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

Classical

Late in the fourteenth day Arjuna had broken through the array and was close to Jayadratha, but six great warriors stood around the king and the sun was sinking. Kṛṣṇa told him that he could not kill Jayadratha without defeating those six, and that the sun would not wait. He said he would use yoga to shroud the sun, so that Jayadratha, believing the day over, would come out of hiding. Arjuna agreed, and Kṛṣṇa created a darkness. The Kaurava warriors, thinking that the sun had set and that Arjuna would now have to burn, rejoiced and threw back their heads to look at the sky, and Jayadratha did so too.

Kṛṣṇa saw it and told Arjuna that the hour had come: Jayadratha had cast off his fear and was looking at the sun. Arjuna, who was carving through the troops, pierced Kṛpa with twenty arrows, Karṇa with fifty, Śalya and Duryodhana with six each, Vṛṣasena with eight and Jayadratha with sixty, and rushed on. The Kauravas poured arrows on him, but he made a net of arrows and the warriors around Jayadratha fled. Sañjaya calls it a slaughter like Rudra's, and says no one could see him draw, fix or loose an arrow. At last he took up a blazing arrow, inspired with mantras, that had been worshipped with incense and garlands.

Kṛṣṇa now warned him. Jayadratha's father was the famous Vṛddhakṣatra, who had got his son only after a long time. At the child's birth a voice from the sky had said that he would be worthy of both the Solar and Lunar races, but that some famous Kṣatriya would cut off his head in battle. Vṛddhakṣatra had then sworn before his kinsmen that whoever caused his son's head to fall on the earth would have his own head crack into a hundred pieces. He had given Jayadratha the throne and gone to the forest to practise austerities, and was doing so then at Samantapañcaka.

So, Kṛṣṇa said, Arjuna must not let the head fall to the ground, or his own would split. He must use the celestial weapon to throw it into the lap of Vṛddhakṣatra himself, and in such a way that the old king would not know. Arjuna, licking the corners of his mouth, loosed the arrow. It took Jayadratha's head as a hawk takes a small bird from a tree. Then he kept it in the air with more arrows, sending it on beyond Samantapañcaka, again and again, to the delight of his friends and the grief of his foes.

The old king was sitting in his evening prayers. The head with its earrings dropped into his lap, and he did not notice it. When he finished his prayers and stood up, it fell on the ground, and his own head burst into a hundred pieces. All creatures were amazed and praised Vāsudeva and Arjuna. Kṛṣṇa then withdrew the darkness, and the Kauravas saw it had been a trick. Sañjaya says that Jayadratha, who had caused eight akṣauhiṇīs to be killed, was slain at last. Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna blew their conches, and Bhīma gave a lion's shout to tell Yudhiṣṭhira, who understood and rode against Droṇa.

The war did not stop at sunset. As Sañjaya tells it, a fierce fight began between Droṇa and the Somakas after the sun had set, and Arjuna, having kept his vow, went on destroying his enemies. Dhṛtarāṣṭra's own son-in-law was dead, but the Kuru side now faced Droṇa's attack by night. For Arjuna the vow was complete, and it had cost the old Sindhu king his life along with his son's.

Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra

Who: Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa, Jayadratha, Vṛddhakṣatra, Karṇa, Kṛpa, Śalya, Duryodhana, Vṛṣasena, Bhīma, Yudhiṣṭhira

Bound to

Day fourteen: Droṇa's cart-and-lotus array hides Jayadratha origin

Arjuna learns of Abhimanyu's death and vows to slay Jayadratha or burn curse

Jayadratha's boon from Śiva: why one man could hold back four Pāṇḍavas boon

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

Places: Samantapañcaka, 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 CXLV–CXLVI (the killing is in CXLV)

See it on the tree · All stories

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