Arjuna and Babhruvāhana

At Maṇipura, Arjuna meets his own son, the king Babhruvāhana. Arjuna is guarding the Aśvamedha horse (the horse of the great yajña, or fire ritual, that Yudhishṭhira is preparing). Babhruvāhana is the son of Citrāṅgadā, born years before. Father and son fight, and Babhruvāhana, without knowing what he does, strikes his father down.

Ulūpī, the nāga princess who is Arjuna’s wife, then brings Arjuna back to life with the sañjīvana maṇi (the gem that gives life). She tells Arjuna that this fight had been decreed by the Vasus and Gaṅgā, as a way to undo a wrong done to Bhīshma at Kurukshetra.

Babhruvāhana’s welcome and Arjuna’s rebuke

Arjuna had defeated the Saindhavas. The horse then wandered freely and led Arjuna to Maṇipura, which was ruled by his son Babhruvāhana. Citrāṅgadā had borne this son to Arjuna under the putrikā agreement (a marriage in which the son belongs to the bride’s father’s line). Babhruvāhana heard that his father had come to his city. He went out humbly, with brāhmaṇas and gifts of wealth in his hands, to receive Arjuna with every mark of a son’s respect.

Arjuna was wise, but he kept in mind the dharma of a kshatriya. He did not approve of this welcome. He was angry, not pleased, and he rebuked his son. He said:

“This conduct of yours is outside kshatriya-dharma, and it is not right. Son! Yudhishṭhira’s horse has come to the border of your kingdom under my protection. Why do you not fight me? Fie on you! Your judgment is thoroughly spoiled, and you have fallen from the path of kshatriya-dharma. I came here for battle, and you receive me as a woman would, with sāma (gentle words) alone. What manhood is there in living on like this? You approach me like a woman, accepting me with sāma. Wretch! Low man! This will not do. If you had come to me after giving up all weapons, your conduct would have been fitting. But this is not that.”

This is from Chapter 79 of the Aśvamedhika Parva.

Ulūpī speaks to her son

The nāga princess Ulūpī heard her husband reproach their son in this way. She could not bear it, and she rose up out of the earth. She found her son standing with his head bowed, turning the matter over in his mind, while his father, who wanted battle, scolded him again and again. The beautiful nāga-kanyā (nāga maiden) Ulūpī went to her son, who knew dharma well, and spoke words of firm dharma to him:

“I am the daughter of the nāga king. Know me as Ulūpī. Kumāra! Hear my word, and through it the highest dharma will be yours. This best of the Kurus takes the greatest joy in battle. Fight your father. In this way alone will he come to feel affection for you. Of this there is no doubt.”

This too is from Chapter 79.

Father and son at war

Babhruvāhana was greatly powerful. His mother’s words stirred him, and he set his mind on battle. He put on golden armour and a bright helmet set with jewels. He mounted a fine chariot that carried hundreds of quivers. The wheels of the chariot were flawless, its fittings were of gold, its horses were swift as thought, and its standard was a golden lion. In this splendour King Babhruvāhana rode out against Arjuna.

Babhruvāhana’s skilled grooms seized the horse, the very animal Arjuna was guarding, in the encounter. Arjuna saw the horse taken. Though he was on foot, he joyfully held his son back in the fight where he stood. Babhruvāhana attacked his father with volleys of sharp arrows as venomous as serpents. The text compares the battle to a contest of devas and asuras. It was fierce. Yet father and son each held the other dear, and so it had a strange tenderness even in its violence.

Babhruvāhana laughed and struck Arjuna on the joint of the shoulder with an arrow with a curved notch. The shaft and its socket tore through the son of Kuntī, as if boring into a serpent’s hole, and buried itself in the earth. The pain was terrible. The wise Arjuna held on to his fine bow, reached toward a point of inner radiance (divya tejas) in his heart, and fell as if dead.

After a time he recovered enough to praise his son’s deed. Even in his pain he spoke with pride: “Well done! Well done, Mahābāhu, son of Citrāṅgadā! I am glad to see action worthy of you.” Then he said, “Here, I loose my arrows upon you. Stand firm, child.” Arjuna showered arrows on Babhruvāhana. The king of Maṇipura cut every one of Arjuna’s arrows to pieces before they reached him. They were as bright as the vajra and as lightning. But Arjuna, with one sharp arrow, brought down Babhruvāhana’s gold-adorned standard, tall as a palm tree, from his chariot. Then he laughed, and he killed Babhruvāhana’s great swift horses too.

Babhruvāhana was enraged beyond measure. He leapt down from his ruined chariot and went on fighting his father on foot. Arjuna was the greatest of the Pārthas and the son of Indra who bears the vajra. He took such delight in his son’s strength that even now he did not press him too hard. But Babhruvāhana believed his father had become unwilling to fight, so he pressed the attack harder, with arrows fierce as serpents and with great force. Then Babhruvāhana, in what the text calls an act of childlike rashness (bāla-cheshṭā), struck his father in the chest with a sharp, heavy-socketed arrow.

