After Kamsa’s death a few quiet days passed in Mathura. Krishna settled into the city with Rohini’s son Balarama, among a people made entirely of Yadavas; youth and a royal grace were coming slowly into his body, and he walked the groves that dressed Mathura on every side. Far to the east, in Rajagriha, Jarasandha heard of Kamsa’s death from his own two daughters. The son of Brihadratha had two daughters, young and beautiful, Asti and Prapti, and he had given both of them to Kamsa; it was in their company that Ahuka’s grandson had taken his pleasure after chaining up his own father, and everyone had heard, many times over, that it was on the strength of Jarasandha’s backing that Kamsa had set the Yadavas aside and made himself king of Shurasena. Now the hero’s two widows stood before their father. Burning like fire at their urging, resolved to pay his debt to Kamsa and to kill every Yadu alive, Jarasandha set out for Mathura that same hour with his army of six divisions. Behind him came every king he had ever beaten and bent to his will, and every king who counted himself his friend or kinsman, each with his own army, some to please him and some out of plain jealousy of Krishna: Dantavakra of Karusha; the strong king of Chedi; the kings of Kalinga and Paundra; King Bhishmaka and his son Rukmi, the first of bowmen, who liked to challenge Krishna and Arjuna to fight; the kings of Anga and Vanga, Kosala, Kashi, and Dasharna; the kings of Madra, Trigarta, Shalva, and Darada; Bhagadatta, lord of the Yavanas; Pandya; Subala of Gandhara; Gonarda of Kashmir; and the mighty Duryodhana with the other sons of Dhritarashtra. They entered the country of Shurasena, rich in barley and firewood, and closed a ring around Mathura.
Led by Krishna, the Yadavas looked out from the gardens of Mathura over the encampment of the kings. Krishna said to Balarama, and said it gladly, “The work of the gods is surely close at hand now, because King Jarasandha has come to us. Look: the umbrellas of kings hungry for victory, white as the moon, stand in rows on their chariots and come toward us like swans ranging the sky. Jarasandha has come at the proper time. He is our first guest of battle, and he is the touchstone on which our strength and our weakness will be tested.” But as he studied those kings and their armies, another thought ran in the mind of that deathless first of the Yadus, and he told it to no one: “These kings look to me like men standing at the edge of death, sprinkled by Death himself like beasts for the sacrifice; their bodies shine as if they were already bound for heaven. It was under the weight of these kings’ armies that the earth went to Brahma with her burden, and in a few days kings will die by the hundred.” The emperor Jarasandha had come with his four-limbed army, and it was an ocean: chariots drawn by horses that nothing could stop, elephants like clouds hung with bells and golden seats, foot soldiers past counting with swords and mail. The rattle of the chariots and the lion-roars of the infantry filled the quarters of the city and its woods, and the army, parceled out among its tents, shone like the sea swelling in the bright half of the month. When the night had passed, the kings sat down on the bank of the Yamuna to take counsel. A clamor went up like the ocean heaving at the dissolution of the world; then the old guards walked through the ranks with turbans on their heads and canes in their hands, saying “Hush, hush,” and that whole army fell still and silent as a yogi.
Then Jarasandha spoke, like Brihaspati among the gods. “Let the armies of the kings together close this city on every side. Let the stone weapons and the maces be made ready; let the level ground be flooded with water; let the city be struck with picks and spades. Until I have killed with sharp arrows those two sons of Vasudeva dressed as cowherds, Krishna and Sankarshana, the siege is not to be lifted.” He divided the four gates among the kings: the western gate to the kings of Madra, Kalinga, and Kashmir, with Chekitana, the king of Valhika, the king of Karusha, and Druma of the Kimpurushas; the northern gate to Venudari, Rukmi, Drupada, Virata, Dantavakra, and the kings with them; the eastern gate to Ekalavya, Jayadratha, Shalya, and the Kauravas; and at the southern gate he took his own stand with Darada and the king of Chedi. “Kings, this city of rises and hollows is to be leveled flat today.”
Between the vast army of the kings and the handful of Yadavas a battle broke out like the war of the gods and the Asuras. But when Vasudeva’s two sons came out of the city, the heart went out of the kings’ armies, and the animals shied and panicked. Rama and Krishna rode one chariot, and they wheeled through the field in their anger like two makaras churning the sea; and as they came fully into the fight, the old knowledge of weapons that had been theirs in other ages woke inside them. And onto that battlefield, out of the sky, great burning weapons began to fall. They came down in bodies of their own, as if thirsty, to feed on the flesh of kings, hung with heavenly garlands and scents, blazing in their own light and terrifying everything that flew, and the Rakshasas who crave the flesh of kings came trailing after them. Four mighty weapons of Vishnu had descended for those two Yadavas: the plow Samvartaka, the mace Saunanda, Sharnga, the best of bows, and the club Kaumodaki. Balarama, the handsome first of the Satvatas, reached out first with his right hand and took the plow, dressed in heavenly garlands, which rose like a banner and moved obliquely like a serpent, and the mace Saunanda, which breaks the spirit of an enemy; Krishna took up the famous bow Sharnga, which all the worlds long to see, and into his other hand came the club Kaumodaki. The weapons they had carried in secret through every age of the world had come back to their hands in front of both armies. Raising his plow in anger like the king of serpents, Balarama went through the field like the very death of his enemies, dragging in the chariots, elephants, and horses of the Kshatriya warriors to cool his rage; he tossed up elephants the size of hills with the point of the plow and churned them, as it were, with blows of the mace, and so he ranged across the field.
The great Kshatriyas, all but destroyed at Balarama’s hands, ran back in fear to Jarasandha, and that king, who kept the duties of a Kshatriya, said to them, “Shame on your conduct as Kshatriyas, that you have come back from the field in fear. The learned say that those who lose their chariots and run from a battle carry a sin as unbearable as the killing of a child. Go back at once, at my order. Or do not fight at all; stand and watch. I will send these two cowherds to Yama’s house myself.” Goaded like that, the Kshatriyas rallied with glad hearts, spread their net of arrows, and went back into the fight, and some of the kings, out of pure love of war, took up heavy clubs and maces and walked into the field themselves. Meanwhile Krishna, on his chariot with Garuda on its banner, worked his way carefully up to Jarasandha and put eight arrows into him, five sharp ones into his charioteer, and more into his horses. Seeing Jarasandha in that danger, the great chariot warrior Chitrasena and Kaishika, the commander of the army, both shot at Krishna, and Kaishika put three arrows into Baladeva. Baladeva cut his bow in two, smashed Chitrasena’s chariot with ten arrows and cut his bow as well, and Jarasandha cut Balarama’s bow and struck his horses with his club. Then Balarama took up his mace and went for Jarasandha; Chitrasena ringed Jarasandha with a huge force of elephants and warriors, and the two armies closed hand to hand, with the blare of conches and drums, the dust thrown up by hooves and wheels, and thousands of great chariot warriors, elephant drivers, and foot soldiers fighting on with no further hope of life. With Baladeva at their head, Shini, Anadhrishti, Babhru, Viprithu, and Ahuka took half the army and struck the southern flank of the enemy; under Krishna, Avagaha, Prithu, Kanka, and Viduratha took the other half against the division held by Bhishmaka, Rukmi, and the king of Madra; and Satyaki, Yuyudhana, Shvaphalka, Prasena, and Satrajit attacked the left flank, where Venudari and the sons of Dhritarashtra stood.
