01.120
Pancharatra:Kripa's story.
Janamejaya said.
O great Brāhmaṇa, you ought to tell also the origin of Kṛpa. How was he born from the column of arrows, and how did he obtain weapons?
Vaiśampāyana said.
O great king, there was a son of the great sage Gautama named Śaradvat, who was born along with arrows, O lord.
His intellect did not arise so much in the Vedas as it did in the science of archery, O scorcher of foes.
As the speakers of Brahman mastered the Vedas through austerity, so he, endowed with austerity, indeed obtained all weapons.
Due to his deep devotion to archery and intense austerity, that Gautama greatly afflicted the king of the gods.
Then the lord of gods sent a divine maiden named Jālapadī as an obstacle to his austerity, O Kaurava.
She approached the delightful hermitage of Śaradvat and tempted Gautama, the bearer of bow and arrows.
Seeing her clothed in a single garment, Gautama beheld the nymph in the forest and became wide-eyed, for she had a matchless form in the world.
His bow and arrows indeed fell from his hands to the ground, and trembling arose in his body on seeing her.
However, due to the superiority of knowledge and combination of austerity, the great sage stood firm with supreme steadiness.
O king, a sudden change occurred in him, and thereby his semen was discharged, but he did not realize it.
Abandoning that hermitage and that nymph, the sage went away, and his semen fell on the arrow-pile.
O king, that which fell on the arrow-pile became divided in two, and a pair was born of Gautama, Śaradvat’s line.
While King Śantanu was hunting, a soldier by chance saw that pair in the forest.
Seeing the bow with arrows and also the black-deer-skins, he concluded they were offspring of a Brāhmaṇa versed in Dhanurveda, and he showed the armed pair to the king.
Then the king, filled with compassion, took the pair and came home saying, “These are my sons.”
Then he raised them and also performed sacraments, and Gautama, arriving then, became devoted to archery.
Because I raised these two children with compassion, the king gave them names based on that very act.
Gautama found those two there through austerity, and coming to him then, told him everything including lineage.
He taught him the fourfold Dhanurveda and various secret weapons fully, and in short time he attained supreme mastery.
Then all those great warriors — sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the mighty Pāṇḍavas, the Vṛṣṇis, and kings from various regions — mastered Dhanurveda.
