BOOK SIXTEEN
ONE
Thirty-six years pass after the war and they are peaceful and prosperous. Yudhishtira is king in Hasti-napura and his dharma pervades Bharatavarsha. Then, in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, the Pan-dava sees sinister omens all around him, like those seen before the war. Yudhishtira is certain some calamity stalks the earth, but he does not know what it is. Jackals and wolves howl in the city-streets at noon; kites, crows and vultures wheel in dense swarms in the sky. The horses and cows of Hastinapura are restive and hardly touch their feed.
Not only in the Kuru city are evil omens seen. They are everywhere, as if the earth herself has premonition of a tragedy more terrible than any other. Storms of fire spring up, with no obvious cause and lick down whole forests. Eerie meteors streak through the sky, by day and night. Unseasonal rains lash the earth and the sea rises in tidal waves and savages the shores of Bharatavarsha. The sun and the moon shine dimly, as if stricken by sorrow, they are wrapped in black haloes. Violent tremors rock land and sea and in Dwaraka, Krishna sees the omens1 and remembers Gandhari’s curse. He knows the end of the Yadavas is near.
The dwapara yuga was over on the tenth day of the war and for thirty-six years the pale kali has crouched, awesome and sinister, on time’s horizon: a Demon impatient to be loosed upon the earth.
Not as long as Krishna, the Avatara, lives in it, can the kali yuga claim the world. Krishna has a final task to fulfil, before he departs.
His Yadavas—the Vrishnis andhakas, Kukuras and the rest—are invincible. Even he has been hard-pressed to contain them, as a shore does a raging sea. Their hubris will be their undoing and Krishna knows their time has come. For his own time has come and if he leaves the world without destroying his powerful clan, they will overrun the earth. He knows that not men, why, not the Devas can tame the Yadavas of Dwaraka.
The omens are plain on the land, in the sea and the sky. In Dwaraka, only Krishna reads them clearly and what they portend. One day, Viswamitra, Kanva and Narada arrive with some other munis in the ocean city to pray at the temple of Pindarika. Deluded by fate, the Yadava princes decide to poke a little fun at the holy ones. They dress Krishna’s son, Samba, in some clothes borrowed from a fisherwoman in a nearby village and lead him, face covered, to the august rishis.
Mockingly, they prostrate themselves before the sages. One bold spark says, “This doe-eyed beauty has something to ask you, Brahmanas. She is too shy to ask herself and bids me speak for her. She is Babhru’s wife. She is pregnant and is anxious to have a son. Sages of vision, tell her if she will have a boy or a girl.”
The young men had expected a mild reproof, at worst and they are taken aback at the ferocity of the rishis’ response. His lips white, one of the wise curses them, “She will give birth to an iron club and that club will destroy the arrogant Yadava clan!”
Trembling with fright, the young men come running to Balarama. They tell him and not Krishna, what has happened: and there is, indeed, suddenly something growing in Samba’s belly. The same night, his stomach has to be incised and yields an iron club. Balarama has the club ground into powder and the powder cast into the sea, where it floats on green waves. Floating landwards with the tide, it settles fatefully on a blessed shore of confluence, at Prabhasa. That powder transforms itself into a shimmering pollen. Under the moon, the pollen grows with supernatural swiftness into a bank of silvery eraka reeds.
One perfectly arrowhead-shaped sliver of the club cannot be ground. Balarama thinks that, surely, a small sliver cannot harm the Yadava clan; he has that cast into the sea, as well. A fish swallows the sliver. The next morning, it swims into the net of some fishermen. While gutting their catch, they discard the piece of iron they find in the fish’s belly and it lies shining on a white, nocturnal beach, on a full moon night. An old hunter called Jara, abroad on his poach, spots the sliver. Jara is attracted by its perfect shape. He picks it up and fixes it to the head of his hunting arrow.
The sea swells in fury and lashes the marble walls of Dwaraka. The evil omens are out in the open, everywhere. Astrologers see cataclysmic syzygys in the heavens and Krishna, who misses none of the signs, is eager to leave the world.
One day, he says in his sabha, “Thirty-six years have passed since the war and it is time for Gandhari’s curse to take effect. We must go to Prabhasa, to seek expiation. Our ancestor Soma Deva found redemption at Prabhasa from Daksha’s curse; we might also find Salvation there, from Gandhari’s. Let our men prepare to travel to the place from where the Saraswati flows west.”
Krishna has a cousin, Uddhava, of whom he is particularly fond. As preparations get underway in Dwaraka for the pilgrimage to Prabhasa tirtha, one evening Uddhava comes alone to see Krishna. He kneels at the Dark One’s feet.
“Lord, I am frightened!” he whispers and he is shaking. “Krishna, I cannot bear to be apart from you. I see signs of doom all around us. I believe you mean to kill the Yadavas and leave this world yourself.”
Krishna raises Uddhava up and embraces him. “Uddhava, go to Badarikasrama upon Mount Gandhamadana. There, in the temple of Nara Narayana, you will find moksha. After I leave Dwar-aka, it will sink beneath the waves.”
