पितृहन्ता

 

King Bimbisara had a son, Prince Ajatshatru.

One silent, moonless night, the prince crept into the king’s room with a knife strapped to his thigh. His intent was clear: to kill his father. But the palace guards caught him, and the king learned of the plan. Kind Bimbisara thought, “Perhaps it is time to step aside. Let Ajatshatru rule, and I may retire into a peaceful life of reflection.” Instead of punishing his son, he made him king.

Yet no sooner had Ajatshatru ascended than he struck. Swift as a viper, he had his father thrown into the darkest, coldest dungeon, forbidding anyone to bring him food except his mother.

But Bimbisara did not die. His loyal queen smuggled food in her clothes, then in her hair. When Ajatshatru discovered and forbade that, she covered herself with honey, butter, ghee, and sugar, allowing her husband to lick sustenance from her very body. Still, Ajatshatru’s rage found her plan, and she was banned entirely. Now, the king faced certain starvation.

Days passed. Impatience and fury consumed Ajatshatru. He summoned the palace barber and commanded unimaginable cruelty. The barber, bound by duty, obeyed. Bimbisara, thinking his son had relented, welcomed the figure with tears of joy only to be met with pain and death.

That very day, Ajatshatru learned his wife had borne a son. Joy surged in him, mingled with reflection. He turned to his mother, asking, “Did my father love me as I love my son?”

The queen spoke of sacrifices too extreme to imagine: of blood offered, of pain endured, of pus and boil sucked from the infant prince in an act of love beyond measure. She told him, “This man, your father, loved you. And you have killed him.”

Choked with tears, Ajatshatru ordered his father’s release, but it was too late. The man who loved him most had died that morning. Ajatshatru fell to his knees, wracked with grief, whispering over and over, “Forgive me, father. Please forgive me.”

Anger, once allowed to take root, consumes the soul like fire. It blinds you to love, clouds judgment, and twists loyalty into betrayal. In the aftermath, only regret remains, sharp and cold, haunting every memory of what could have been. 

Letting anger dictate one's actions leaves nothing but sorrow in its wake.