Dangerous Encounters 41

least these five sons would survive, but now you have killed them.”’
Thus in lamentation he died.

Subsequently, Arjuna arrested ASvatthama and was going to kill him.
In fact, Krsna ordered, ‘‘Kill him. He is not a brahmana; he is less than a
sudra.”’ But then Draupadi said, ‘‘I am suffering because of the death of
my sons, and this rascal is the son of our guru-mahardja, Dronacarya,
who has done so much for us. If ASvatthama dies, then Dronacarya’s
wife, our mother guru, will be very much unhappy. So release him and let
him go away.” Thus Arjuna freed Asvatthama. But then ASsvatthama,
having been insulted, retaliated by unleashing a brahmastra. The
brahmastra is something like a nuclear weapon. It can go to the enemy,
wherever he is, and kill him. ASvatthama knew, ‘‘The last descendant of
the Kuru family is Pariksit, the son of Abhimanyu. He is in the womb of
Uttara, so let me kill him also, and then the entire dynasty will be
finished.”

When that weapon was unleashed, Pariksit Maharaja’s mother, Uttara,
felt that she was going to have a miscarriage, and therefore she ap-
proached Krsna, saying, ‘‘Please save me.’” Krsna, by His mystic power,
therefore entered the womb of Uttara and saved the child. After the Bat-
tle of Kuruksetra, Pariksit Maharaja, who was still in the womb of his
mother, was the last remaining descendant of the Pandavas, and in
mature time, when he was born, only his grandfathers were still alive.
Pariksit Maharaja was the son of Abhimanyu, who was the son of Arjuna
and Subhadra, Krsna’s sister. When Abhimanyu was sixteen years old,
he went to fight, and seven great commanders joined forces to kill him.
Subhadra had only one grandchild, Pariksit Maharaja. As soon as he grew
up, the entire estate of the Pandavas was entrusted to him, and all the
Pandavas left home and went to the Himalayas. This history is described
in the Mahabharata. Many great misfortunes befell the Pandavas, but in
all circumstances they simply depended on Krsna, who always saved
them. Queen Kunti’s response to these misfortunes is recorded in the
next verse.