Krishna fought Rukmi; Ahuka fought Bhishmaka; Vasudeva fought Kratha, Babhru fought Kaishika, and Shambhu fought Dantavakra; elephant riders fought elephant riders, horsemen horsemen, foot soldiers foot soldiers, and chariot warriors chariot warriors, and the champions of the Vrishni army fought the kings and soldiers of the Magadha party for twenty-seven days. Out of regard for Rukmini’s feelings Krishna did not kill Rukmi; his arrows burned like rays of the sun and were as dreadful as poisonous snakes, and Krishna turned them back by his own skill, every one. The field became a mud of flesh and blood from both armies, and headless trunks rose up on every side past counting. Between Rama and Jarasandha the battle was like the one between Vritra and Indra, the kind that lifts the hair on the arms: they covered each other with arrows like poisonous snakes, drew up close in their swift chariots and struck with every kind of weapon and roared like lions, and when the horses and the charioteers were dead, the chariots shattered, and the weapons spent, they took up their clubs and ran at each other, and the earth shook under their feet. With arms like mountain ridges, both of them masters of the club, they went at each other in such anger that the other warriors left off their own fighting to watch, and from the ten directions came gods and Gandharvas, Siddhas, sages, and Yakshas by the thousand, until the field shone with their light like the sky filled with stars. Jarasandha circled to the left and sprang at Rama, and Baladeva turned to the south, and they struck at each other with their clubs as an elephant strikes its rival with its tusks. When Baladeva’s club came down it sounded like a thunderbolt landing, and when the club of the king of Magadha came down it sounded like a mountain splitting open.
As the wind cannot shake the Vindhya, the club that flew from Jarasandha’s hand could not shake Rama; and Jarasandha, by his skill and his patience, bore the force of Rama’s club, which until that day had never come back from anything it struck without ending it. They circled each other a long time and both grew tired; they rested a little and fought again, and fought on even terms. Then, seeing how good Jarasandha was with the club, the mighty Rama in his anger let the club go and took up his mace, the one that never missed, and in that instant a sweet voice spoke out of the sky, the voice of the witness of the world, to the bearer of the plow. “Rama, giver of honor, this king of Magadha is not to be killed by you. Do not grieve over it; stop. By the means I have devised for his destruction, Jarasandha will soon meet his death.”
At those words of Providence Jarasandha lost heart, and Baladeva did not strike him. The Yadavas and the kings went on fighting a long while yet, and it was savage, but when the emperor Jarasandha was beaten and fled, and the sun went down, the Yadavas did not pursue him into the night. At Madhava’s wish they gathered their soldiers, each his own, and went back inside their city, and the weapons that had come down out of the sky went back into it and vanished. Jarasandha returned to his own city with his mind gone absent, and the kings who had followed him went home to their kingdoms. Yet even with him beaten the Yadavas could not count themselves safe, because he was a very powerful king. The great chariot warriors of the Yadus fought him eighteen times, and not once could they kill him on the field. Twenty akshauhinis of soldiers came with Jarasandha, and the Vrishnis could be counted.
Victories That Wore Them Down
Then the same pattern ran on. Prodded by his daughters and by the memory of Kamsa’s death, the king of Rajagriha would prepare for war again, come, lose, and come again. The great Yadava warriors fought him seventeen times and could not kill him, and then, in the shame of his earlier defeats and bent on killing Krishna, he set out on an eighteenth campaign with a huge army, and for all his efforts went back beaten once more. But the Yadavas paid for every victory; every time, the weight of twenty akshauhinis fell on a handful of clans, the walls of the city crumbled under blow after blow, the fields were trampled, and every win left the winners a little less than before.
Even when the news came that Jarasandha had withdrawn, the Yadavas sat down to counsel in dread of him, and the radiant Vikadru, who knew the laws of policy, spoke to the lotus-eyed Krishna in Ugrasena’s presence. “Govinda, my child, hear the origin of our family. I am telling it because the time has come.” And he told the lineage as Vyasa had told it: Haryashva, son of Ikshvaku, to whom the Daitya Madhu gave his daughter Madhumati and with her the coastal country of Anarta; his son Yadu, whom the serpent king Dhumavarna, in his city under the sea, gave his five daughters and this boon, that from his line would spring the seven houses of the Bhaumas, the Satvatas, the Bhojas, the Andhakas, the Yadavas, the Dasharhas, and the Vrishnis; Mathura, which Shatrughna founded and which came under this family after Rama’s time; that Riksha from whom the mountain on the seashore took the name Raivataka; and Vasu’s children, the son Vasudeva and the daughters Kunti and Shrutashrava, who became the wife of Damaghosha, king of Chedi. Then Vikadru came to his point. “Krishna, today our family stands at the edge of destruction, and that is why you, the self-born god, have been born as its leader. Jarasandha leads the whole circle of kings, his soldiers are past counting, and our resources are limited. This city has little food and fuel; no fort protects it; the ditches have not been kept up; there are no weapons at the gates; it could not hold against a siege for one day. Kamsa protected this city by his own strength; now Kamsa is gone and the kingdom is newly won, and the city will not bear a fresh siege. Shut inside, the people will say in their misery, ‘The quarrels of the Yadavas have drowned us.’ I say this only out of affection. You are the commander of this army and we will follow your orders; and you are the root of this quarrel too. Save us, and save yourself.”
Vasudeva said that what Vikadru had spoken was true and meant for their good, and that Krishna should do as he said. Krishna answered. “A king should act by order and by policy. A learned king does not set himself in front of a stronger enemy; he withdraws, and at the proper time, according to his strength, he fights. So although I am able, I shall leave this very moment, with the worshipful Baladeva, to save my life like a man who is unable. We shall climb the Sahya mountain and go into the south, and see the cities of Karavira and Krauncha and Gomanta, the best of mountains.
“When that emperor hears that we have gone, puffed up with success, he will not enter this city; in his pride he will come after us. So this departure of ours is for the good of the house of Yadu; by it the province, the city, and the citizens will be spared.” And able as they were, Krishna and Sankarshana set out for the south without a trace of anxiety. Changing their forms at will, they traveled through hundreds of southern kingdoms, climbed the Sahya, and in a short time reached the city of Karavira, which people of their own family had founded. There, on the bank of the river Vena, they saw a huge banyan, and under it, seated, Rama of the line of Bhrigu, who never tires: his axe on his shoulder, in bark and matted locks, white as the flame of a fire, the destroyer of the Kshatriyas, still as the ocean, keeping his three sacred fires, worn thin by three oblations a day; and close by stood his sacrificial cow with her calf, who gave milk whenever it was wanted.