He speaks to Uddhava, gently expounding the eternal dharma, as he had done for Arjuna on Kurukshetra. Finally, he gives him his own wooden padukas, the ones Krishna had worn for years. Hands folded, Uddhava walks around the Dark One in pradakshina; he kisses the Avatara’s blue feet, bathing them in tears. Laying a hand on his cousin’s head, Krishna blesses him to attain nirvana. Uddhava leaves on his final pilgrimage, not with the other Yadavas, but alone, in another direction, bearing the precious sandals on his head.
When Uddhava has left, Krishna goes into the temple that stands in his garden, beside the parijata tree he once took from Amravati. He stands in dhyana before the stone idol in that shrine, the image he had himself created for his father Vasudeva. With a thought, he summons two resplendent beings there. They stand before him as soon as he calls them, their bodies made of heaven’s light. One is Brihaspati, the guru of the Devas and the other is Vayu, the tameless wind.
Gravely, Krishna gives the sacred idol of Dwaraka into their hands. He says, “Take this holiest of my idols to Kerala, which is divided from the rest of Bharatavarsha by the western mountains. Establish it there and let it remain as a blessing upon the land, secure from the invasions of darkness that will sweep the country in the centuries to come. Let this idol stand in a shrine you must fashion yourselves in Kerala: to be a solace to all men, a lamp that will burn in the darkest nights of kali yuga.”
The unearthly ones receive the image in reverent hands, of wisdom and air. They kneel before him and when he blesses them, they vanish from there with the idol. They scour the southern country of Kerala, seeking an appropriate place in which to install it. One day, they find Siva at worship in a sylvan grove beside a lake. As soon as they see him, Siva vanishes and Brihaspati and Vayu install Krishna’s stone image where he sat. Thus, they found the most holy Krishna temple in Guruvayoor, named after the both of them.
Carrying provisions for a long excursion—many kinds of food, wine and meat—the Yadava men set out for Prabhasa, with Krishna and Balarama going before them. As they ride out from the ocean city, Krishna knows his people will never see it again, bathed in the first light of day, a vision among the waves. Sorrow surges in his heart, but he forces himself to ride on. As they go, the Dark One thinks of the last time he persuaded his people to visit Prabhasa. It was a life ago, when Arjuna the yati came to Dwaraka and eloped with Subhadra. Krishna sighs; a smile touches his lips.
At Prabhasa, the Yadavas pitch their tents and as the brahmanas they have brought with them chant the Vedas, they themselves begin to celebrate. The crisp sea air exhilarates them and the drinking and feasting begin in earnest, with Krishna joining in. The tirtha-yatra turns into a raucous outing. The Vrishnis mix wine with the food prepared for the brahmanas and feed the mixture to monkeys. They have some games between the different clans and these continue through the day and the night, hardly as if they have come to expiate their sins. A week passes; then one morning, Krishna calls them together for a ritual bath. He initiates them into some unfamiliar mantras, which he says will turn away Gandhari’s curse. In fact, these are last rites for safe passage from the earth.
Later that day, just before the noon meal, they all drink large quantities of the sweet and potent stimulant, maireyaka. Krishna had the maireyaka brought and he begins the drinking. The Yadavas do not notice that fate flutters down on every kshatriya’s shoulder like a dove of death. They have not seen the unusual reeds, shaped like jagged thunderbolts, growing in clumps at the water’s edge: silvery, ominous, eraka reeds, rustling sibilantly in the hot breeze that hums over land and sea.
Soon, every Yadava is roaring drunk. Krishna watches them, a tear glistening in his eye. Tensely, he watches them, an instinct of imminent calamity awoken in him. The different clans, the Andha-kas, the Bhojas, the Kukuras and the Vrishnis, have always envied one another and only Krishna’s masterfulness has held them together for so long. Now, the maireyaka and the intense games they have been playing have made them all more than a little rumbustious.
Suddenly, with a hard look at Kritavarman, whom he has never forgiven his part in the war, Satyaki cries, “There are some here that call themselves kshatriyas, but murder their sleeping enemies at night! And then run back to their homes, never to face the consequences of what they have done.”
Kritavarman’s face turns crimson. “Who was it that cut off Bhoorisravas’ head when he had put down his weapons and sat in dhyana? That was truly the deed of a kshatriya!”
Drunk as they are, all the others quickly take sides and a hundred voices are raised in anger. Krishna sees death everywhere, in the waves and on the sand. He sees the silver reeds glistening in the sun, which seems to stop in mid-heaven, with prescience of the massacre to come. Krishna watches his son Pradyumna take sides with Satyaki, the Vrishni, against the Bhoja, Kritavarman. Hot words fly back and forth.
Then, Satyaki roars, “Today I will avenge Dhrishtadyumna, the finest kshatriya who fought on Kurukshetra!”
In a blur, he draws his sword and hews off Kritavarman’s head in a scarlet explosion. The other Vrishnis are some way off and hardly has Kritavarman’s head struck the earth, when the Bhojas and Andhakas fall on Satyaki and hack him to pieces. Pradyumna is the only Vrishni at Satyaki’s side. He draws his sword and slashes out wildly. He is badly outnumbered and the Andhakas and Bhojas kill Krishna’s son, too.
