Pandava-s were unable to save Abhimanyu. The teenage boy was cruelly killed by Kaurava warriors. Yudhishthira tried to save Abhimanyu. But Jayadratha blocked his way. In a way, he wanted to take revenge for his humiliation by Pandava-s, when he wanted to abduct their wife, Draupadi. Arjuna was far away from the location. Finally, no one could save Arjuna’s son. Pandava-s believed Jayadratha should be avenged.
Arjuna took it more personally. He vowed to kill Jayadratha before the end of the fourteenth day war. Otherwise, he would kill himself. (Iravan/Aravan was also his son. He has been killed as well. Arjuna took it for granted. What a partiality!)
Knowing this, the Pandava’s army came with moral power to slash Kaurava-s. But Drona did the trick. He injected the complete Kaurava force between Jayadratha and Arjuna to keep both of them at a safer distance. His plan was to hide Jayadratha until the sun went down so that Arjuna would commit suicide as per his vow. It worked until darkness spread all over.
Arjuna was unable to find Jayadratha. He was frustrated. He had gone insane. He lamented to Krishna. Krishna asked him to calm down and listen to Jayadratha’s exultation in darkness carefully. He asked Arjuna to shoot his arrow in that direction. He also told him that it was not the end of the day as the solar eclipse occurred at that time.
Arjuna shot his arrow. Jayadratha was killed! He was beheaded, Arjuna shot arrow after arrow so that his head would be pushed high and fell on the hands of Jayadratha’s father before it fell down on the ground. As per his own boon, the head of Jayadratha’s father broke into thousands of pieces. Both Jayadratha and his father dead on the same day!
Why did Arjuna take Abhimanyu’s death seriously, while he took Aravan’s death for granted? It is an open question!
This blog post is a part of Blogchatter’s WRITE A PAGE A DAY campaign.