Krishna spoke to him in sweet words. “Reverend sir, I know you: Rama, son of Jamadagni, who stirred the ocean with the speed of your arrows and founded Shurparaka, and cut off the thousand arms of Kartavirya with your axe; that axe lies on your shoulder today exactly as it did then. We are the two Yadavas of Mathura you will have heard of. For fear of Kamsa our father kept us in Vraja; as soon as we came of age we killed Kamsa in his assembly, gave the kingdom to Ugrasena, and went back to the work of cowherds as before. Then Jarasandha laid siege to our city again and again, and able as we are, for the sake of the city and the people, we have left it on foot, because we have no soldiers, no chariots, no armor, and no weapons. Receive us with good counsel.”
Rama, Renuka’s son, answered him. “Krishna, it is to counsel you that I have come here alone, without my disciples. I know you are no boy; the eternal lord of the universe has become a boy to do the work of the gods. There is nothing in the three worlds you do not know, yet listen to what I say out of devotion. This Karavirapura was founded by your ancestors, and today a king of boundless anger, Vasudeva Shrigala, rules in it, who out of jealousy of heroes has killed your kinsmen and the kings born in your line; he cannot bear another man’s prosperity, and he oppresses his own sons. You should not stay in this city. Now hear of the place from which you will be able to hold off Jarasandha, drunk as he is with power. Today we cross the Vena and spend the night on Yajnagiri, a spur of the Sahya; then across the river Khatangi, bright with golden lotuses, to the city of Krauncha, where the pious king Mahakapi of your own line rules; then to the holy shrine of Andhuha, and from there into the valley of the Sahya, to Gomanta of the many summits. One of its peaks rises so far into the sky that even the birds do not reach it; it is the resting place of the gods, like a staircase to heaven, like a second Sumeru, where all the celestial chariots come down. From that summit you will see the sun and the moon rise and set, and the great ocean with its heaving waves. If you fight from that fortress you will beat Jarasandha, because he will not be able to fight among the rocks. I see before me the weapons that will come to you in that battle: the discus, the plow, the club Kaumodaki, and the mace Saunanda, like the very forms of death, will drink in that battle the blood of kings driven on by Time, and the gods and your enemies will see your Vishnu form. As it was said in the assembly of the gods, held to lift the burden of the earth, this will be your first battle in the world with the kings, and this battle will sow the seed of the great war that will be called Bharata.
“From the signs, Jarasandha stands at the edge of ruin. Drink the milk of this sacrificial cow, sweet as nectar, and go by the road I have shown you.” They drank the milk with the descendant of Bhrigu, and the two Yadavas, with Jamadagni’s son as the third, went down that road like three fires and came to Gomanta in the evening, as the gods come to Mandara. The mountain was wrapped in creepers, painted with rows of peacocks, loud with peacocks’ cries that mimicked the muttering of clouds; its summits touched the sky, its rocks were scored by the tusks of elephants in rut, streaks of ore ran down its body, its caves held forests of jackfruit and mango, sandal, palmyra, and tamala, its valleys were the haunt of Siddhas and Charanas, and lions and tigers roared in it; its peaks had never known the blow of Indra’s thunderbolt, nor forest fire, nor fear of the high wind. They climbed it as birds climb into the sky, and on its highest summit they built a dwelling after their own heart.
Then Jamadagni’s son said, “Krishna, my child, now I go to Shurparaka. Even if you fight the gods you will not be beaten. This immortal body of mine has been blessed by the joy of your walking behind me on the road. The battle in which you will win your weapons will be fought here; this war with Jarasandha is the first installment of the work you have begun in human form. When you stand in the field with your discus and your club raised, the king of the gods himself will tremble at the sight of your eight well-shaped arms. Send quickly for Vinata’s son to sit on the banner of your chariot, because the earth, foreseeing the destruction of the kings, sits sunk in widowhood with her hair in a single braid, waiting for you. When you fight the assembled kings, remember me.” He said it, blessed him, and went his way.
After Jamadagni’s son had gone, the two brothers, wearing garlands of wild flowers, dressed in blue and yellow, wandered over the summit of Gomanta and watched the sun and the moon rise and set. One day, apart from Krishna, Sankarshana sat down in the shade of a flowering kadamba, and the smell of wine came to his nostrils on the wind; a craving for wine rose in him and his mouth went dry like a man’s who has drunk heavily the day before. Remembering how he had drunk nectar in days long gone, he looked for the wine and found that the rain the clouds had poured on that tree in the monsoon had gathered in its hollow and turned into a delicious liquor. Tormented by thirst, Baladeva drank it again and again until he was drunk; his body began to sway and his face and eyes, like the autumn moon, began to roll. The goddess Varuni, who had been the churning rod of nectar for the gods, had been born as wine in the hollow of that kadamba, and so she was called Kadambari. And when Krishna’s elder brother, drunk on Kadambari, began to speak in indistinct but sweet words, three goddesses came to him: Varuni, Kanti, the beloved wife of the moon, and the goddess Shri. Varuni folded her hands and said, “Baladeva, I am your beloved Varuni. You always lived beside the undersea fire, and now you have disappeared, so my father Varuna has sent me again as he sent me at the churning for nectar, and when the rains came I lay waiting for you in the hollow of this kadamba. Even if you refuse me, I will not leave you.” Kanti, swaying in her drunkenness, cried, “Victory to Rama,” and said, “I hold the thousand-headed Ananta higher than the moon.” And Kamala, who always rests on Vishnu’s breast, settled on the breast of the bearer of the plow like a garland of pure flowers and said, “Beautiful Rama, this is your crown, which I have brought from Varuna’s house, which used to shine over your thousand heads like the sun; and these golden earrings crested with diamonds, and this blue silk, worthy of the ocean, and this necklace.
“Your proper time has come now; wear these ornaments as you did before.” Baladeva accepted the ornaments and the three goddesses, and he shone like the autumn moon. And one day, while the two brothers were talking, Vinata’s son arrived, back from a battlefield, his body marked with the wounds of weapons, singing the victory of the gods. While Vishnu lay asleep in the ocean of milk, Virochana’s son had stolen his crown; for that crown Garuda had fought a dreadful battle with the Daityas, won it back, and, not finding Vishnu where he had been, was carrying it in his lap toward heaven when he saw his master on this mountain in a human form with no diadem on his head; and knowing his intention, the best of birds threw the crown down from the sky onto Vishnu’s head so that it sat there as though it had never been off, and it blazed like the noon sun on the summit of Sumeru.
Krishna said to Balarama with a glad face, “The preparations for battle on this mountain are complete. When I slept in the ocean, Virochana’s son, taking a form like the king of the gods, stole my crown the way a planet steals the light, and Garuda has brought it back. And I am certain Jarasandha is near, because I can see the tops of chariots fleet as the wind; the white umbrellas flying over the chariots of the kings are coming toward us like cranes in the sky. He is our first guest of battle and the touchstone of our skill in war. Until he comes, let us not begin.”
