TWO
In a tide of memories, he sees his life flit before his eyes. After the white snake enters the sea, Krishna roams the forest around Prabhasa in a daze. It is part of Gandhari’s curse coming true: that he would wander the earth, alone. He ranges a whole life in vast, crystalline remembrance.
Arjuna sits alone in his apartment in Hastinapura. All at once, he begins to think of Krishna. The Pandava’s heart races and he hears Krishna’s voice, ‘Go and lie down, Arjuna. I want to speak to you.’
Arjuna goes to his bed. As soon as he lies on it, he falls asleep. In a dream Krishna comes to him and takes his hand. ‘Arjuna, do you remember I once told you that all things in this world are born to serve a purpose? And when each one’s purpose is served, it passes on.’
‘You said that when my chariot burned down after the war.’
‘And so it is with men. When a man has served every purpose he is born for, he doesn’t live another moment in the world, but death comes for him.’
‘Yes, you told me, Krishna.’
Krishna’s eyes are bright in Arjuna’s dream. ‘Arjuna, all that I came for has been accomplished. It is time for me to go.’
‘My Lord!’
‘You must also come soon, Arjuna. We cannot be apart, you and I.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘I wanted to see you once, before I went. Now I can go in peace.’
A smile lights the Avatara’s face, as he fades from Arjuna’s dream and the Pandava awakes.
His soul in tumult, Krishna runs through the forest and arrives back at the aswattha tree under which Balarama was transformed. With a sigh, he sinks down on the ground. With every moment now, he feels his death draw nearer; he can feel its breath on his neck. Krishna lies on the earth in shavasana, the posture of the dead and the Brahman, the timeless Spirit, washes over him in an infinite swell. He yokes himself deeply into that Godhead and is lost in samadhi.
Jara, the hunter, is out looking for a deer. From a distance, he sees Krishna’s feet around the bole of the tree under which the Dark One lies. Jara sees the feet red with forest earth and blood from the slaughter of the Yadavas. The old hunter thinks he is seeing a red hind and he stalks the crimsoned feet. When he is within range, he raises his rough bow and taking careful aim, looses his fateful arrow. The muni Durvasa had once blessed Krishna that every part of his body would be invulnerable to all weapons, save the soles of his feet. The arrowhead made from the sliver of the accursed club flares into the sole of the Dark One’s foot, piercing the base of the thumb toe. Krishna roars in shock, as fate’s shaft plunges agony through him.
Jara comes running to hear that cry. Gasping to see Krishna, four-armed, knowing him at once from rumor, the hunter falls on his face before the dying Avatara. Krishna places his hand on the wild man’s head and tells him, “It is only as I willed it and, my friend, you have set me free. Your mission in the world is fulfilled and you will find swarga for what you have done today.”
Sobbing, the hunter takes Krishna’s head onto his lap. The Avatara’s face is serene, wreathed in a smile. Next moment, he is dead. His spirit issues from his body and makes all the earth glow mysteriously, as it courses into heaven, where Indra, the Aswins, Rudra, the adityas, the vasus, the viswede-vas, devarishis and siddhas come to receive him. Greeting them, he ascends beyond, as Vishnu Narayana, into his own, most exalted realm.
Then, the very world is dim: like a flower that has lost its fragrance, like a body from which the soul has gone. At that moment, the sacred river, the golden Saraswati, also vanishes from the earth forever; and, black lightning into the void Krishna leaves, the kali yuga flashes into the world, entering her fully.