Bhūriśravas: his arm cut off by Arjuna, his head by Sātyaki

Classical

Sātyaki had cut his way through the Kaurava host to reach Arjuna, and by the time Bhūriśravas met him he was out of weapons and tired. Bhūriśravas, a giver of great sacrifices, struck him like an angry elephant, and the two fought on their chariots, with Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna watching. Kṛṣṇa pointed out to Arjuna that Sātyaki was losing and told him to protect his disciple. Arjuna answered happily that the two were playing like a lion and an elephant. At that moment Bhūriśravas struck Sātyaki down from his car with loud cries on both sides.

He dragged Sātyaki as a lion drags an elephant, drew his sword, seized him by the hair and kicked him in the chest, and was about to cut off his head. Sātyaki, hanging by the hair, whirled his head round on Bhūriśravas's arm like a potter's wheel. Kṛṣṇa again told Arjuna that Sātyaki's name, Satyavikrama, would be falsified. Arjuna, who had at first admired his enemy in his heart and said he could not see Sātyaki because his eyes were on the Sindhus, then fixed a razor-headed arrow on Gāṇḍīva and cut off Bhūriśravas's arm, with the sword in its hand and the armlet on it.

The arm fell like a five-headed snake. Bhūriśravas let go of Sātyaki and rebuked Arjuna. He said that it was a cruel act to cut off his arm while he was fighting someone else and Arjuna was unseen; the righteous do not strike someone who is heedless, frightened or begging for life. He blamed Kṛṣṇa's counsel and called the Vṛṣṇis and Andhakas bad Kṣatriyas. Arjuna answered that old age had weakened his mind. Everyone knew his vow, he said, that no one on his side would be killed within the range of his arrows, and what righteous man would praise the killing of Abhimanyu, an unarmed child with his chariot lost?

Bhūriśravas touched the ground with his left hand, put down his head and fell silent. Arjuna told him that he was as dear to him as Yudhiṣṭhira or Bhīma, and Kṛṣṇa told him to go to the pure worlds and to be carried on Garuḍa's back. Bhūriśravas spread a bed of arrows with his left hand, took the vow of prāya, a fast unto death, fixed his gaze on the sun and his mind on the moon, and thought of the great Upaniṣad, practising yoga. The Kauravas, applauding him, spoke ill of Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna, but the two said nothing.

Then Sātyaki, freed from the grip, rose, drew his sword and went to cut off the head of the fasting man. Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna, Bhīma, Aśvatthāman, Kṛpa, Karṇa and even Jayadratha cried out against it, but Sātyaki beheaded him as he sat in prāya. No one in either army praised the act. Sātyaki answered the Kauravas by saying that they had no right to speak of righteousness after killing Abhimanyu. He added that he had once vowed to kill anyone who kicked him, even if that man took a hermit's vow, and he said that Arjuna, by cutting off the arm, had robbed him of the glory.

Dhṛtarāṣṭra asked how Sātyaki, never before beaten, could have been thrown, and Sañjaya told the older cause. Sini had carried off Devakī at her svayaṃvara for Vasudeva and had defeated Somadatta in a wrestling bout, kicked him and let him live. Somadatta then worshipped Mahādeva and asked for a son who would kick Sini's descendant in front of thousands of kings. Bhūriśravas was that son. The teller ends by saying that none can defeat the Vṛṣṇis, and that all this was due to Dhṛtarāṣṭra's own bad policy.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Bhūriśravas, Sātyaki, Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa, Somadatta, Sini, Mahādeva

Bound to

Day thirteen: the wheel array and the death of Abhimanyu mirror

Jayadratha slain: the darkened sun and the head in his father's lap origin

Days four to six: Bhīma, Ghaṭotkaca, Bhagadatta and the arrays origin

Places: Kurukṣetra

Where this comes from

read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (read via archive.org copy of the sacred-texts text) Drona Parva, Sections CXLI–CXLIII

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