Jarasandha came, ringed by his four-limbed army moving like the sea, and every cave of that mountain rang with the rattle of chariots, the noise of elephants, the neighing of horses, and the lion-roars of the infantry. The kings pitched camp in a ring around the mountain, and their encampment spread out below shone like the ocean at the full moon. When the night had passed, they gathered in the valley to take counsel; again the clamor, again the guards with their canes crying “Hush, hush,” and Jarasandha said, “Let the armies besiege this mountain entirely; let it be split with picks and spades; until I have killed the two sons of Vasudeva, the siege is not to be lifted; and let the sky be so covered with arrows that not even a bird can get out.” As the oceans lie around the earth, those kings stood around Gomanta.
Then the king of Chedi spoke. “What is the use of taking this mountain like a fort, with its tall trees and its high summits? We will cover it on every side with branches and wood and burn it this very day. Kshatriyas are tender; they fight with arrows; they should not be set to fight on foot on a mountain. We are many, but we should not make light of those two Yadavas; we do not know their strength, and boys as they are, they accomplish hard things. We will pile dry grass and wood all around this mountain and set it alight; burned, they will give up their lives, and if they come out of the fire toward us, we will kill them all together.” Everyone liked it, and the quick-handed kings, judging the wind and the ground, set fire all around the mountain. Fanned by the wind, the fire climbed with its smoke and painted the sky with its flames; the burning mountain split in a hundred places and huge rocks came out of it like burning brands; molten metals of gold, dark blue, and silver ran from its heated body; serpents with great hoods, their bodies half burned, leaped up and fell with their heads down, again and again; lions and tigers ringed with fire screamed; the trees burned and bled their sap; and tormented by molten metal, burning trees, and frantic beasts, the mountain seemed to weep. The Kshatriyas, having set the mountain on fire and suffering from its heat themselves, fell back a mile. When the great trees were so scorched that no one could look at them and the root of the mountain had loosened, Rama said in anger to Krishna, “Brother, out of their hatred for us the enemy is burning this mountain with its slopes, its summits, and its trees. Look, the brahmins who live in its forest, ringed by fire and smoke, seem to be weeping. If Gomanta burns on our account we shall earn great blame in the world. So, to pay our debt to the mountain whose shelter we took, we will destroy the Kshatriyas with these arms of ours.”
With that, in his garland of wild flowers, his earrings and his crown, drunk on Kadambari, in his blue robe, white-faced Baladeva leaped from the summit of Gomanta into the midst of the kings like the moon coming down from the summit of Sumeru. The moment Rama jumped, Krishna jumped too, dark as a rain cloud, and when Hari struck the mountain with his two feet, its four sides broke open, and water burst from its rocks like elephants in rut and put out the fire on the instant, as the sun at the end of an age quenches the fire of dissolution with rain. The kings saw the fire die under the water, and they were afraid.
When the soldiers of the kings saw Vasudeva’s two sons come down off the mountain, they panicked, and the animals with them. The brothers had no weapon beyond their own arms, and still they wheeled through the field in anger like two makaras churning the sea; and the weapons they had won in the battle at Mathura came down out of the sky again like burning flames before the eyes of the assembled kings, and this time, with the plow Samvartaka, the mace Saunanda, and the club Kaumodaki, came the discus Sudarshana. Balarama this time took the plow in his left hand and Saunanda in his right, and Keshava took up with delight the discus Sudarshana, blazing like the sun, which all the worlds long to see, and Kaumodaki dressed his other hand. One in Vishnu, and divided among men into two under the names of Rama and Govinda, the two of them went through the field; with his plow black as a crow’s belly Rama dragged in the chariots and churned with his mace the mountainous elephants his plow had tossed up, and the great Kshatriyas abandoned their chariots and fled to Jarasandha, who repeated the same rebuke: “Why do you run in fear from one cowherd of small strength who is fighting on foot?” The Kshatriyas rallied again, and the two heroes of Yadu’s line bore their thousands of arrows as two mountains bear the rain. Then Krishna, conch and discus and club in his hands, swelled his body like a cloud filled with wind and began to cut down men, horses, elephants, and great chariot warriors with the discus that shone like the sun. Horsemen and foot soldiers gave up their lives in the flames of the discus like men struck by thunderbolts; elephants with their tusks broken by the mace ran off trumpeting like autumn clouds; and the whole royal army, ground under the plow, looked like the creatures at the end of the world. Far from fighting, the kings could not even look at that field, which had become the playground of Vishnu’s divine weapons.
Then Keshava, holding the discus like the sun at the dissolution and his club of dark iron, stood in the middle of the army and said, “Heroes of firm resolve, I am one foot soldier standing before you with my elder brother. Why do you run? And why does that ill-fated king Jarasandha, who is supposed to be protecting you, not come out in front of us?” At that the powerful king Darada ran at Rama, plow in hand, and called to him as a farmer calls a bull: “Rama, come and fight with me.” Baladeva laid his plow across Darada’s shoulder and struck him with the mace, and the king Darada, his head cut off, fell to the earth like a mountain split down the middle. Then Rama and Jarasandha met again, like Vritra and Mahendra; with their great clubs raised and the earth shaking under them they looked like two mountain peaks; everyone came close to watch, and Gandharvas, Siddhas, sages, Yakshas, Apsaras, and gods gathered in the sky. Again the thunderclap and the sound of a mountain splitting; again the club that flew from Jarasandha’s hand could not shake Rama, steady as the Vindhya, and again the king of Magadha, by his patience and his skill, baffled the blows of Rama’s club. Then the sweet voice sounded in the sky once more. “Rama, no more toil is needed. The king of Magadha is not to be killed by you; by my ordinance he will soon meet his death.” Jarasandha fell into a daze, Baladeva did not strike him, and when he was beaten and fled, all the kings fled with their elephants, horses, and chariots like herds of deer driven by a tiger, and beasts of prey gathered on that dreadful field the humbled chariot warriors had left behind.
When the great warriors had fled, the radiant king of Chedi remembered his kinship with the Yadavas and came to Krishna with his Karusha and Chedi divisions. “Scion of Yadu, I am the husband of your father’s sister. You are dear to me, so I have come to you with my army. I told Jarasandha, ‘Do not quarrel with Krishna; withdraw from the battle.’ He paid me no heed, and today I have left him too. But that king is not going home with his hostility behind him; he will trouble you again. So leave this place quickly, strewn with corpses, full of beasts of prey and ghosts and goblins; let us go to Karavira and visit King Vasudeva Shrigala. I have had these two chariots with swift horses made ready for you; mount them quickly.” Krishna heard his uncle out and answered gladly, “We were scorched in the fire of battle, and like a friend you have sprinkled us with the water of your words, fitted to the place and the hour. Looking at you we feel we have found a master; with your help we shall be able to kill Jarasandha and other kings like him, and since you are the first friend of the Yadus among kings, you should preside over all the battles still to come. Those kings who describe this battle of discus and club and the defeat of the kings on Gomanta will go to heaven, and so will those who only think of it.” They mounted chariots drawn by horses swift as the wind and went like three fires, spent three nights on the road, and reached Karavira on the fourth day.
