SrI: SrImathE satakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama: SrI vAnAchala mahAmunayE nama:
After the completion of the war, yudhishtira was crowned. krishNa himself oversaw his coronation and again brought in all auspiciousness for dhraupadhi and pancha pANdavas.
abhimanyU’s wife uththarA was pregnant during the war. aSvaththAmA who had great anger towards pANdavas, had the cruel thought to kill the main progeny coming in the family of pANdavas, in her womb itself. He launched apANdavAsthra (also said to be brahmAsthra) towards the foetus in the womb. It entered her womb, destroyed the foetus and made it fall out of her womb in a burnt form.
As uththarA prayed to krishNa, krishNa fully touched that foetus to enliven it. That child became popularly known as the king parIkshith. Due to having been touched by the divine feet of krishNa and coming back to life, he had great devotion towards krishNa.
yudhishtira ruled the kingdom for sometime and then crowned parIkshith as the king and left for svarga (heaven). His brothers and dhraupadhi followed him.
Then, parIkshith ruled kingdom with great righteousness. Once when he went to the forest for hunting, he became very hungry and thirsty. He entered a sage’s hermitage and asked the sage for some food. Since the sage was in meditation he did not respond. parIkshith became angry and placed a dead snake as garland on the sage’s neck and left that hermitage. The sage’s son saw that and cursed that the one who did this will be killed by a snake within a week. The sage who learnt all these through the strength of his penance, rebuked his son saying “parIkshith is a good person. You have cursed him for the mistake committed by him unknowingly!”. Subsequently parIkshith came to know the sequence of events, and felt sorry for the mistake committed by him and thought “We should spend this one week in the best manner”. He immediately crowned his son janamEjaya as the king and left for the forest, seeking the sages and met them. At that time vyAsa’s son Suka also arrived there. parIkshith fully surrendered to him and heard krishNa’s full narrative through SrI bhAgavatham without any engagement in external aspects such as food, sleep etc. He finally attained sadhgathi.
Among AzhwArs, periyAzhwAr in his periyAzhwAr thirumozhi has shown how krishNa protected parIkshith in “marumagan than sandhadhiyai uyir mIttu” (krishNa rescued his cousins’ descendant) and “uththarai than siRuvanaiyum uyyakkoNda uyirALan” (One who uplifted uththarA’s son).
Essence in this incident:
- bhagavAn did not just shower his mercy on pANdavas, but also on their descendants. This is an example of bhagavAn blessing not just his devotees but their descendants as well.
- We can face death any time. Hence, it is best for one to spend one’s time in bhagavath vishayam only. This was demonstrated by parIkshith.
Source – https://granthams.koyil.org/2023/11/02/krishna-leela-57-tamil/
adiyen sarathy ramanuja dasan
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