Yuddha: The Death of Jarasandha

Bhima tears the tyrant apart

Krishna leads Bhima and Arjuna in disguise to the fortress of Magadha, where they challenge the invincible Jarasandha to single combat. In a battle lasting thirteen days, Bhima discovers the tyrant's fatal secret and tears him apart, literally reversing the miracle of his birth and freeing eighty-six imprisoned kings.

The Problem of Jarasandha

The path to the Rajasuya led through a single obstacle: Jarasandha, King of Magadha, the most powerful monarch in all of Bharatavarsha. No yajna of world sovereignty could proceed while this tyrant held eighty-six kings in chains, waiting to complete his grim hundred-king sacrifice to Lord Rudra.

Jarasandha had defeated the Kauravas. He had driven Krishna himself from Mathura, forcing the Yadavas to flee across the sea to build a new city at Dwaraka. Seventeen times he had attacked the Yadavas; seventeen times he had been repelled, but never defeated. No army had breached his fortress at Girivraja, nestled among five protective mountains.

"We cannot defeat Jarasandha in open battle," Krishna told the assembled Pandavas. "His akshauhini armies outnumber anything we can field. But there is another way, a way that requires only three men."

The Secret of His Birth

Krishna revealed the story of Jarasandha's miraculous, and terrible, origin.

King Brihadratha of Magadha had two wives but no son. In desperation, he sought the blessing of the sage Chandakaushika, who gave him a single mango with the power to grant conception. Unable to choose between his wives, Brihadratha cut the mango in half and gave each queen a portion.

Both conceived. Both gave birth. But each delivered only half a child, two lifeless, incomplete bodies that the horrified king ordered discarded outside the palace walls.

There, a Rakshasi named Jara found the halves. Drawn by some demonic instinct, she pressed the two pieces together, and the child sprang to life, whole and screaming. In gratitude for her strange service, Brihadratha named the boy Jara-sandha: "Joined by Jara."

"What Jara joined," Krishna concluded with a meaningful look at Bhima, "can be un-joined."

Three Brahmins at the Gate

Krishna, Bhima, and Arjuna departed Indraprastha not as warriors but as snataka brahmins, students who had completed their Vedic education and wandered seeking patronage. They carried no weapons; their bodies bore the marks of sacred thread and sandalwood paste.