Mahabharata - Aurva

Aurva

In the Krita age there used to live a mighty king called Kritavirya who had reigned for a long time. He was a Kshatriya king and was the disciple of the Brahmin clan of Bhrigus. After his death his successors faced acute financial problems and knowing the Bhrigus to be rich, approached them for wealth. Some of the Bhrigus gave them wealth while others did not. It so happened that some of the Kshatriyas came to find a large cache of treasure buried in the house of one of the Brahmins of the Bhrigu clan and they were enraged with the Bhrigus for deceiving them. They attacked the Bhrigus with their bow and arrow and began exterminating them. They did not leave behind even the children and also attacked and killed the  fetuses in the womb of the women. The women then fled to the Himalayas for protecting themselves and their children and one of them had hidden her embryo in her thigh. However that information was soon divulged to the Kshatriyas. The latter came to that place but were surprised to find the lady who had contained her embryo in her thigh, resplendent with energy like the sun. This was owing to the fact that the embryo possessed all the knowledge of the Vedas and hence shone brightly by the power of that knowledge and wisdom. The dazzling sensation made the Kshatriyas  blind. The kings could not find their way out in the Himalayas and they begged for forgiveness from the Brahmin lady, thinking that her power had made them blind. The Brahmin lady replied that it was not she, but that her son, still in the form of a fetus, was reponsible for dazzling them with his tremendous energy, and asked them to beg forgiveness from him. She said that being the lone survivor of the Bhrigu clan, the child was responsible for gaining all the accumulated knowledge of the Bhrigus and hence was a master in Vedas. She also said that she bore the fetus for one hundred years, during which period the child mastered the Vedas. When the Kshatriya rulers begged forgiveness from the child, the latter showed his kindness and set them free. The Kshatriya rulers went away, ashamed and humiliated, and the child came out piercing the thigh of his mother. Since the venerable rishi had pierced the thigh (Uru), he came to be known as Aurva. 

Aurva, who had still not contained his wrath on account of the misfortune of the Bhrigus in the hands of the Kshatriyas, resolved to perform the severest of ascetic penances for avenging the death of his ancestors. His penances burned the three worlds and the ancestors (Pitrs) came to him to request him to stop the severe ascetism which was causing immense hardship to the creation. The ancestors told him that they had stage managed their own death in the hands of the Kshatriyas as they were tired of the long life and wanted to enjoy heavenly pleasure. Therefore they buried their treasures and provoked the kings to come and kill them. Hence, they said that Aurva should desist from the act of taking revenge upon the world. Aurva said that out of his anger he had taken the vow of destroying the world. Now the fire of anger is wrath within him and it is imperative for him to get rid of that fire. Whenever he remembered that even the innocent children and the embryos of the Bhrigu clan were mercilessly killed by the Kshatriyas, he could not control his anger. He thus asked the Pitrs as to what should be done with the fire of his wrath as unless he did something with them, it would consume him. The Pitrs then advised him to shed the fire of his wrath in the ocean. He did so and this fire came to be known as Badavamukha - the shape of a horse which emits fire from its mouth in the middle of the ocean. Thus Aurva's wrath was quenched and the Kshatriyas survived.