Ashvatthama

Ashvatthama is the son of Drona, the teacher of both the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and fights on the Kaurava side in the Mahabharata. His father taught him the Brahmashira, a weapon of overwhelming power.

After the Kauravas lose the war, Ashvatthama attacks the sleeping Pandava camp at night, killing Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi's sons. When the Pandavas hunt him down, he fires the Brahmashira. Arjuna answers with his own, and when the sages intervene, Ashvatthama cannot recall his weapon. He turns it on the wombs of the Pandava women, killing the unborn Parikshit, whom Krishna then revives. As punishment, Krishna curses him to wander the earth for three thousand years, shunned and diseased, and he gives up the gem on his forehead.

Later tradition counts Ashvatthama among the Chiranjivis, and folk stories claim sightings of him in modern India. These are legends; he is a figure of epic literature.