Rama said: "Father, because of my own fault, these worthless fools, Kartavirya's heirs, killed you in the forest with arrows, as though you were a beast. How, father, could such a death be fitting for one who knew dharma, walked the good path, and was innocent before all beings? What sin did those men leave uncommitted, who killed you, old and standing in tapas, unresisting, with hundreds of sharp arrows? What will these shameless men say before their counselors and friends, having killed a single unarmed knower of dharma?" Akritavrana said: "Having thus lamented long and bitterly in many ways, O king, Rama, great in tapas, performed all the funeral rites for his father. Rama, conqueror of enemy cities, burned his father on the fire and vowed to destroy the entire kshatriya race, O Bharata. Enraged, exceedingly strong, heroic and mighty, he took up arms and alone, like Antaka, slew Kartavirya's sons. And all the kshatriyas who had followed them, O bull among kshatriyas, Rama, foremost of warriors, likewise crushed. Twenty-one times the lord made the earth bereft of kshatriyas, and at Samantapanchaka he made five lakes of blood. In them the descendant of the line of Bhrigu satisfied his forefathers; he beheld Richika face to face, and Richika stopped Rama."