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According to the story, Jayadratha encashed a boon granted by Lord Shiva, where he can hold back all the Pãndavas except Arjuna for a whole day during war. Thus, during the 13th day of the war he became indirectly responsible as he stopped all Pãndavas (except Arjuna and Lord Krishna), when Abhimanyu was being slain by multiple Kaurava warriors in a deceitful way.

However, it's important to note that Jayadratha was neither present during Abhimanyu's death nor did he participate in the cheating. In fact, attacking the lone son of Arjuna was decided on the spot observing his invincibility.

Later on, instead of taking an oath to kill the Kaurava warriors most responsible for Abhimanyu's death, Arjuna went for "Mission Jayadratha"! Had he failed, he would have burned himself on the battlefield in front of all the warriors.

What wrong did Jayadratha do to face the wrath and animosity from Arjuna? Or was it just pure emotions which led Arjuna to take such an unwanted risk?

Side question: Before Jayadratha's death, there was a Solar eclipse in the sky to make it dark, which resulted temporarily in declaring end of the day. How long did the Solar eclipse (dark) last?

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  • lone son of Arjuna? per this answer to Can any one explain the family tree of Pandavas?, Arjuna had 4 sons.
    – Say No To Censorship
    Oct 13, 2015 at 18:59
  • @sv. Here I meant alone or helpless son of Arjuna. BTW While posting this question, I was aware of Arjuna's other son through Draupadi, but not other 2.
    – iammilind
    Oct 14, 2015 at 0:48
  • Actually Jayadrath kicked the dead corpse of Abhimanyu and hence Arjuna got wild after learning about such an incident and hence he vowed to kill Jaydrath next day before the sunset
    – ajay
    May 1, 2016 at 11:03
  • Evnthou doing his duty; it was totally against the war-ethics. In Mahabharat we c on number of ocasions hw the other warriors wud com to rescue.Bt here jayaDratha did nt let pandavas com to d rescue fr Abhimanyu. whch certainly was a mean act. However the reason why his rage got directed fully on jayadratha was because while Narrating the incident yudhishthir mentions the act of jayadratha and how he stopped them from rescuing abhimanyu.He doesnt mention the deeds of others in much details. lso Jaydratha hd shown hs wickdness earlier by trying 2 kidnap Draupadi. So out of rage he tuk the vow.
    – Vishal prabhu lawande
    Aug 31, 2016 at 12:37
  • It's because Arjuna felt betrayed.
    – Knowledge Seeker
    Feb 18, 2018 at 18:58

1 Answer 1

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Jayadrata was involved in killing of Abhimanyu. ( Reference : VyasaBharata by Narayanachar). Hence Arjuna took revenge to kill him. And as everyone knows Abhimanyu was killed in Adharma way. It was the firt wrong(adharma) killing in Mahabharata war.(Start of kali yuga)

Eclipse lasted for around 10 mins. I could not find any authentic source to put here. Hence it is my guess. But the war was not yet called off for the day. Jayadrata himself assumed that sun is set and the war is over for day.Hence paid the price.

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    Welcome to Hinduism.SE! You should cite sources (you should provide a specific citation and/or quote from Narayanachar's work).
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Sep 23, 2015 at 12:52
  • **Abhimanyu was killed in Adharma way. ** Do you have any proofed?
    – Sanatan Darshan
    May 9, 2020 at 7:06

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