By now, the Vrishnis arrive and a pitched battle breaks out. Like characters in a nightmare, the Yadavas helplessly enact the tragedy that follows. Akrura flies at Bhoja; Aniruddha and Samba fall on each other. Soon, they hardly know anymore who the enemy is, nor care. Son hews at father, brother at brother, all of them unhinged with maireyaka and with Krishna’s potent maya. They fight like a pack of dogs, felling one another with savage sword-strokes. But then, they are the invincible Yadavas: the dead rise again, intoxicated and laughing! Their wounds heal miraculously and death is their ally, because they are Krishna’s own people, his flesh and blood.
Aniruddha sees the eraka reeds growing in shallow water. Moved by an instinct he hardly understands, he throws down his sword and grasps at the glittering things. Balarama cries out to him to desist; too late. When Aniruddha pulls up a clutch of the reeds grown out of the powdered club of the rishis’ curse, they turn into a dark blade in his hands. Anyone he strikes with it falls dead instantly and never rises again.
All the Yadavas pull up those macabre reeds to be their weapons, powerful as thunderbolts. Now the killing begins in earnest. Those even scratched with a silver reed die, by the curse in them. Krishna has seen his son and Satyaki both killed before his eyes. With an anguished cry, he runs forward to stop the fighting. Like any man, the Avatara had hoped some miracle could save his people at the last moment from Gandhari’s curse, from the sages’ curse. His sons Samba, Charuka and Charu-varman turn on him, growling. They attack him viciously, like children who have repressed a lifetime of resentment and raging, festering envy. Now they are sons who hate their father more than they can bear any more and must kill him.
His cousin Akrura and all the others surround Krishna menacingly. His own head turned, with a heartbroken roar, the Dark One snatches up a handful of the deadly reeds and sets on his murdering clan. In his hands the reeds turn into a gleaming club and, roaring for fate, roaring like the God he is, roaring wild for sorrow, Krishna slaughters his Yadavas with that club. He smashes their noble heads and their splendid bodies. Blood flies everywhere, brightly in the sun, splashing into crystal water. Heads are broken like melons, handsome limbs shattered: a grisly orgy of killing and Krishna roaring above it all, above the screams of the others.
In moments, all the Yadavas are dead and Krishna stands alone among the corpses of his people, drenched in crimson, his chest heaving. Still, bloodlust rages in him.
“Balarama, where are you?” he roars, red-eyed. In a whisper, his heart calls him to the waving sea.
There, Balarama sits, calmed, under a giant aswattha tree growing at the forest’s edge. Daruka appears there and his master and he watch Balarama seated in padmasana, perfectly withdrawn in dhyana, lost to the world. Light enfolds his brother and at once Krishna grows calm. He knows he has accomplished everything for which he came into the world.
He says quietly to Daruka, “Ride to Hastinapura, my friend. Tell Arjuna what happened here and Yudhishtira. Tell Arjuna to come at once to Dwaraka, he must look after our women and children. The curse is on me, as well and my time is near.”
Daruka stands numb for a moment, hardly believing what has happened, so suddenly. Without a word, he prostrates himself at Krishna’s feet. Krishna raises him up and embraces him. He says, “Fly now, Daruka!”
The sarathy finds a chariot and rides like Vayu to Hastinapura. Krishna goes near Balarama and says, “Wait for me, brother. I must go briefly to Dwaraka, but I will fly back to you.”
There is no sign that Balarama has heard him. Black turmoil churns Krishna, as his death glides nearer. Quietening himself, somehow, he climbs into the Jaitra and flies back to Dwaraka through the air. At the palace, he runs up the marble steps and straight into Vasudeva’s presence. The world spins around Krishna, strange and terrible fires burn him. Panting and bloody, with the killing he has done, he comes into his father’s chambers. Krishna runs forward and kneels at Vasudeva’s feet. “Bless me, father, my end is upon me!”
With a cry, Vasudeva blesses his son. Krishna gasps, “I have sent for Arjuna, he will be here soon. Until then I leave the women and children in your care.”
Vasudeva looks helplessly at his son, on whom he has always depended. Summoning all his strength, the old Yadava somehow whispers, “Go in peace, my child.”
“Balarama is waiting,” cries the Avatara and runs out.
On his way, he hears wailing and screaming, as the women hear the news. In passing, he cries to them, “Arjuna will be here soon, he will look after you.”
Then he is gone. Krishna flies back to Balarama. He finds him still locked in padmasana, but now his body seems to be on fire: such light blazes from him. Krishna goes nearer. Suddenly, Balarama’s eyes fly open, staring. He sees Krishna standing before him and smiles. Balarama’s eyes close again and even as Krishna watches him, he begins to metamorphose. An immense white serpent slides slowly out of his mouth. As it comes, the snake transforms Balarama’s body for its own flesh; so that when it has emerged fully, nothing is left of the man. Big as a hill, the brilliant, thousand-hooded Naga pauses a moment, its hood inclined to gaze at Krishna. It lowers itself, glides majestically into the sea and vanishes. Varuna himself, countless celestial nagas and sacred rivers receive Ananta with padya and arghya.
Krishna knows his own time has come.