The Sage's Son
Jamadagni was a great sage, intense in tapasya, with his wife Renuka and their son Parashurama — who had received an axe from Shiva himself and training in all weapons.
One day, King Kartavirya Arjuna — a thousand-armed king who had won extraordinary power through tapasya — visited Jamadagni's ashram. The sage had the divine cow Kamadhenu, which could produce any food desired. Kartavirya demanded the cow. Jamadagni refused. Kartavirya seized the cow by force and killed Jamadagni.
The Vow
Parashurama returned from the forest to find his father dead and his mother weeping.
He took his axe and went to Kartavirya's court. With his single axe, he killed the thousand-armed king. He recovered Kamadhenu.
But Kartavirya's sons, in revenge, returned to the ashram and killed Jamadagni a second time.
Parashurama took a solemn vow: he would sweep the earth clean of corrupt and tyrannical kshatriyas.
Twenty-One Times
The *Bhagavata* records that Parashurama went around the earth twenty-one times, clearing it of rulers who had abused their power. Each time kshatriyas rose up and resumed corruption, he cleared them again.
He created five great lakes with the blood of the fallen.
The Transformation
After his mission was complete, Parashurama gave away all the lands he had conquered to the sage Kashyapa and other Brahmins. Having nowhere to live on earth, he went to the sea and threw his axe. Where the axe landed, the sea retreated — and the land that emerged became Kerala and the Konkan coast.
He remains immortal — a Chiranjivi — and is said to be in meditation on a mountain, waiting for the age when righteousness again needs a warrior-sage.