The Five Gold Arrows

The Mahabharata war was going on in full swing. Every day, thousands were getting killed on both sides!

Bhishma Pitamah was the commander-in-chief of the Kauravas. Duryodhana went to him. He provoked Pitamah, saying that the latter was not killing the Pandavas, since he loved them very much. Thus, he accused Pitamah of partiality! Thus provoked, Bhishma Pitamah became very angry and took out 5 gold arrows. He read some mantras and told Duryodhana that with the help of these five arrows, the next morning he would eliminate the Pandavas!

But Duryodhana did not trust the words of Bhishma Pitamah and he kept the five arrows with him instead!

When Shri Krishna came to know about this, he called Arjuna and asked him to go to Duryodhana and ask him for the five arrows which can cause his and his brothers' destruction!

He made him remember the day when he had saved Duryodhana from a Gandharva and Duryodhana had told Arjuna to ask for anything for saving his life. Hence now the time had come for Arjuna to take this as an opportunity to ask for these five arrows with which Bhishma Pitamah was going to eliminate the Pandavas!

Arjuna went and asked Duryodhana for the arrows and reminded the latter of the childhood incident. Being a Kshatriya, Duryodhana had to give the five arrows to Arjuna!