0158/QK 1

At the end of the eighteenth day of the Battle of Kurukṣetra, all the great heroes of the Kuru dynasty and millions of warriors lay dead on the battlefield. Only the five sons of Pāṇḍu and a small handful of others remained to console the relatives of the slain. Prince Duryodhana's ambitions had been smashed, yet his few surviving followers wished to find him some last revenge. Still, only Aśvatthāmā was rash enough to carry out the scheme to murder the Pāṇḍavas' five children in their sleep and his thus finish the line of succession. He had expected that this would please his master, but Duryodhana was appalled to hear of the atrocity and died in lamentation. Aśvatthāmā was let free only by the astounding compassion of Draupadī, the slaughtered boys' mother, who pleaded for his life. But the shameless Aśvatthāmā made one more attempt to kill the last heir of the Pāṇḍavas, their unborn grandson in the womb of Uttarā, by hurling the supreme brahmāstra weapon. When she saw the missile flying straight at her, Uttarā immediately ran to the shelter of Lord Kṛṣṇa, who was just about to depart for His capital city. Kṛṣṇa protected the Pāṇḍavas and their mother Kuntī from imminent death by stopping the weapon's uncontrollable heat and radiation with His own Sudarśana disc. Having delivered the Pāṇḍavas from this last calamity, and seeing that all His plans were fulfilled, Lord Kṛṣṇa was again preparing to leave. For years Duryodhana had tormented Queen Kuntī's family, but Kṛṣṇa had protected them at every turn – and now He was going away. Kuntī was overwhelmed, and she approached Kṛṣṇa to offer Him prayers from the core of her heart.