Hearing of their arrival, and thinking they meant to attack the city, King Shrigala, as valiant as Indra, drove out of it on a chariot packed with weapons, whose laughter was the clatter of its axles and whose sound was the sound of the sea. On that chariot Shrigala came at Krishna as a moth comes at a flame: in his armor, his golden garlands, a white robe and a turban, bow in hand and fire in his eyes, breathing out anger, like Sumeru on wheels. At his lion-roar the earth sank under his weight, and when he saw Krishna seated at ease he rushed him as clouds rush at a mountain, and Vasudeva’s son, smiling a little, made ready to answer him.
Shrigala, proud of his station, spoke. “Krishna, I have heard of your work on Gomanta among that leaderless, feeble army of stupid kings, and of the defeat of those worthless Kshatriyas who knew nothing of war. But I hold the rank of emperor of the world; stand before me. You are no expert in the art of war; once I block your way, you will surely run. You are alone and I am with my army, so come, I alone will fight you; we two will fight, and in a fair fight one of us will die. If you are killed, I shall be the only Vasudeva in the world; and if I am killed, you will be.”
The forgiving Madhava said, “Strike as you please,” and raised his discus. Shrigala loosed a net of arrows at Krishna and rained down his mace and weapons of every kind, and though he was struck by weapons wrapped in flame, Krishna stood unmoved as a mountain. Attacked again and again he filled with anger, and he hurled the discus at Shrigala’s breast; having killed Shrigala, terrible in battle, swelling in pride, faithful to his Kshatriya duty, Sudarshana returned to its master’s hand, and Shrigala, his heart pierced by the discus, fell bleeding like a cloven mountain. His soldiers lost heart and ran; some went into the city and wept there, and some, unable to leave their fallen king, wailed beside him where he lay. Then Krishna, the discus with its silver hilt on his fingers, said in a voice like the rumble of clouds, “Do not fear. Do not fear.” Hearing the citizens’ cries, Shrigala’s queens came out of the city with their sons, and seeing their husband fallen in that state they beat their breasts, tore their hair, and dropped onto his body like uprooted creepers.
Weeping, they brought their boy Shakradeva to his father’s side. “Hero, this boy of yours does not yet know the art of ruling; without you how will he reach his father’s rank? How can you leave us all behind at once?” Then Shrigala’s queen Padmavati came to Krishna in tears, her son with her, and said, “Hero, this is the son of the king you have killed by your prowess. He seeks your shelter. If his father had bowed his head before you he would not have fallen like this at a single blow; if he had made friends with you he would not have taken shelter on the ground with his life gone. Sinless Krishna, protect this son of your dead friend as if he were your own.”
Krishna answered her gently. “Queen, our anger has gone with that evil-souled man; we are calm now, and we are his friends. Your gracious words have put out my anger, and this son of Shrigala is surely like my own. Call the priest, the ministers, and the people, and set him on the throne of his ancestors.” The people, the priests, and the ministers all came before Rama and Keshava, and when the prince had been set on the throne Janardana sprinkled him with celestial water. Having installed Shrigala’s son in Karavira, Krishna left that same day on a chariot drawn by the horses he had won in the battle, and the pious Shakradeva, with his mother and his people, carried his father far to the west and performed his funeral rites according to the ordinances, offered water in his name, gave thousands of gifts, and went back into his city with grief in his heart.
With Damaghosha, the two sons of Vasudeva spent five nights on the road, and when they reached Mathura all the Yadavas came out to receive them, Ugrasena at their head, with the traders, the townspeople, the ministers, the children, and the old. The crossroads were dressed with garlands and flags, drums beat out joy, and singers along the highways sang, “Yadavas, the two brothers Rama and Govinda, famed in the world, have come home to their city. Rejoice.” With their coming no one in Mathura was poor, or in dirty clothes, or sick at heart; cows, horses, and elephants were glad, birds sang auspicious notes, winds free of dust blew in the ten quarters, the images of the gods in the temples were pleased, and every sign of the Krita age appeared in Mathura. Like the sun and the moon entering a mountain, the two brothers went with glad faces into the house of their father Vasudeva, set down their weapons there, bowed their heads to Vasudeva’s feet, honored King Ugrasena and the leading Yadavas, and went in to their mother’s rooms. And so, following Ugrasena’s lead, Rama and Keshava passed some days happily in Mathura.
And then, out of a council of beaten kings, came the thing that would cut deeper than any sword. In Kundina, the city of Vidarbha, kings had gathered in Bhishmaka’s golden hall; Krishna had come there with Garuda, and at Indra’s command had been anointed emperor by those very kings, and had gone back to Mathura. After Vasudeva’s son left, Bhishmaka said to the kings, “You all know the calamity that fell on the swayamvara; forgive me for the fruit of my own misconduct.” He sent the other kings away, and there stayed with him Jarasandha, Sunitha, Dantavakra, the king of Saubha, Kaishika, Venudari, the king of Kashmir, and the other kings of the south, and with his eyes on his son Bhishmaka said, “When I watch my son’s movements, my eyes shake with fear. I count everyone a boy now; he alone is the foremost of men. Blessed is Devaki, who had the lotus-eyed Krishna for a son.”
Then Shalya, the radiant king of Saubha, whose chariot rode the open sky, said in sweet words, “Lord of kings, do not grieve for your son. Kshatriyas win or lose in battle; that is the fixed road. That eternal Purusha, Krishna, is unborn and undying; on this earth of mortals not even the bearer of the trident could defeat him, and it was because he knew Keshava to be Ishana that your son did not fight him. But it is not true that no one can beat him. Kalayavana cannot be killed by Keshava. Wanting a son, the great sage Gargya lived twelve years on powdered iron and worshiped Rudra, and when Shankara, pleased, offered a boon, he asked for a son whom the kings of Mathura could not kill, and Rudra said, ‘So be it.’ By that boon Gargya’s son Kalayavana cannot be killed by the kings of Mathura on the field, and least of all inside the city of Mathura, and if Krishna fights him he will beat Krishna. Kings, if my words seem right to you, send an envoy to the capital of the king of the Yavanas.” The leading kings were pleased and said, “We will do it.”
But hearing them, and remembering Brahma’s voice, the emperor Jarasandha lost heart, and he said, “Once, all the kings who were harried by the fear of some foreign king took refuge with me and got back their lost kingdoms, their servants, and their armies; today they are urging me to take refuge with another. When I, afraid of Krishna, am driven to seek another’s shelter, then truly fate alone is strong. Kings, it is better for me to die than to beg helplessly for anyone’s protection; I will take refuge with no one. The one the invisible voice has named as my death, I will fight, be he Krishna or Baladeva, a man or one of the gods. But he could destroy all of you, and so, for your protection, I will send an envoy to the Yavana. Let the envoy go by the road of the sky, so that Krishna can put nothing in his way; let this radiant king of Saubha go to the Yavana capital in his chariot bright as the sun, tell him of our quarrel with Krishna, and try to bring him into this circle of kings.” Having given his orders, the emperor went home with his army; the king of Saubha set out by the road of the sky in his chariot that moved like the wind; and Bhishmaka, brooding on his own misconduct, went into his palace with his son. And at the breaking of the swayamvara, the wise Rukmini, her face lowered in shame, said to her friends, “I tell you truly: I wish to be the wife of no one but the lotus-eyed Krishna.”
