Part 4: Death of Kṛṣṇa

After saying this, they went to a garden outside the city and ate. They set out to the south and came to the forest Kauśāmba. Kṛṣṇa became extremely thirsty from drinking wine, from salty food, from heat and fatigue, from grief, and the destruction of accumulated merit. Kṛṣṇa said to Bala: “My palate dries up from thirst. I am not able to go to this forest, though it is full of shade-trees.”

Balabhadra said: “I shall go for water, brother. You stay here, resting under a tree, on guard.” Putting one foot on his knee, covering himself with a yellow garment, Hari went to sleep under a tree on the road. Rāma said again, “O brother, dearer than life, while I am gone, do not be careless for a moment.” Looking up, he said: “Goddesses of the forest, my younger brother is under your care. Dearer than the whole world, he must be protected.” With these words, he went for water.

Jarā’s son came there, a hunter, carrying a bow, dressed in a tiger skin, wearing a long beard. Roaming for hunting, he saw Kṛṣṇa like that and with the idea that he was a deer, Jāreya shot him in the sole of the foot with a sharp arrow. Getting up quickly, Kṛṣṇa said: “I, without any misdeed on my part, have been wounded by an arrow in the sole of the foot by a trick by some one who did not speak. I have never before killed any one, my family and name being unknown. So let your Honor tell your family and name.”

Standing in the trees, he said: “I am the son of the Daśārha, Vasudeva, moon to the ocean of the Hari-line, and of Jarā. Jarākumāra by name, I am the elder brother of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. After hearing Śrī Nemi’s prediction, I came here to protect Kṛṣṇa. I have been living here twelve years now and have not seen a human being here. Tell me, sir, who you are.”

Kṛṣṇa said: “Come! Come, tiger of men. I am Han, the very brother of yours for whose sake you became a forest-dweller. Your effort for twelve years has been in vain, brother, like that of a traveler on a road hard to traverse because of confusion of directions.”

Hearing that, Jarākumāra came there hastily, saying, “Is this Kṛṣṇa?” and after seeing Kṛṣṇa, swooned. Consciousness recovered with difficulty, Jāreya, weeping pitifully, asked Kṛṣṇa: “Oh! What is this, brother? Why have you come here? Is Dvārakā burned? Has the destruction of the Yadus taken place? Indeed, all of Nemi’s prediction is true from your condition.”

Kṛṣṇa told everything and Jāreya, weeping again, said: “Oh! I have done a fitting thing to a brother who has come! Where, pray, is the place in hell for me who have killed you, a younger brother, sunk in misfortune, dear to your brothers. I surely lived in the forest with the idea of protecting you. I did not know that Death had been placed before you by the Creator. Oh, earth, give a crevice by which I can better go now to that hell with this same body. Henceforth, a place here is worse than hell, the pain of killing a brother, worse than all pain, being present. Why did I become the son of Vasudeva and your brother? Or why did I become a human being even, I who did such a deed? After hearing the Omniscient’s prediction, why did I not die right then? While you were alive, what deficiency would there be, if I, a mere person, were dead?”

Kṛṣṇa said: “Enough of your grief, brother. Fate can not be transgressed by you nor by me. You are the sole survivor of the Yadus.^[1] So live a long time. Go! Go! Otherwise Rāma may kill you from anger at my killing. Take my kaustubha as a token. Go to the Pāṇḍavas. Tell them the whole story. Let them be of assistance to you. You must go somehow from here with reversed footprints so that Rāma, following your footprints, will not find you quickly. With my voice you should ask pardon from all the Pāṇḍavas and others also formerly harassed by me, when I possessed lordship, by making them render service, et cetera.”

So instructed again and again by Kṛṣṇa, he went away just so, after he had pulled the arrow from Kṛṣṇa’s foot, taking the kaustubha. When Jārcya had gone, Janārdana, suffering from pain in his foot, his hands folded respectfully, began to speak:

“Homage to the Blessed Arhats, homage to the siddhas, triple homage to the ācāryas, to the upādhyāyas, and to sādhus. Homage to the blessed Ariṣṭanemi, master of the world, who founded a congregation on earth, abandoning the wicked, us and others.”

After reciting this, resting on a couch of grass, placing a foot on a knee and covering (himself) with a cloth, Kṛṣṇa thought again: “The blessed nemi is fortunate, and Varadatta and others, the princes, Pradyumna and others, my wives, Rukmiṇī and others, who abandoned the status of a householder, the cause of dwelling in existence and became mendicants, but shame on me here who have experienced mortification.”

As he was meditating thus, a strong case of tetanus^[2] raged like a brother of Kṛtānta, breaking his limbs throughout. Suffering from thirst, the blow from the arrow, and the tetanus, his discernment breaking down suddenly, he thought again: “From birth I was never defeated by any one, man or god. I was reduced to such a state first by Dvaipāyana. Even with so much time elapsed, if I should see him, I would get up and kill him, myself. What does he amount to? Who would be able to protect him?”

Engaging in cruel meditation to this effect for a moment, his life of a thousand years completed, Kṛṣṇa went to the third hell which he had acquired formerly by karma that must be experienced.

Sixteen years of Viṣṇu passed as prince, fifty-six as governor, eight in conquest, and nine hundred plus twenty in the time as Ardhacakrin.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

He seems to forget Rāma.

[2]:

I have translated vāyu, ‘the windy humor,’ as ‘tetanus’ on the authority of an Indian doctor. Kṛṣṇa certainly died from tetanus. LAJ, p. 180, takes vāyu to be ‘paralysis,’ but it certainly can not be that here.