The parashu named Vidyudabhi is the weapon of the god Shiva who gave it to Parashurama, sixth avatar of Vishnu, whose name means Rama with the axe and also taught him its mastery. Parashurama learnt Kalaripayattu from Lord Shiva who was the inventor of Kalaripayattu. Parashurama was the guru of Dronacharya, the guru who instructed the Pandavas in the epic of the Mahabharata. Bhishma and Karna, half brother of Pandava also took instruction in weaponry from Parashurama. Parashurama was known to have terrible temper having lost his father to the evil Kshatriya Kartavirya Arjuna (not to be confused with Arjuna of Mahabharata). Parashurama's weapon had supernatural powers. It had four cutting edges, one on each end of the blade head and one on each end of the shaft.