Kalayavana, king of the Yavanas, was a man of great strength who ruled the people of his city by the duties of a king; he knew the Vedas, spoke the truth, had his senses in hand, understood the rules of war and the art of taking forts, and honored his ministers. One day he was seated among his ministers when a cool, fragrant wind blew, and everyone saw a chariot coming from the south, golden and white, lit by the luster of its gems, drawn by horses swift as thought and wind, decked with tiger skins, the work of the divine architect, and on it the king of Saubha. Glad to see his friend, the Yavana king came and stood at the chariot’s step with the water of welcome in his hands, and the guest said, “I am not worthy of the arghya now; I am the envoy of the kings, and the wise Jarasandha has sent me to you.”
Kalayavana said, “The whole circle of kings sends you, so by honoring you I honor every king; sit with me on this throne. What has become impossible for him, on the strength of whose arms you kings all live as carefree as the gods under Shachi’s lord, that he has sent you to me? Tell me what the king of Magadha commands; however hard it is, I will carry it out.” And the envoy gave him Jarasandha’s message: “With the armies of the kings I tried to kill Krishna, who has oppressed the world from his birth; I besieged Gomanta and set fire to it, and out of the middle of that fire Rama and Krishna leaped from the summit onto our ocean of an army. In a moment the fire of the plow and the discus burned up our forces; Baladeva came after me with his club, and when he stood before me whirling that club like the rod of Yama, Brahma, the grandfather of all, said in an invisible voice, ‘Sinless Rama, do not strike him; it is destined that his death shall come from no other hand.’ I heard the grandfather’s words with my own ears, and I came away from the field full of care. Your father, wanting a son, pleased Shankara with hard austerities and obtained you, whom the princes of Mathura cannot kill; by Gargya’s austerity and Mahadeva’s power, Janardana will surely die as dew dries under the rays of the sun. The kings ask this: rise, march to defeat Krishna, enter Mathura with your army, and set up your glory there.”
Kalayavana heard the message and said with great joy, “I am blessed, my life is crowned, that kings past counting have asked me to defeat Krishna. When the kings have declared my victory with glad hearts, the mere sprinkling of their words, like water, will bring me success; even my defeat in this will count as a victory. Today the day and the stars are auspicious, and in this very hour I set out for Mathura to defeat Keshava.” He honored the envoy with gems and garments, gave wealth to the brahmins, poured his offering into the fire, and marched out with his army; and the king of Saubha, his wish accomplished, embraced the lord of the Yavanas and went home with a glad heart.
Krishna, meanwhile, had already sent Garuda on an errand. On the way back from Vidarbha, when Janardana had said, “I shall go to Mathura,” Vinata’s son had thought for a long while and then said with folded hands, “God, I will go and look at Raivata’s city Kushasthali, the lovely mountain Raivata, and the forest beside it, which is like Nandana. The Rakshasas have abandoned that city; it lies at the foot of Raivata on the shore of the great ocean, full of trees heavy with blossom and of creepers. I will examine it and see whether it is fit for you to live in, and if it is, I will clear away every thorn and come back to you.” With that the king of birds had flown west. And when Krishna reached Mathura with the Yadavas, Ugrasena, who had heard already of his anointing as emperor at the hands of the kings, had dressed the city, had worship offered to the family gods, and at the first note of the Panchajanya all Mathura had poured out with Rama at its head; Ugrasena himself carried the water of welcome and the water for the feet, and at the sight of Vasudeva’s son he climbed down from his white chariot, wanting to go the rest of the way on foot.
When he came up with the arghya in his hands, Krishna stopped his chariot and said, “King of Mathura, when I have set you on the throne saying, ‘Be the lord of Mathura,’ it would be wrong of me to undo it. Do not offer me arghya and water for my feet; you are the king of Mathura, and let nothing change that. Mount your chariot, wear your crown that shines like the sun, rule Mathura with joy among your sons and grandsons, and multiply the house of Bhoja.” As they entered the city the citizens were saying that the one who, without being anointed himself or sitting on the royal throne, had won the rank of emperor and still left the government of Mathura to Ugrasena, was Narayana come from his serpent couch. At his father’s house Madhava said to Ugrasena, “The throne the king of the gods sent should stay in the king’s palace; I will not take the assembly hall of the king of Mathura. Do not be offended.” Vasudeva, Devaki, and Rohini were so flooded with joy in that hour that they could not say a word. And Kamsa’s mother, reading the time and the place, brought the wealth and the gifts from many countries that Kamsa had gathered and laid them at Keshava’s feet.
Seeing that, Krishna called Ugrasena and said to him in sweet words, “It was Time that took your two sons; I killed them neither for wealth nor for the kingdom of Mathura. Conquer your enemies by the strength of my arms and perform many sacrifices and give many gifts; put away the grief and the fear that Kamsa’s death left in you. These riches I return to you.” That evening, when the two brothers had laid aside their weapons and were talking at ease, the clouds suddenly scattered in the sky, the earth and the mountains shook, the oceans heaved, and the Yadavas trembled and fell to the ground; Rama and Krishna, unmoved, knew by the beating of those vast wings that Garuda was coming. Seeing his minister of war arrive, Madhusudana led him into the great inner apartment of the Bhoja king, where they could sit at ease and take counsel after their own hearts, and said, “Son of Vinata, King Jarasandha cannot be killed by us; it has been so ordained. He is ringed by a huge army and powerful kings, and his army holds so many soldiers that we could not use them up in a hundred years. So I tell you that it never bodes well for us to stay in this Mathura; it is my own wish as well.”
Garuda said, “God of gods, I hung in the sky and surveyed that whole city, and it carries every auspicious mark. It stands in the ocean’s broad watery province; the sea lies to its east, so it is always cool; ringed on all sides by the ocean, a mine of every gem, covered with the flowers of every season, girt with ditches and walls, adorned with palaces and gates, a terror to enemies and a joy to friends. There stands Raivata, the best of mountains, like the garden of Nandana; make it the ornament of your gate. Like Indra’s Amaravati, your city will be famous in the three worlds under the name of Dwaravati. If the great ocean yields some ground that lies under water there, the divine architect will build after his own heart; have white palaces raised there like the assembly hall of the gods, from the gems, pearls, corals, diamonds, and sapphires of the three worlds.” Krishna and Rama sent him off with gifts of precious garments. And when the Bhoja king heard what Garuda had said, he spoke to Keshava with affection: “My son, without you, like a woman parted from her husband, we could not live happily in this Mathura or in any other kingdom. If Indra himself came to the help of all the kings, under the shelter of your arms we would not fear them. First of the Yadus, we will go with you.” Devaki’s son smiled and said, “King, I will do whatever you wish; there is no doubt of it.”
