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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Sauptika
Aśvatthāman's Night Massacre
Classical
Kṛpa, Aśvatthāman and Kṛtavarman retreat south, tired and wounded, into a forest, and lie down under a banyan tree. Aśvatthāman, burning with rage at Duryodhana's fall, cannot sleep. Looking at the tree, he sees an owl with green eyes land among thousands of sleeping crows and kill them one by one, tearing wings, cutting heads and crushing legs. He takes it as a lesson from heaven.
He reasons that he cannot beat the Pāṇḍavas fairly, but that the Pāṇḍavas themselves have used guile many times. He wakes Kṛpa and Kṛtavarman and tells them his plan, a night attack on the Pāñcāla camp. Kṛpa objects strongly, citing dharma and advising a night's rest and a visit to Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Kṛṣṇa. Aśvatthāman is not moved. He says he has made up his mind and that the Pāñcālas, drunk with victory, are sleeping in trust.
Before he goes in, he sees a vast being barring the gate, and shoots at it in vain. He then prays to Rudra, offering his own body as a sacrifice. A golden altar and a blazing fire appear, with many strange spirits. Śiva accepts the offering, enters his body and gives him a bright sword, so that the camp can be entered.
Kṛpa and Kṛtavarman wait at the gate to catch anyone who flees. Aśvatthāman enters the camp by a place with no door, goes to Dhṛṣṭadyumna's tent and kicks him awake. He pins him down with his foot and, ignoring his plea to be killed with a weapon, tramples him to death. He kills Uttamaujas and Yudhāmanyu in the same way, then goes through the camp with his sword. The men wake and are cut down as they run, blinded by terror, believing him a rākṣasa.
The sons of Draupadī, with Śikhaṇḍī and the Prabhadrakas, fight him but are killed one by one. The Pāṇḍavas, Kṛṣṇa and Sātyaki are elsewhere that night and live. The gate-guards Kṛpa and Kṛtavarman also set fire to the camp and cut down those who flee. By dawn the three go to Duryodhana, still alive on the field, and tell him. He dies gladdened. The Pāṇḍavas come back to a camp of corpses.
Told by Sañjaya → Dhṛtarāṣṭra
Who: Aśvatthāman, Kṛpa, Kṛtavarman, Dhṛṣṭadyumna, Śikhaṇḍī, Draupadī's sons, Śiva
Bound to
Ashvatthama: neighing birth, Shiva's boon, Krishna's curse of wandering origin
Two Brahmashiras and the womb of Uttara origin
Drona born in a pot; Dhrishtadyumna born from fire to kill him mirror
Duryodhana Hides in the Dvaipāyana Lake origin
Places: Pāṇḍava camp, forest south of the camp
Where this comes from
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (text as scanned on archive.org; mahabharataonline.com section pages could not be opened from the working environment) Sauptika Parva, Sections I, III, VII-IX