(Purport to Chapter Seven continued)
Thus Kunti is remembering how Krishna saved her and her sons one time after another. This is smaranam, thinking of Krishna. " Krishna, You are so kind to us that You saved us from many great dangers. Without You there was no hope."
Then the last danger was drauny-astra, the weapon of Asvatthama, the son of Drona. Asvatthama performed a most abominable act by killing the five sons of the Pandavas. Of course, in the Battle of Kurukshetra both sides belonged to the same family, and practically everyone was killed, but the five sons of the Pandavas survived. So Asvatthama thought, "If I kill these five sons of the Pandavas and present their heads to Duryodhana, he will be very much pleased." Therefore, when the five sons were sleeping, he severed their heads, which he then presented to Duryodhana. At that time, Duryodhana was incapacitated. His spine was broken, and he could not move. Asvatthama said, "I have brought the five heads of the Pandavas, my dear Duryodhana." At first, Duryodhana was very glad, but he knew how to test the heads to see whether they were in fact the heads of the Pandavas. When he pressed the heads, the heads collapsed, and Duryodhana said, "Oh, these are not the heads of the Pandavas. They must be the heads of their sons." When Asvatthama admitted that this was so, Duryodhana fainted, and when he revived he said, "You have killed all our hopes. I had hoped that in our family at least these five sons would survive, but now you have killed them." Thus in lamentation he died.
Subsequently, Arjuna arrested Asvatthama and was going to kill him. In fact, Krishna ordered, "Kill him. He is not a brahmana; he is less than a sudra." But then Draupadi said, "I am suffering because of the death of my sons, and this rascal is the son of our guru-maharaja, Dronacarya, who has done so much for us. If Asvatthama dies, then Dronacarya's wife, our mother guru, will be very much unhappy. So release him and let him go away." Thus Arjuna freed Asvatthama. But then Asvatthama, having been insulted, retaliated by unleashing a brahmastra. The brahmastra is something like a nuclear weapon. It can go to the enemy, wherever he is, and kill him. Asvatthama knew, "The last descendant of the Kuru family is Parikshit, the son of Abhimanyu. He is in the womb of Uttara, so let me kill him also, and then the entire dynasty will be finished."
When that weapon was unleashed, Parikshit Maharaja's mother, Uttara, felt that she was going to have a miscarriage, and therefore she approached Krishna, saying, "Please save me." Krishna, by His mystic power, therefore entered the womb of Uttara and saved the child. After the Battle of Kurukshetra, Parikshit Maharaja, who was still in the womb of his mother, was the last remaining descendant of the Pandavas, and in mature time, when he was born, only his grandfathers were still alive. Parikshit Maharaja was the son of Abhimanyu, who was the son of Arjuna and Subhadra, Krishna's sister. When Abhimanyu was sixteen years old, he went to fight, and seven great commanders joined forces to kill him. Subhadra had only one grandchild, Parikshit Maharaja. As soon as he grew up, the entire estate of the Pandavas was entrusted to him, and all the Pandavas left home and went to the Himalayas. This history is described in the Mahabharata. Many great misfortunes befell the Pandavas, but in all circumstances they simply depended on Krishna, who always saved them. Queen Kunti's response to these misfortunes is recorded in the next verse.
-----------------------------------------------Written by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
No comments:
Post a Comment