Yādava Kshaya

After Uddhava left for Badarikāśrama, Bhagavān Kṛshṇa stayed on in Dvārakā. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa tells how powerful omens of destruction then appeared over the city. Kṛshṇa gathered the Yādavas and led them to the holy tīrtha (place of pilgrimage) of Prabhāsa on the western shore.

There, through a śāpa (a curse) of brāhmaṇas, the working of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s own Yogamāyā, and the mada (intoxication) of drink, the whole Yādava lineage destroyed itself in a war of kin against kin. They struck each other down with grass that turned into iron clubs. Balarāma departed by yogic withdrawal. Kṛshṇa alone remained. The event completed the work of Kṛshṇa’s avatāra (incarnation) and prepared his own departure from the world.

The omens at Dvārakā

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa stayed in Dvārakā, alone in his knowledge of what was coming. The world he had sustained and protected by his presence was entering its last phase. Great omens appeared in all three realms.

• In the sky there were eclipses and strange conjunctions.
• In the space between, the directions darkened and strange lights shone at the wrong hours.
• On the earth the ground trembled, winds blew against the season, the ocean behaved strangely, and jackals cried in bright daylight.

The birds, animals and elements all showed signs of coming destruction.

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had set all these signs in motion from within, as the antaryāmin (the inner ruler of all). He called the Yādavas to the Sudharmā sabhā (assembly hall) and announced that the time to leave had come:

“O best of the Yādavas, these terrible omens in all three realms show that Kāla, the destroyer, has arrived. We must not stay here even for a moment. Let us go at once to Prabhāsa, the holy tīrtha where the sacred Sarasvatī flows west into the sea.”

The journey to Prabhāsa

The women, children and elders were sent to the tīrtha of Śaṅkhoddhāra. The warriors and men of the lineage crossed the sea in boats and reached Prabhāsa. Among them were Pradyumna, Aniruddha, Sātyaki, Akrūra, Gada, Sāmba and thousands more from all the Yādava clans: the Dāśārhas, Vṛshṇis, Andhakas, Bhojas, Sātvatas and others.

At Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s direction they performed long pūjā (worship), dāna (gifts) and vrata (vows). They gave cows, land, gold, garments, elephants, horses, chariots and houses to worthy brāhmaṇas. They honoured the devas and made offerings to the pitṛs (the forefathers). They did all this with deep devotion, for the Yādavas knew and loved Bhagavān Kṛshṇa.

The intoxication

When the rites were done, the Yādava warriors sat on the shore of the ocean, their duties finished. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s Yogamāyā, which had been gathering force for this moment, now worked through the mada of wine. The Yādavas began to drink a strong fermented drink that destroys the mind. Its effect was quick and complete.

Within hours the greatest warriors of the age were overcome by pride and delusion. These were men who had faced Jarāsandha, Śālva, Narakāsura and Bāṇāsura. Old grudges came back. Arguments began, then taunts, then challenges. Then the fighting began.

The war of kin against kin

• Pradyumna fought Sāmba.
• Akrūra fought Bhoja.
• Aniruddha fought Sātyaki.
• Gada, Kṛshṇa’s own brother, fought his son, who was also named Gada.
• Sumitra fought Saṃgrāmajit.

Bonds of kinship that had held for generations broke in a moment. The fighting spread like fire: Dāśārhas against Vṛshṇis, Andhakas against Bhojas, cousin against cousin, uncle against nephew, father against son. Men who had stood side by side on battlefields against the greatest enemies of dharma now turned their weapons on one another.

On that shore grew clumps of hard eraka grass. It was the same grass that had grown from the powdered iron of the musala (iron club) that brāhmaṇas had cursed and that had been thrown into the sea years before. The Yādavas seized the stalks in their fists. As they did, the grass turned into iron clubs, the very shape of the original musala. With these they struck each other down.

The fall of the Yādava clans

The destruction was complete. All the great warriors of all nine Yādava clans were killed:

The Dāśārhas, Vṛshṇis, Andhakas, Bhojas, Sātvatas, Madhus, Visarjanas, Kukuras and Kuntīs gave up every bond of love and destroyed one another.

Pradyumna fell. Aniruddha fell. Sātyaki fell. Akrūra fell. Every name that had appeared in the record of the Yādava defence of Dvārakā, every general and every hero, fell on that shore.

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself entered the fighting and tried to stop the fighters. But the force of the śāpa and the force of his own Yogamāyā could not be turned aside, even by his own presence. He too was struck, and he bore it.

