The legend of Parasurama is not altogether opposed to this view
in itself. [377] He was the son of a Brahman Muni or hermit,
named Jamadagni, by a lady, Renuka, of the Kshatriya caste. He is
therefore not held to have been a Brahman and neither was he a true
Kshatriya. This might portray the foreign origin of the Huns. Jamadagni
found his wife Renuka to be harbouring thoughts of conjugal infidelity,
and commanded his sons, one by one, to slay her. The four elder
ones successively refused, and being cursed by Jamadagni lost all
understanding and became as idiots; but the youngest, Parasurama,
at his father's bidding, struck off his mother's head with a blow of
his axe. Jamadagni thereupon was very pleased and promised to give
Parasurama whatever he might desire. On which Parasurama begged first
for the restoration of his mother to life, with forgetfulness of his
having slain her and purification from all defilement; secondly, the
return of his brothers to sanity and understanding; and for himself
that he should live long and be invincible in battle; and all these
boons his father bestowed. Here the hermit Jamadagni might represent
the Brahman priesthood, and his wife Renuka might be India, unfaithful
to the Brahmans and turning towards the Buddhist heresy. The four
elder sons would typify the princes of India refusing to respond to
the exhortations of the Brahmans for the suppression of Buddhism, and
hence themselves made blind to the true faith and their understandings
darkened with Buddhist falsehood. But Parasurama, the youngest,
killed his mother, that is, the Huns devastated India and slaughtered
the Buddhists; in reward for this he was made invincible as the Huns
were, and his mother, India, and his brothers, the indigenous princes,
regained life and understanding, that is, returned to the true Brahman
faith. Afterwards, the legend proceeds, the king Karrtavirya, the head
of the Haihaya tribe of Kshatriyas, stole the calf of the sacred cow
Kamdhenu from Jamadagni's hermitage and cut down the trees surrounding
it. When Parasurama returned, his father told him what had happened,
and he followed Karrtavirya and killed him in battle. But in revenge
for this the sons of the king, when Parasurama was away, returned to
the hermitage and slew the pious and unresisting sage Jamadagni, who
called fruitlessly for succour on his valiant son. When Parasurama
returned and found his father dead he vowed to extirpate the whole
Kshatriya race. 'Thrice times seven did he clear the earth of the
Kshatriya caste,' says the Mahabharata. If the first part of the story
refers to the Hun conquest of northern India and the overthrow of
the Gupta dynasty, the second may similarly portray their invasion
of Rajputana. The theft of the cow and desecration of Jamadagni's
hermitage by the Haihaya Rajputs would represent the apostasy of the
Rajput princes to Buddhist monotheism, the consequent abandonment of
the veneration of the cow and the spoliation of the Brahman shrines;
while the Hun invasions of Rajputana and the accompanying slaughter
of Rajputs would be Parasurama's terrible revenge.