Bhojakaṭa
Bhojakaṭa · Bhoja + kaṭa, “Bhoja’s vow (the text’s own gloss)”
Bhojakaṭa is the great city that Rukmī, the prince of Vidarbha and brother of Rukmiṇī, built for his dwelling after Śrī Kṛshṇa carried Rukmiṇī away. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa glosses its name as “Bhoja’s vow”, for Rukmī founded it on a vow not to return to his father’s city of Kuṇḍina. Pradyumna‘s son Aniruddha was born there, and there, at Aniruddha’s wedding, Balarāma slew Rukmī. Śrī Śuka Maharshi tells of it to Parīkshit Mahārāja in Skandha 10, Chapters 54 and 61.
Rukmī builds the city
When Śrī Kṛshṇa carried Rukmiṇī away from the temple of Gaurī Devī, Rukmī pursued him and fought. Śrī Kṛshṇa overcame him, bound him with a cloth and shaved his moustache and beard, and Balarāma freed him and taught Rukmiṇī not to grieve. The victors had destroyed Rukmī’s strength and lustre and let him go with only his life. He kept remembering that he had been disfigured, and his hopes had come to nothing.
He built for his dwelling a great city famed as Bhojakaṭa, which the text glosses as “Bhoja’s vow”. Having said, “I will not enter Kuṇḍinanagara without killing Śrī Kṛshṇa and bringing back my sister,” he lived there in wrath.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 54
Aniruddha’s birth and marriage
In time Rukmī’s daughter Rukmavatī chose Pradyumna at her svayaṃvara, and Pradyumna, with a single chariot, defeated the kings who had come and carried her off. Though Rukmī remembered the old insult, he gave her to Pradyumna to please his sister Rukmiṇī. Their son Aniruddha was born in the famous city of Bhojakaṭa.
Parīkshit asked how Rukmī, who was waiting for a chance to kill Śrī Kṛshṇa, could give his daughter to his enemy’s son. Śuka answered that Rukmī, bound by the noose of attachment and wishing to please Rukmiṇī, even gave his son’s daughter Rocanā in marriage to Aniruddha, though he knew that such a marriage, hatred on one side and marriage on the other, was adharma. For that auspicious event Rukmiṇī, Balarāma, Śrī Kṛshṇa, Sāmba, Pradyumna, Cārudeshṇa and others went to the city of Bhojakaṭa.
The game of dice
When the marriage was complete, the proud king of Kaliṅga and other kings urged Rukmī to defeat Balarāma at dice, for Balarāma did not know the game. Rukmī called Balarāma and they played. Balarāma staked a hundred, a thousand and ten thousand gold coins, and Rukmī won them; the king of Kaliṅga laughed loudly in mockery. Then Rukmī staked a lakh, and Balarāma won, but Rukmī cheated and claimed it. Balarāma, his eyes red by nature, rose like the ocean at the full moon and placed a stake of ten crore; he won it fairly, and again Rukmī claimed that he had won and called on the witnesses beside him.
A voice from the sky said: “By dharma, Balarāma has won the stake. Rukmī is certainly speaking untruth.” Urged on by the wicked kings and driven by death, Rukmī rejected that word and mocked Balarāma: “You who wander in the forests and herd cattle have no skill in dice. It is kings who play with dice and with arrows, not people like you.”
At this abuse and the kings’ mockery, Balarāma raised an iron club and slew Rukmī. He caught the king of Kaliṅga, who had laughed with his teeth showing, within ten steps as he fled and knocked out his teeth, and with the iron club he broke the arms, thighs and heads of the other kings, who fled bleeding. When Balarāma killed his brother-in-law, Śrī Kṛshṇa said neither “it is good” nor “it is not good”, out of regard for the love of both Rukmiṇī and Balarāma.
The Yādavas, whose one refuge is Śrī Kṛshṇa, had fulfilled all their purposes. They set Aniruddha and Rocanā on a chariot and went from Bhojakaṭa to Dvārakā.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 61
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapters 54, 61