Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The 3 sins of Ashwathama

Ashwathama, the son of Dronacharya was a great warrior. During the Mahabharata war he joined the Kaurava's camp. On the 13th day of war he committed the first crime by involving in a killing of Abhimanyu by unfair means. Later,he lost all his senses when his friend Duryodhan was killed . He decided to took revenge and attacked at the Pandavas camp at night which was against the rules of war and killed the sons of Draupadi.It was his second sin. This created havoc in the Pandavas camp and they chased Ashwathama. A fierce battle broke between Ashwathama and Arjun. Despite restrictions Ashwathama invoke the “Brahmastra”, a divine weapon to kill Arjun. But sage Vyas intervened and advised Ashwathama to stop the use of the weapon to save earth. But Ashwatham didn’t knew the trick of withdrawing the weapon. To take revenge he directed the weapon towards the womb of the daughter in law of Arjun,Uttra who was carrying Abhimanyu’s son,Parikshit. He wanted to destroy the lineage of Arjun. Later Uttra delivered stillborn child. Here Lord Krishna cursed Ashwathama that he will roam like a ghost till the end of Kaliyuga and his body will suffer from the uncurable wounds. Lord Krishna also took away the divine jewel from Ashwathama which he used to wear on his forehead as this jewel had all the powers. Still it is belive that the Ashwathama is roaming with a wound on his forehead and many people has witnessed a strange man with wounds and blood oozing from his forehead.Surly, the current age of Ashwathama would be 5000 years+ today!

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