Chapter 31 - Lord Kṛṣṇa’s Return to Vaikuṇṭha

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Śrī Śuka said:

51.. (After the departure of Dāruka) there arrived god Brahmā, god Śiva along with his consort Pārvatī, gods led by the great Indra, Sages along with the progenitors of the world, manes, Siddhas, Gandharvas (Celestial singers), Vidyādharas, great serpents, Cāraṇas, Yakṣas and Rākṣasas, Kinnaras, Apsaras (celestial nymphs), Brāhmaṇas like Maitreya and others (or birds inhabiting the region of Garuḍa).

52.. All of them were desirous and extremely eager to witness the glorious ascent of the Lord to his region. Glorifying in their songs the exploits and incarnation of Lord Kṛṣṇa the descendant of Sūta, they crowded the sky with rows or their aerial cars and rained on him showers of flowers with the deepest devotion, O King.

5. Beholding god Brahmā (the grand-sire of theuniverse) and other celestials who were his own glorious manifestations, that all-pervading Lord concentrated his mind on the Supreme Self and closed his lotus eyes in samādhi (meditation) with a view to avoid the expected requests of the gods to visit their respective regions.

6. By the technical Yogic process called Āgneyī whereby the Yogi concentrates his mind on fire and burns down his body, the Lord did not consume with fire his world-enchanting form which was very auspicious for concentration and meditation (and was the support of the world) but entered with his body his own realm^[1]

7. Kettledrums were sounded in the heavens; flowers were showered down from the sky. And Truth, Righteousness, Fortitude, Glory, and Prosperity quitted the earth and followed him (to Vaikuṇṭha).

8. Gods and others (who assembled there), of whom god Brahmā was prominent, were not able to behold (or even cognise) Lord Kṛṣṇa of inscrutable ways, while he was entering his own realm (Vaikuṇṭha) and they were left dazed in utter astonishment.

9. The passing away of Lord Kṛṣṇa could not be perceived by gods, just as the trail of lightening in the sky after its passing across the mass of clouds cannot be seen by (mortal) human beings.

10. Witnessing the (incomprehensible) Yogic way of Hari’s disappearance, gods beaded by Brahmā, Rudra and others were wonder-struck and glorifying it, they returned to their respective regions.

11. O King, please note that the incarnation, disappearance and the (sportive) activities among human beings (Yādavas) of the transcendental Lord, are nothing but histrionics staged by dint of his Māyā Potency, like those of a theatrical performer. Having created this universe by his great Will Power (without any outside material or agency), and having entered it as Antaryāmin (Inner Controller) and sported (into it), he withdraws it within himself in the end, and abides established in his own (glorious) state.

12. Was that Lord incapable of protecting his own person who with(i.e. while he was in)his mortal body brought back, to his teacher Sāndīpani, his son who had been snatched away to the region of Death (Yama), who restored you to life while you were (practically) burnt by a great missile (Brahmāstra discharged by Aśvatthāman) and who vanquished Rudra, the destroyer of Yama and transported (his assassin) the hunter bodily to the celestial world?

13. Though he alone was the sole cause of the subsistence) evolution and destruction of the entire universe as he was the wholesole controller of all powers, he did not wish to leave his person behind in this mortal worlds as there was no propriety in retaining a mortal body in this world and wanted to demonstrate the glorious state of those who are established in the Self. (Had he left his body in this world, the Yogins would have preferred to stay on in this world.

14. He who gets up early in the morning and devoutly glorifies the passage to the Supreme State by Lord Kṛṣṇa, will reach that highest stage to which none is superior.

15. Dāruka ( the charioteer of Kṛṣṇa), bereaved of Kṛṣṇa arrived at Dvārakā. He fell at the feet of Vasudeva and Ugrasena and bathed them with tears profusely.

16. He reported to them, O King, of the total destruction of the Yādava clans. Hearing that heart-rending tale, people (of Dvārakā) were over-whelmed with grief and fainted.

17. Deeply agitated at their bereavement from Kṛṣṇa and beating their faces and heads (with uncontrollable grief), they hastily rushed to the spot where their kinsmen lay lifeless.

18. When Devakī, Ṛohiṇī as well as Vasudeva were unable to see their sons Balarāma and Kṛṣṇa, they were so afflicted with grief that they lost their consciousness.

19. They were so intensly stricken with grief at their separation from Lord Kṛṣṇa that they gave up their life then and there^[2]. The Yādava woman embraced their husbands and ascended the funeral pyres (burnt themselves in the fire).

20. The wives of Balarāma as well clasped his body and entered fire. Queens of Vasudeva embraced his body and the daughters-in-law of Kṛṣṇa clasped each the bodies of their respective husbands like Pradyumna and others, and consorts of Kṛṣṇa like Ṛukmiṇī and others with their hearts fixed on him entered the fire.^[3]

21. Deeply afflicted with the grief of separation from his dearest friend Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna consoled himself by pondering over the words of spiritual wisdom addressed to him(in the Bhagavad Gītā and the Anu Gītā) by Kṛṣṇa.

22. In the order of seniority of his relatives who were killed in the fight and had their races cut off, Arjuna arranged for the proper performance of the obsequies (for their welfare in the next world.)

23. The sea immediately inundated the city of Dvārakā forsaken by Hari, with the exception of the palace of the Lord, O great king.

24. It is the auspicious-most of the auspicious and by its very remembrance it removes all evils (including sins), for the glorious Lord Kṛṣṇa, the slayer of demon Madhu, always abides there.

25. Arjuna escorted women, children and old men, the survivors of the massacre and rehabilitated them at Indra- Prastha (the previous capital of Pāṇḍavas) and coronated Vajra (the son of Aniruddha, scion of the royal Yādava family) there, as their king.

26. Having heard the report of the destruction of their (Yādava) friends from Arjuna, your grandfathers installed you (on the throne of Hastināpura) as the successor of their dynasty, and all of them proceeded to the Great path (to the other world).

27. The moral (person) who with devout faith would glorify the incarnations and sportive acts of Lord Viṣṇu (Kṛṣṇa), the God of gods becomes absolved of all sins.

28. He who sings the above-mentioned auspicious-most sportive acts of the glorious Lord Hari in his boyhood, and his delightful incarnation and great feats achieved therein-which he has heard here (in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa or elsewhere, would have engendered in him, supreme devotion and would attain to the goal reached only by Parama Haṃsas (i.e. recluses of the highest order).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Contrast Mahābhārata Mausala 7.31.

tataḥ śarīre rāmasya vāsudeuasya co'bhayoḥ /
anviṣya dāhayāmāsa puruṣair āptakāribhiḥ //

[2]:

The Mahābhārata differs. After Arjuna’s arrival at Dvārakā, he held consultations with Vasudeva about taking away Yādava men and women with their kit. Vasudeva cast off his ghost by the Yogic process, and his four chief queens immolated themselves in the funeral pyre of Vasudeva—Mausala 7.15-25.

[3]:

Mahābhārata slates that only Rukmiṇī, Gāndhārī, Śaibyā, Haimayati and Jāmbavatī immolated themselves in fire, while Satyabhāmā and other dear wives of Kṛṣṇa went to the forest for performing penance.—Mausala 773-74..