Shishupal : son of Damaghosha (king of Chedi) & his queen Śrutaśrava (a cousin of Krishna) was born with three eyes & four arms which implied an Asuric nature. Then an ākāsha-vāṇi warned his parents not to kill or abandon child: “When your child sees him, his additional eye will disappear & when you place him on the lap of his nemesis his additional hands will fall off.” This prophecy was fulfilled when, of all the relatives & allies who came to felicitate the king & queen, the moment, the child saw Krishna & was placed in his lap. When Śrutaśrava begged him to forgive all her son’s past sins, Krishna replied, “Even after his time comes, I will pardon him up to 100 insults.” Shishupāla’s time came in the Rājasūya sacrifice held by Yudhishthīra who had made Sri Krishna Chief Guest. Enraged that his ally Jarāsandha was thus honoured, Shishupāla burst out with a litany of insults against Krishna; when he crossed the 100th the Sudarshana Chakra took off his head.
... s in order to farther it. Shishupal had been one of the most considerable & ardent supporters of Jarasundha in his attempt to establish a Magadhan empire; that attempt having failed he like Jarasundha's own son turned in Page 298 spite of his enmity with Krishna to Yudhisthere as the coming Emperor. Even the great quarrel and the summary slaughter of Shishupal by Krishna could not divert... some of the great scenes of the Mahabharata; the silence of the Pandavas during the mishandling of Draupadie, the mighty silence of Krishna while the assembly of kings rage and roar around him and Shishupal again & again hurls forth on him his fury & contempt and the hearts of all men are troubled, the stern self-restraint of his brothers when Yudhisthere is smitten by Virata; are instances of the power ...
... most gentle, sensitive and emotional of the Indian races, also the most anarchic, self-willed, averse to control and in all things extreme; there is not much difference between the characters of Shishupal and that thoroughly Bengali king & great captain, Pratapaditya; the other side shows itself especially in the women who are certainly the tenderest, purest & most gracious & loving in the whole world ...
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.