Balarāma’s departure

Balarāma had seen the whole destruction. He withdrew to the shore of the ocean and sat in the great yogic posture. He turned fully inward and fixed his mind on Bhagavān Vishṇu. He drew all his prāṇas (life-breaths) into the supreme consciousness. In that posture he let go of his human body and entered the mahāprasthāna, the great departure.

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa watched Balarāma depart. Balarāma was the elder brother who had been with him through every stage of this avatāra: from his birth in Kaṃsa’s prison, to the forests of Vṛndāvana, to the battles against every enemy of dharma. Now he was gone.

Kṛshṇa alone

Kṛshṇa sat alone under a pippala tree at the edge of the field of destruction. Around him lay the bodies of all the great Yādavas. He was at peace. It was not the peace of one who has lost. It was the peace of one who had arranged all this from the beginning and had always known how it would end.

He understood that the last burden of the earth had now been lifted. This burden was the Yādava warriors themselves. Many of them had been born again as powerful asuras, and they had served his purpose of removing the asura kings of the earth. The work of this avatāra was finished.

He sent his charioteer Dāruka back to Dvārakā with a message for the women, children and elders. They were to gather with their families, take what wealth they could carry, go to Indraprastha and seek Arjuna’s protection. The ocean would soon take back the city.

Then Kṛshṇa sat in complete stillness. He was ready to leave.

Arjuna’s mission

Dāruka reached Dvārakā and told what had happened, and the city broke into grief. Vasudeva, Devakī and Rohiṇī, the parents of Kṛshṇa and Balarāma, were overcome and soon left their bodies. Rukmiṇī, Satyabhāmā and the other chief queens of Kṛshṇa chose to enter the funeral fires with their husbands.

Arjuna came to Dvārakā from Indraprastha, as Kṛshṇa had asked. He performed all the funeral rites for Vasudeva and the others. He gathered the women, children and elders who had survived the Yādava clans and led them north toward Indraprastha. On the way robbers attacked them. Arjuna had once defeated the greatest warriors in the world, but now his divine weapons would not come when he called them, and his arms had lost their strength. He protected the survivors as best he could by ordinary means.

Arjuna understood what this loss of power meant. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had departed, and all the extraordinary śakti (power) that had flowed through Arjuna had been Kṛshṇa’s alone. Without Kṛshṇa, Arjuna was an ordinary man.

Arjuna made Vajra king over the remaining Yādavas. Vajra was the son of Aniruddha and the grandson of Kṛshṇa. He alone of the whole Yādava lineage had survived.

Dvārakā goes under the sea

As Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had foretold, the ocean took back Dvārakā. Viśvakarmā had built the great city at Kṛshṇa’s request, with golden towers and divine gardens. It sank beneath the waves, wave by wave. Only the place where Kṛshṇa himself had lived and walked stayed above the water, kept safe by his eternal presence there.

The Vishṇu Purāṇa account: the ṛshis’ test and the origin of the musala

The Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Pañcamāṃśa, Chapter 37, gives the origin of the musala śāpa.

The three ṛshis’ test. The ṛshis Viśvāmitra, Kaṇva and Nārada came to Dvārakā as if on a casual visit. The young Yādava men, known for their lack of respect and love of mischief, decided to test whether the ṛshis knew everything. They dressed Sāmba, Kṛshṇa’s son by Jāmbavatī, in women’s clothes so that he looked like a pregnant woman. They brought him before the ṛshis and asked: “O great souls who know everything, this woman is about to give birth. What will she bear?” The ṛshis saw through the disguise at once. They answered with a śāpa instead: “She will give birth to a musala, an iron club, that will destroy your whole lineage.”

Ugrasena breaks the musala. The musala was born. Ugrasena, the righteous king, had it broken into pieces and the pieces thrown into the sea. One iron piece was small enough to reach the shore whole, and it lay on the beach at Prabhāsa. From the large pieces thrown into the sea, eraka grass grew up along the shore. This sharp-edged grass became the means of destruction.

The war of kin against kin. The Vishṇu Purāṇa gives the same course of events. The Yādavas gathered at Prabhāsa and drank. Their old grudges broke out, and they began to fight. The eraka grass they seized turned into iron clubs just like the first musala. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s own Yogamāyā made sure that what the śāpa had decreed came to pass, through the iron piece lodged in the roots of the grass.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skandha, Chapter 30
• Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Pañcamāṃśa, Chapter 37