Narayanastra -- The Weapon That Could Only Be Defeated by Surrender

On the fifteenth day of the Kurukshetra war, Drona -- teacher of both the Kauravas and the Pandavas -- laid down his weapons after hearing that his son Ashvatthama was dead, and was killed where he sat by Dhrishtadyumna. The report had been a ruse: it was an elephant named Ashvatthama that had died. When the real Ashvatthama learnt how his father had been deceived and killed, his grief turned into fury, and he reached for the most terrible weapon he possessed.

It was the Narayanastra, the personal weapon of Narayana -- Vishnu himself. In the Drona Parva of the Mahabharata, Ashvatthama explains that his father had received it from Narayana, who warned that it must not be used lightly, and that Drona had passed it to his son alone.

When Ashvatthama released it, the sky filled with weapons. The epic describes thousands of arrows, flaming discs, maces and spears pouring down on the Pandava army, burning and cutting down every warrior who raised a weapon against them. The more the Pandava soldiers resisted, the more furiously the weapon struck. Panic spread. Even Arjuna, the greatest archer of the age, could not stop it.

Then Krishna gave an order no general had given in the war. He told the whole army to throw down their weapons and step down from their chariots, elephants and horses -- to stand unarmed and bow before the weapon. The Narayanastra, he explained, strikes only those who fight it. To those who lay down their arms and submit, it does no harm.

The army obeyed -- all except Bhima. Too proud to submit, he charged the weapon on his chariot, and at once the whole force of the Narayanastra turned on him alone, wrapping him in fire. Krishna and Arjuna ran into the blaze, seized Bhima, dragged him from his chariot and forced the weapons from his hands. The moment he stood disarmed, the weapon's fury subsided, and it was quietened.

Duryodhana begged Ashvatthama to use it again. Ashvatthama refused: the Narayanastra, he said, could not be called back and released a second time -- if he tried, it would turn on him. The most powerful weapon of the war had been used once, and defeated not by a stronger weapon but by surrender.

The story is easy to read as a parable, and the tradition has always read it that way. The weapon belongs to Narayana; fighting it is fighting God, and pride, like Bhima's, only draws its full force. What saves the army is the posture of the devotee: weapons down, heads bowed, nothing to defend. Krishna's order echoes the teaching he had given Arjuna on the first morning of the war -- abandon everything and take refuge in me alone -- now enacted by a whole army on the battlefield.

It is also a story about Krishna's care. In the middle of a war he did not fight, he does not leave Bhima to his pride, but walks into the fire after him.