Westward
One day the lotus-eyed Krishna laid this reasoned proposal before the assembly of the Yadus. “This city of Mathura is the home of the Yadus; we too were born here and raised in Vraja. Now all our griefs are gone and our enemies are beaten, but our feud with the kings and our war with Jarasandha have begun. In friends and soldiers we stand at the summit of prosperity, yet Mathura is very small, and enemies can enter it easily; and if a crore of princes and soldiers live here together, there is every chance of a quarrel breaking out among them. So I think it better that we live somewhere else; if it pleases you, we will build a city elsewhere.” All the Yadavas said gladly, “Krishna, do whatever you judge right for the good of all these people.” And the Vrishnis said among themselves, “Jarasandha has been ordained unkillable by us; many armies of kings have died at this Mathura, but his soldiers are so many that we could not destroy them in a hundred years.” At that very time the emperor Jarasandha, with Kalayavana, was advancing on Mathura with his army: one feud from the east and another from the north, and both coming at the same walls.
When he heard the news, the truthful Krishna said, “Today is an auspicious day. So today, this very day, we leave Mathura with our army and our followers.” With Vasudeva at their head the Yadavas set out with their women, their chariots, and their elephants, and the noise of their soldiers rolled through the four quarters like the waves of the sea. Taking their wealth, their kinsmen, their friends, their golden chariots, their elephants in rut, and their gold-trapped horses, the Yadavas left Mathura and turned west, and Vasudeva and the other leading Yadavas, ornaments of any battlefield, rode in front and guided the army. Leaving the city of their ancestors came easily to none of them, but the survival of the clan weighed more than brick and stone. After a very long march they reached the shore of the ocean, bright with creepers, thick with coconut palms, covered with ketaki and palmyra and vines, and finding so beautiful a place the Yadavas were as glad as if they had reached heaven. Searching for a site for his city, Krishna saw a vast tract of land on the ocean’s edge: coppery soil mixed with gravel, bearing every auspicious mark of a city, as if the goddess of prosperity herself presided over it, fanned by the sea breeze and watered by the sea; and nearby shone the mountain Raivata, like Mandara, where Drona had lived many years and where King Ekalavya had lived, and the pleasure ground he had laid out there, like a board for dice, was famous under the name of Dwaravati. Keshava chose that site for his city; the Yadu commanders pitched their tents there for the night; and Gada’s younger brother, the leader of the Yadavas, began turning over in his mind the names he would give to the houses of that city.
And the enemy no Yadava weapon could touch was drawing near. His story begins further back. The high-souled Gargya was the preceptor of both houses, the Andhakas and the Vrishnis; he kept the vow of celibacy always, and though he had a wife he had never known her. His wife’s brother called him impotent before the king, and shamed like that in the city of Ajitanjaya, Gargya gave up all desire for his wife and went into hard penance to obtain a son; for twelve years he lived on powdered iron and worshiped Mahadeva, the bearer of the trident, and Rudra granted him a son who would be able to defeat the Vrishnis and the Andhakas in battle. The king of the Yavanas had no son. Hearing of the boon, that king brought Gargya into his own kingdom and set the women of the cowherds’ settlement to wait on him, and an Apsara named Gopali, in the guise of a cowherd woman, conceived by Gargya that dreadful child; and so Kalayavana was born, and he was raised in the inner apartments of the childless Yavana king like his own son.
After the Yavana king’s death he became king, and when, wanting a fight, he asked the leading brahmins who his rival might be, Narada named the heroes of the Vrishni and Andhaka houses. Krishna paid him no attention, because he had heard from Narada the story of his boon. When the Yavana king grew very powerful, the Shakas, Tukharas, Daradas, Paravas, Tanganas, Khashas, Pahlavas, and hundreds of Mleccha kings who lived near the Himalaya took shelter under him, and ringed by those robber kings like a swarm of locusts the Yavana king marched on Mathura; with horses, elephants, asses, camels, and an enormous host past counting he shook the earth, and the dust his soldiers raised hid the road of the sun. When word of his coming reached him, Vasudeva’s son had said to his kinsmen, “A great calamity has come upon the Vrishnis and the Andhakas, because by the trident-bearer’s boon this enemy cannot be killed by us. I used conciliation and every other means to win him over, but swollen with pride he wants a battle. Jarasandha does not forgive us, and the other kings, angered by Kamsa’s death, have gone to him for shelter and want to block us; we shall never prosper while we stay in this city.” And before withdrawing, Keshava had tried an old device on the Yavana king. To frighten him, he shut a dreadful black serpent, like a heap of collyrium, inside a jar, sealed it, and sent it to the Yavana king by his own envoy, and the envoy showed Kalayavana the jar with the words, “Krishna is a deadly serpent like this one.”
Understanding that the Yadavas had sent it to frighten him, Kalayavana filled the jar with dreadful ants; the ants, past counting, with sharp mouths, ate the serpent down to ash, and Kalayavana sealed the jar again and sent it back to Krishna with a long and detailed description. Now the message had been read in full on both sides: a great serpent can be finished by enough small biting things, and the small things were on the march. Seeing his device fail, Vasudeva’s son quickly left Mathura and came to Dwarka.
Then, to put an end to the feud, he settled all his heroes in Dwarka, reassured them, and set out on foot for Mathura with no weapon beyond his own arms. Kalayavana was glad at the sight of him and came at him in a rage, and Krishna drew him on; the lord of the Yavanas chased him to seize him and could not catch that yogi. Krishna ran easily and without hurry, always a step beyond his reach, and drew him exactly where he meant to take him. Long ago the gods, pleased with their victory in the war against the Asuras, had offered a boon to Muchukunda, the mighty king, son of Mandhata, and that king, worn out with fighting, had asked for sleep, and had said again and again, “Gods, whoever wakes me from my sleep, I will burn to ash with my eyes on fire with anger,” and the gods with their king had said, “So be it.” Exhausted, the king had come to the king of mountains, gone into a cave, and slept, and he had slept until Krishna saw him. Narada had told Krishna of Muchukunda’s boon, and so, with the Mleccha enemy at his heels, he went into Muchukunda’s cave and sat down at the royal sage’s head, out of the line of his sight. The witless Yavana king came into the cave after him, saw the king lying asleep there, and, like a moth falling into a fire, kicked him with his foot, for his own destruction. At the touch of the foot the royal sage Muchukunda woke, furious at the breaking of his sleep; remembering the boon Indra had given, he looked at the Yavana king with angry eyes, and the moment that look fell on him the king of the Yavanas burst into flame. As lightning burns up a dead tree, the fire born of the energy of Muchukunda’s eyes turned Kalayavana to ash in a moment.
