Uttarā and the Brahmāstra

Uttarā was the daughter of King Virāṭa and the wife of Abhimanyu. She was carrying the last surviving heir of the Pāṇḍava line. Aśvatthāmā aimed his brahmāstra at her womb to destroy him. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself entered the womb and shielded the unborn child, who became Parīkshit. The first Skanda of the Bhāgavata tells this as a direct sign that Bhagavān Kṛshṇa protects his devotees even before they are born.

Aśvatthāmā’s brahmāstra

Aśvatthāmā had failed to destroy the Pāṇḍavas in his night attack. He had killed the upapāṇḍavas by mistake. Arjuna then chased him. Aśvatthāmā released a brahmāstra. He did not know how to call it back, since he had learned only how to call it up and not the pratyāhāra (the way to withdraw it).

He aimed it at one thing, to burn out Uttarā’s womb. He wanted to kill the last seed of the Pāṇḍava line before birth, so that no heir would remain to carry on the family that had defeated him and his side.

Once released, the brahmāstra moved toward Uttarā with a force nothing could stop. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 8)

Kṛshṇa enters the womb

Uttarā felt the weapon coming and was terrified. She ran to Bhagavān Kṛshṇa and cried: “Protect me! Protect this child! We have no refuge but you.”

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa is the antaryāmin, the inner dweller of all beings, and the constant protector of his devotees. He made himself smaller than a thumb and entered Uttarā’s womb. He took his Sudarśana cakra and stood inside the womb as a shield around the child. The blazing brahmāstra struck the cakra and could not pass through. The child inside was not harmed at all, though the brahmāstra burned everything around. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 8)

Kuntī’s witness

In her stotra to Bhagavān Kṛshṇa in Chapter 8, Kuntī names this act as one of the great deeds of protection she herself saw. She says that he protected the child in Uttarā’s womb from Aśvatthāmā’s brahmāstra. In this way the event stands as the witness of those who were there. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 8)

The child is born: Vishṇurāta

The child lived only because of the help of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, and by no human means. So at birth he was named Vishṇurāta: the one given by Vishṇu, the one protected by Vishṇu, the gift of Vishṇu.

He was also named Parīkshit, for another reason. Even as a baby he would look closely at every person who came near him, as if searching for the shining form he had seen in the womb when Bhagavān Kṛshṇa came in to protect him.

At Parīkshit’s birth the astrologers declared all his coming greatness: ruler, devotee and speaker of truth. All of it came from that first grace, that Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself had saved him before birth. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 12)

What the event shows

The Bhāgavata gives this event as a direct sign of its main teaching. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself protects those who have surrendered to him. He does so even when the danger is the greatest, a brahmāstra that nothing else can stop, and even when the one protected is wholly helpless, an unborn child. Parīkshit’s whole life flows from this one act of protection: his reign, his meeting with Kali, his prāyopaveśa (fast unto death), and the very telling of the Bhāgavata.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 7
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 8
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 12