Parashurama

Of all the avatars of Vishnu, none is stranger than that of Rama-with-the-axe. His real name was Jamadagnya, but this favored weapon was the battle-axe or Parashu, and it was combined with his pet name Rama, to give him the appellation by which we know him. As to why he was called Rama, when his name was Jamadagnya, there is no indication. It is merely one of the typical incongruities surrounding his entire life.

To begin with, this sixth avatar of Vishnu was a brahmin and should never have been a warrior, let alone the epitome of battle fury that he became. His wild and passionate nature is matched in all epic literature only by Cuchullihain of the Irish myths. Officially his mission - all avatars have a mission - is to clear the earth of the Kshatriya or warrior caste, which was making a nuisance of itself on Earth. This is a very feeble attempt to disguise plain and simple prejudice on his part as a divine plan. For the man was totally immune to reason. It was not enough that he killed off the Kshatriyas who murdered his father. He went after the entire community and wiped them out. Then he wiped out the sons who had survived and he did this for twenty-one generations. This is usually behavior of asuras, rakshahsas and danavas, not of divine personages. It was beyond all justice, all norms of sanity even. It is also perhaps the reason why there are hardly any temples in his name. He was never a popular avatar, not now, and not in the past.

He seemed to have a massive chip on his shoulder and a pugnacious attitude that was capable of instantly flaring up into an annihilating battle fury. My own take on his peculiar psyche is that he was an oddball and had the misfortune to have it pointed out to him early and regularly. For his birth was the result of an accident. His grandmother, Satyavati, mixed up a magic potion, that she and her sonless mother were to take, so that they could have the eternally desired for sons. As a result the warrior prince became a brahmin monk in attitude and she was going to have a killer and warrior for a son. Her husband was a sage however, and he modified the consequences of the mix-up long enough so that it would be the grandson and not the son who would be the warrior. That grandson was Parashurama.

It is obvious that his parents would be keeping a wary eye out on each of their offspring - anxiously waiting for the signs that would proclaim the misfit, the lover of weapons instead of holy texts. The first four sons they had were normal and studious brahmin boys. His father Jamadagni, another irascible temperament, and his mother Renuka, may have relaxed a bit prematurely. For the fifth was definitely the dreaded warrior. It is impossible to convey the sheer moral horror brahmin parents would endure when their son turned out to be a warrior in temperament, though there was nothing wrong with his ability to learn. To kill and fight is unthinkable for them and here was this young hellion who loved nothing else. It was also a breaking of the boundaries of the caste-profession another peculiar horror for the Indian mind. He was supposed to pore over texts, not work out with weapons. There is no doubt that the young boy was far from being the favorite of his parents, though he seems to have thereby developed a fierce need to win his father's approval at any cost. One can only guess at the deep unhappiness of a boy, conscious that he has within him a vast - not a talent or aptitude - but a positive genius for war but that is not what is the approved skill of his family. Add to this the fact that he was the bottom of the pecking order, with four older brothers, and we can understand where he got this relentless anger from.

He went off to the Himalayas to practice austerities and win the favor of the great god Shiva. This he did easily, as his formidable will power made him a natural for tapasya. When the god appeared however, his innate genius would not be denied and he asked for supreme mastery over all weapons as his boon rather than any desire for wealth or learning. His favorite weapon was the battle-axe and Shiva taught him how to use it so that he was invincible. He also became the greatest archer of his day.

On his return to his father's ashram, he found out that stirring times had come to the placid life of the hermitage. His mother had sinned in the eyes of his father who had pretty austere standards and he was vainly exhorting his older sons to kill her! Renuka was a pativrata, a woman inviolable in her chastity and faithfulness to her husband and a possessor of magical powers as a consequence. She did not even need a pot to bring water from the river, she just used to shape the flowing water into a pot form and carry it home. That unfortunate day however, she had seen the prince of Mrittikavati, Chitraratha, making whoopee with his wives in the river. This was a very typical ancient practice to lend some variety to the pleasures of the conjugal bed. The sight made her feel a bit envious as well as sorry for herself that such pleasures were not for her. Instantly her power of chastity deserted her and she could no longer form the water into a pot. Jamadagni, being a sage knew what had happened and he was in one of his typical rages when Parashurama returned.

The other sons felt that the old man was overreacting and anyway, there was no way they were ever going to harm their mother let alone kill her. Not so Parashurama, who swung his axe once, and had a decapitated mother. This act of Parashurama has never been seriously examined by Hindu commentators. At best they put up a piffling defense that he was being obedient to his father, and obedience was an obsession with the old Hindus, perpetually afraid that children would turn out to be impertinent. That it is so obviously an outburst of temper aimed at getting a bit of his own back, a retaliation for the feeling of neglect and being viewed with suspicion, if not active dislike, is so obvious that nobody ever says it out loud. There is just this peculiar reluctance to look at Parashurama, his myths are hurriedly given a cursory once over and then you move with relief to the safer territory of Rama and Krishna. For dangerous truths about the nature of interfamily relationships would come out if you explored the story of Parashurama too closely, it is a disturbing denial of the comforting myth of the perfect and cozy comfort zone the family is desperately hoped to be. This is Hindu India's greatest contribution to the psychological truth of hatred within families and of course it is completely at a subconscious level.

When Parashurama acted so promptly, Jamadagni was shocked back into his senses. By the norms of the time, the blame for this action would be all his, a father's command is paramount. His father asked him to receive a boon for this murderous promptitude. The canny young man chose eternal life, invincibility in battle (which he already had because of Shiva) and that his mother would be restored to life in her original purity. A head however was needed. This amazing person, according to a very popular myth in Andhra Pradesh, stalked down to the river and cut off the head of the first woman he saw. This happened to be a shudra, the lowest of low castes, which shows that his animosity to his mother was not quite over. Even the shadow of a shudra was regarded as polluting and to have to bear the head of one,. there is a touch of a refined and inspired sense of malice in this choice. However he was now the favorite, he had to be. His mother had been brought back to life and restored to the good graces of her husband and that is the only thing that really mattered for women at that time. Parashurama's triumph was even more complete because his hasty father had just cursed his brothers to become imbeciles.