Then Vasudeva’s son went to the emperor who had slept so long and said, “King, I have heard from Narada that you have been asleep a long time. You have done a great work for me. May good attend you; I take my leave.” Looking at this Vasudeva of short stature, Muchukunda thought, I have slept a long time and the age has changed, and he asked, “Who are you? Why have you come here? Tell me, if you can, how long I slept.” Krishna said, “In the Lunar line there was a king Yayati, son of Nahusha; Yadu was his eldest son. Know me as Vasudeva, son of Vasudeva, born in Yadu’s family; I came to you on an errand. I have heard from Narada that you fell asleep in the Treta age, and now the Kali has begun. The one I could not kill in a hundred years of fighting, you have turned to ash by the boon the gods gave you; tell me what I can do for you now.” King Muchukunda came out of the cave, and from its mouth he saw that the earth was covered with men of short stature, small in energy, strength, and prowess, and that his kingdom was in other hands. Seeing all that, he resolved on hard penance, dismissed Krishna, and went into the forests of the Himalaya; there he practiced austerities, left his body, and went to the heaven his merit had earned. Having destroyed his enemy by this device, Vasudeva’s son went to the dead king’s soldiers, took that army of chariots, elephants, and horses, whose master was gone, back with him to Dwarka, handed the four-limbed force to King Ugrasena, and adorned the city with the wealth he had won. The second enemy was finished, and not one Yadava had died in the finishing.
The Foundation of a New Age
On a clear morning, when the sun rose, Hrishikesha of Yadu’s line bathed and sat a while at the edge of the forest, surveying it for a site to build a fortress, and the leading men of the house of Yadu followed him. On an auspicious day under the star Rohini he gave immense gifts to the brahmins, had them perform the rites of blessing, and began the work of the fort; and as Indra speaks to the gods, he spoke to the Yadavas. “Yadavas, look at the site I have chosen, like the very abode of the gods, and I have chosen too the name under which this city will be famous on earth. I am laying out courtyards, promenades, level roads, and inner apartments, the marks by which this city of mine will be known on earth as Dwaravati, like Indra’s Amaravati. With Ugrasena before you, enjoy yourselves here free of care, like the gods. Take land for your houses, all of you; lay out gardens and crossroads; have the roads and walls surveyed; and send through the country for artisans skilled in building houses.” The Yadavas gladly chose the sites for their houses; some began measuring their land with ropes, and some, on that auspicious day, honored the brahmins and worshiped the family god. Temples rose in their proper places for Brahma, for Indra, for the lords of fire and water; and the four gates were built, Shudraksha, Aindra, Bhallata, and Pushpadantaka. When the Yadavas’ houses were up, Madhava thought of laying out the city quickly, and a pure thought rose in his mind: that Vishvakarma, Prajapati’s son, the first of architects, should build it. Sitting alone with his face toward heaven, Krishna called Vishvakarma to mind, and the divine architect stood before him that instant. “Vishnu of firm vows, sent in haste by the king of the gods, this servant of yours has come; what is your command? You are as worshipful to me as the grandfather Brahma and the three-eyed Shiva; there is no difference among the three.”
Keshava said, “First of gods, you were there too, and you heard the private counsel we held for the good of the gods; now you are to build me a house here. Build a city here to manifest my own self and adorn it with houses worthy of my power; a city famous on earth like Amaravati, and a house here for me like the one I have in heaven, so that mortals may see the beauty of my city and of the house of Yadu.” Vishvakarma said, “Lord, I will do all that you command, but this ground will not hold so many people. Your city should be so vast that the four oceans in their full forms could range in it; if the ocean of his own accord gives a little more room, your city can be very great.” Krishna had settled that already. He said to the ocean, the lord of rivers, “Ocean, if you have any regard for me, draw your form back out of the water for twelve yojanas; if you give the room, this city, full of wealth and enjoyments, will be able to hold my great army.” The ocean, by its power of yoga, gave him its bed, and seeing the respect the ocean paid to Govinda, Vishvakarma was delighted.
He said, “From this very day you will settle in this city; I had already drawn its plan in my mind, and in a little while it will be dressed in rows of houses, and with its lovely gateways, its gates, and its upper rooms this city will be the hump of the earth.” And by Vishvakarma’s mental effort that beautiful Vaishnava city, Dwarakavati, stood up. It was guarded by its gates, dressed in fine walls, ringed by ditches, full of palaces, of handsome men and women, of traders and goods of every kind; built on the earth, it looked like a city that moves through the sky; it was adorned with pools, streams of clear water, and gardens, with tall buildings that touched the clouds, with clean public roads and streets for chariots; and as Indra’s city adorns heaven, so that city, rich in every gem, adorned the ocean on earth. Walls of golden luster like the sun ringed it, its gates were like white clouds, its air stayed wet with the water of the ocean’s waves, and with its lovely seashore and its gardens Dwarka shone like the sky set with stars. As the moon lights the sky, so Krishna, surrounded by his own people, began to live in that celestial city, and the divine architect, honored by Govinda, went back to the world of the gods.
With the city built, Krishna wished to satisfy those of his people who were poor with wealth in plenty. One night Upendra called to his house Shankha, the first of the treasures, who serves Vaishravana, the god of riches, and Shankha said with folded hands, “Lord, I am the guardian of the treasure of the gods; tell me what command of yours I am to carry out.” Hrishikesha said, “Give wealth in plenty to those men of my city who have little. I do not wish to see any man in this city hungry, lean, dirty, or poor, nor to hear any man cry out, ‘Give me something.’” Shankha ordered heaps of wealth showered into every house in Dwaravati, and no poor man was left in it. Then Krishna sent for Vayu, the breath of living things, who came and said, “God, I move fast and I can go anywhere; as I am the messenger of the gods, so I am yours.”
Krishna said, “Go to the gods and their king, offer them my respects, ask them for the assembly hall Sudharma, and bring it to Dwarka. Vayu, these pious Yadavas will sit in it, so do not bring a counterfeit; only that undecaying hall, which moves and takes form at will, can hold these godlike Yadavas.” Vayu, swift as thought, went to heaven and came back to earth with the hall Sudharma, and as it had stood in the world of the gods for the gods, so Keshava set it in Dwaravati for the leading Yadavas. So, with things divine, earthly, and of the water, Hari adorned Dwaravati like his own wife. Then the emperor Ugrasena fixed the bounds of the city and set the commanders of the army and the heads of the clans in their places, and gave their stations to the priest Sandipani, the commander-in-chief Anadhrishti, Vikadru, the first of ministers, and the ten elders led by Uddhava who were always busy in the Yadavas’ affairs; the great chariot warrior Daruka was appointed Keshava’s charioteer, and Satyaki, the first of warriors, the commander of his army. With his city so ordered, Krishna began to live happily on the earth among the Yadavas, and a few days later, with Keshava’s consent, Baladeva won Revati, the good-natured daughter of Revata, for his wife. Where Mathura had woken every morning to the dread of a new siege, Dwarka woke to the wind off the sea, with prosperity beside it and room enough to begin again. And in this new city, in these new days, the next stories of Krishna’s life were about to open: the story of that princess of Vidarbha who had told her friends in Kundina that she would be the wife of no one but the lotus-eyed Krishna, and the freeing of sixteen thousand women from an asura’s prison, and much more.
Source: Harivamsha (the khila-parva of the Mahabharata), Vishnu Parva, chapters 79 to 86; chapter numbers of the critical edition (P. L. Vaidya, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune). Told as story from chapters 89 to 101 and 109 to 115 of M. N. Dutt’s English translation (1897), which follows the vulgate text, keeping its sequence of events.