Kṛtyā (raised against Kṛshṇa)
Kṛtyā
Kṛtyā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kṛtyā.
Kṛtyā is the terrible śakti that the son of the king of Kāśī raised, by a vara of Bhagavān Śiva, to destroy Śrī Kṛshṇa after Kṛshṇa had slain his father. She rose from the southern fire of the prince’s agnihotra and rushed to Dvāravatī crying Kṛshṇa’s name, but the Sudarśana cakra shattered her power and drove her back into Vārāṇasī, and then burned that city to the ground. She is not the Kṛtyā born from the eyes of Pippalāda in the Gautamī Māhātmya.
How she was raised
Vyāsa tells the munis of the end of Pauṇḍraka Vāsudeva, who wore iron copies of the emblems of Vishṇu and called himself Vāsudeva. The king of Kāśī stood with him as his rear-guard ally, and when Śrī Kṛshṇa had struck down Pauṇḍraka, the Kāśī king fought on for his friend. With arrows from the Śārṅga bow Hari cut off his head and flung it into the city of Kāśī.
The king’s son learned that his father had been killed by Vāsudeva. With the purohita he worshipped Viśveśvara, and Bhagavān Śaṅkara, pleased with him in the great kshetra of Avimukta, told him to ask a vara. The prince said: “Svāmī, Maheśvara, by your anugraha (grace) let a terrible śakti named Kṛtyā arise to destroy Kṛshṇa, who destroyed my father.” Bhagavān Śiva said, “So be it.” At once a great Kṛtyā, a mahā-kṛtyā, rose from the dakshiṇāgni (the southern fire) in the prince’s agnihotra-śālā.
Her form
Her face was terrible with flames of fire, her mass of hair blazed with flames, and her eyes were terrible and misshapen: a fierce, raudra form. Crying “Kṛshṇa! Kṛshṇa!” in anger, she went towards Dvāravatī. Her devatā was Maheśvara.
Driven off by the Sudarśana cakra
All the people of Dvārakā saw that fierce form and took refuge in Madhuvairi, the refuge of all worlds: “The king of Kāśī worshipped Vṛshabhadhvaja and raised this great Kṛtyā to kill Kṛshṇa. Destroy this fierce śakti, tangled with locks of fire-flame.” Śrī Kṛshṇa heard their cry while he was playing at caturaṅga (chess) and, as if in play, set the Sudarśana, the divine cakra of Vishṇu, after the most dreadful Kṛtyā, matted with garlands of fire and spitting flames.
Shattered by Hari’s cakra, the Kṛtyā fled swiftly, and the cakra followed her. Robbed of her power by the cakra of Vishṇu, she entered Vārāṇasī. Then the Kāśī king’s army and an endless army of pramatha-gaṇas came out against the cakra with every śastra and astra. The cakra burned that whole army, and then the entire city of Kāśī, with its fourfold army, the king’s servants and citizens, its forts and storehouses, its houses, walls and gateways. When nothing was left to burn, the blazing Sudarśana came back to the hand of Bhagavān Vishṇu.
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 207