That arrow tore through Arjuna’s vital point and pierced him with overwhelming grief. The son of Kuru, struck down hard by his own child, fell senseless to the ground, with all awareness gone.

Citrāṅgadā’s son saw the great Kaurava hero fall. He believed his father was dead, and he fell into a swoon on the spot. Arjuna’s arrows had already wounded him badly earlier in the fight, and now he too collapsed on the battlefield. His mother Citrāṅgadā, the queen of Maṇipura, saw her husband and her son lying fallen together. Terror seized her. She rushed onto the field, weeping and trembling, and found her husband lying there. This is the end of Chapter 79.

Citrāṅgadā’s grief and her reproach of Ulūpī

The scene at the end of Chapter 79 is this: Arjuna lies fallen and seems dead, Babhruvāhana has collapsed beside him, and Citrāṅgadā has rushed onto the field in grief. Chapter 80 goes on from here.

Citrāṅgadā woke from her own swoon and turned on Ulūpī. She accused her of having urged Babhruvāhana to this deed out of jealousy. She said that if this was Ulūpī’s doing, she now begged her, with folded hands, to bring Arjuna back to life. She vowed that if Ulūpī would not show her husband alive again, she would sit down then and there in prāyopaveśa (fasting until death), having lost both husband and son to this grief.

Babhruvāhana’s anguish

Babhruvāhana recovered his senses. He saw his mother collapsed beside his father’s body, and he was overwhelmed with grief and self-blame. He called himself the worst of men in pāpa (sin), a pitṛ-hatyā (killer of his own father). He said that the only fitting prāyaścitta (act of expiation) for such a deed would be to wander for twelve years wrapped in his victim’s hide and carrying his skull. He judged even that to be too little, since no expiation is laid down that is enough for killing one’s own father. He vowed to sit at the water’s edge until death unless his father rose alive, and he too prepared to give up his life. This is from Chapter 80.

Ulūpī and the sañjīvana maṇi

Ulūpī then called for the sañjīvana maṇi, the supreme gem of the nāgas, which can restore life. It came to her. She told Babhruvāhana to grieve no more. She said that no man, not even Indra with all the devas together, could ever truly defeat this warrior, for he was a portion of Bhagavān Vishṇu himself.

She placed the gem on Arjuna’s chest. At once he rose, as if waking from a long sleep, with his red eyes stirring. He was fully restored to life. Celestial flowers fell, and the words “sādhu, sādhu” (well done, well done) sounded from the sky. Arjuna embraced his son. He looked in wonder at the scene before him, full of grief, joy and astonishment. This is from Chapter 80.

The revelation: why this had to happen

Arjuna asked why his two wives had come to this battlefield and what the whole affair meant. Babhruvāhana left the answer to Ulūpī, and she told him the whole truth. This is from Chapter 81.

Ulūpī said that at Kurukshetra Arjuna had not defeated Bhīshma in a fair fight. Bhīshma had a vow never to raise arms against one who was born a woman. He had lowered his bow before Śikhaṇḍin. Arjuna used Śikhaṇḍin’s presence as a screen and brought down a warrior who was not, in that moment, fighting him.

For this, the Vasus and Gaṅgā herself, who were present at Bhīshma’s death on the bank of the Gaṅgā, declared that unless this wrong were made good, Arjuna would fall into naraka (hell) after death. Ulūpī’s father, the nāga king Kauravya, learned of this decree. He pleaded again and again with the Vasus on Arjuna’s behalf. At last the Vasus gave way. They said that if Arjuna’s own son, the king of Maṇipura, were to overthrow him in the middle of battle, the debt would be paid.

Her father told Ulūpī this. She therefore came to Maṇipura and herself urged Babhruvāhana to fight his father. This was not because of any fault in him or in Citrāṅgadā. It was so that the decreed atonement could be completed. Ulūpī told Arjuna that Babhruvāhana had no pāpa at all in this. Arjuna was well pleased, and he told her that all she had done was entirely to his liking.

Reunion and the invitation to the Aśvamedha

Arjuna told Babhruvāhana that the Pāṇḍava Aśvamedha would take place at the coming Caitra Pūrṇimā (the full moon of the month of Caitra). He invited Babhruvāhana to come with both his mothers and his close kin. Babhruvāhana was moved to tears. He agreed to come with the assembled brāhmaṇas, and he asked his father to enter Maṇipura for at least one night with his queens.

Arjuna smiled and refused. He was still bound by his dīkshā (ritual vow) as guardian of the horse, and he could not enter any city until the vow was complete. The horse, he said, must be free to wander as it willed. Arjuna accepted his son’s blessing, took leave of his wives, and went on, following the horse. This is from Chapter 81.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 79 (Babhruvāhana’s welcome, Arjuna’s rebuke, Ulūpī’s words, the battle)
• Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 80 (Citrāṅgadā’s grief, Babhruvāhana’s anguish, the sañjīvana maṇi)
• Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 81 (Ulūpī’s account, the invitation to the Aśvamedha)