Encounter With Parashurama
The Puranas recount that Kartavirya Arjuna and his army visited a rishi named Jamadagni, who fed his guest and the whole army with offerings from his divine cow Kamadhenu. The king demanded the cow for the betterment of his subjects; Jamadagni refused because he needed the cow for his religious ceremonies. King Kartavirya Arjuna sent his soldiers to take the cow. As the conflict developed among the Jamadagni and the King,Kartavirya Arjuna lost his cool and chopped off the head of Jamadagni .When Parashurama (Jamadagni's son and one of the DaśāvatārasVishnu) returned to the hermitage,he was informed of the context by his mother.In revenge, Parashurama killed the entire clan of Kartavirya Arjuna and the King with the axe given to him by Shiva, thus conquering the entire earth, which he gave to Brahamanas.
In another legend, Kartavirya Arjuna visited the hermitage of Jamadagni, and was received by that sage's wife Renuka with all respect; but he made an ill return for her hospitality, and carried off by violence "the calf of the milch-cow of the sacred oblation." For this outrage Parashurama cut off his thousand arms and killed him.
In another place a different character is given to him, and more in accordance with his behavior at Jamadagni's hut. "He oppressed both men and gods," so that the latter appealed to Vishnu for succor. That God then came down to the earth as Parashurama for the especial purpose of killing him.
Read more about this topic: Kartavirya Arjuna
Famous quotes containing the words encounter with and/or encounter:
“The problem of the novelist who wishes to write about a mans encounter with God is how he shall make the experiencewhich is both natural and supernaturalunderstandable, and credible, to his reader. In any age this would be a problem, but in our own, it is a well- nigh insurmountable one. Todays audience is one in which religious feeling has become, if not atrophied, at least vaporous and sentimental.”
—Flannery OConnor (19251964)
“One who accumulates goodness will encounter goodness, and one who accumulates evil will encounter evil.”
—Chinese proverb.