish as they are base! by the sons of Karttavirya are you struck down, as a deer in the forest by the huntsman s shafts! Ill have you deserved such a death; you who have ever trodden the path of virtue, and never offered wrong to any created thing! How great is the crime that they have committed, in slaying with their deadly shafts an old man like you, wholly occupied with pious cares, and engaging not in strife! Much have they to boast of to their fellows and their friends, that they have shamelessly slain a solitary hermit, incapable of contending in arms! Thus lamenting, bitterly and repeatedly, Rama performed his father s last obsequies, and lighted his funeral pile. He then made a vow that he would extirpate the whole Kshatriya race. In fulfilment of this purpose he took up his arms, and with remorseless and fatal rage singly destroyed in fight the sons of Karttavirya; and after them, whatever Kshatriyas he encountered, Rama,
vp.4.11 The Yadava race, or descendants of Yadu. Karttavirya obtains a boon from Dattatreya: takes Ravana prisoner: is killed by Parasurama: his descendants.
vp.4.11 was Bhadrasena 8; his son was Durdama; his son was Dhanaka 9, who had four sons, Kritaviryya, Kritagni, Kritavarman, and Kritaujas. Kritaviryya s son was Arjuna, the sovereign of the seven Dwipas, the lord of a thousand arms. This prince propitiated the sage Dattatreya, the descendant of Atri, who was a portion of Vishnu, and solicited and obtained from him these boons a thousand arms; never acting unjustly; subjugation of the world by justice, and protecting it equitably; victory over his enemies; and death by the hands of a person renowned in the three regions of the universe. With these means he ruled over the whole earth with might and justice, and offered ten thousand sacrifices. Of him this verse is still recited; "The kings of the earth will assuredly never pursue his steps in sacrifice, in munificence, in devotion, in courtesy, and in self control." In his reign nothing was lost or injured; and so he governed the whole earth with undiminished health, prosperity, power, and might, for eighty five thousand years. Whilst sporting in the waters of the Narmada, and elevated with wine, Ravana came on his tour of triumph to the city Mahishmati, and there he who boasted of overthrowing the gods, the Daityas, the Gandharbas and their king, was taken prisoner by Karttavirya, and confined like a tame beast in a corner of his capital 10. At the expiration of his long reign Karttavirya was killed by Parasurama, who was an embodied portion of the mighty Narayana 11. Of the

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