14.080
Vaiśampāyana said.
Thus, having ceased lamenting, she grasped her husband's feet, and the lady sat down, sighing, looking at her son. (14-80-1)
Then, regaining consciousness, King Babhruvāhana looked at his mother on the battlefield and spoke to her. (14-80-2)
Is there anything more sorrowful than this, that my mother, longing for happiness, lies down beside her dead husband, the fallen hero, on the ground? (14-80-3)
Alas! The destroyer of enemies in battle, the foremost among all wielders of weapons, whom I have slain in combat, he beholds—so hard to kill. (14-80-4)
Alas! How firm is the heart of this queen, that it is not torn as she beholds her broad-chested, mighty-armed husband lying slain. (14-80-5)
I think that, for a man here, it will be truly hard to endure the journey ahead, where neither I nor my mother would be parted from life. (14-80-6)
Ah, shame! See here the gold that was on the chest of the slain Kuru hero, indeed, cast aside on the ground by my son and me. (14-80-7)
O O, Brāhmaṇas, behold my heroic father fallen on the earth, lying on a warrior’s bed, slain by me, his own son. (14-80-8)
Let the Brāhmaṇas and the charioteers appointed by the chief of the Kurus perform peace-rites today for this one who has been killed by me in battle. (14-80-9)
Let the Brāhmaṇas here today prescribe what expiation there is for me, a perpetrator of the heinous sin of killing a father on the battlefield. (14-80-10)
After having endured the unbearable twelve years and slain my father today, here I am, with the skin of this cruel one who is thus covered, now belonging to me. (14-80-11)
Today, as I eat from the skull of my own father, there is indeed no other atonement for me, having killed my father. (14-80-12)
See, O son of the best of Nāgas, your husband has been slain by me. I have done what is dear to you today by killing Arjuna in battle. (14-80-13)
I too, today, shall go along the path attended by the forefathers. I am not able by myself to uphold my own self, O auspicious one. (14-80-14)
O mother, if I die, you — who are the very goddess — should show affection equally to the wielder of the Gāṇḍīva bow. Truly, by this truth, I pledge myself. (14-80-15)
Having thus spoken, the king, overcome by sorrow and grief, purified himself and, O great king, spoke these words out of his grief. (14-80-16)
Let all beings, both immobile and mobile, listen; you too, O mother, I speak the truth just as it is, O best of serpents. (14-80-17)
If my father Jaya, best among the Bharatas, does not rise in this very battlefield, I shall destroy my body here. (14-80-18)
Indeed, there is no redemption for me anywhere if I kill my father; surely, afflicted by the slaying of my teacher, I shall attain hell. (14-80-19)
For killing a heroic kṣatriya, one is indeed freed by offering a hundred cows; but for killing my father in this way, the atonement is extremely difficult for me to accomplish. (14-80-20)
This Dhanañjaya, son of Pāṇḍu, alone is indeed of great brilliance. My father too was a righteous soul; how can I atone to him? (14-80-21)
Having said this, O king, the son of Dhanañjaya, the king of great wisdom, performed the rite of touching water, became silent, and, undertaking a fast unto death, remained so. (14-80-22)
