The story of Rukmini belongs to these Dwarka years. She was the daughter of Bhishmaka, king of Vidarbha, who ruled the southern lands from his city of Kundina. She had never once set eyes on Krishna. Yet story after story of his deeds, his victories, and his character had reached her in her father’s house, until she had settled it within herself that he alone would be her husband. She had weighed that choice and made it with open eyes, and she held to it.

Krishna, for his part, had heard of Rukmini too, of a beauty said to have no equal on earth, and he had asked Bhishmaka for her hand. Her elder brother Rukmi refused him. There was old blood between them. Krishna had killed Kansa, and Kansa had been son-in-law to Jarasandha, the emperor of Magadha, in whose shadow Rukmi and his allies stood. To Rukmi, Krishna was an enemy, and no enemy would have his sister. At Jarasandha’s urging the match was fixed instead with Shishupala, prince of Chedi, the youth Jarasandha had raised as his own. The wedding day was set. No one thought to ask Rukmini, as though she were a thing to be sent from one house to the next.

Her Choice, and Her Brother’s Pride

Rukmini had little power in any of this and a great deal of resolve. She would not sit and weep while her life was arranged over her head. In her heart the matter was already closed. She had chosen Krishna, and she would belong to no one else, whatever her brother decided and whatever kings gathered to witness it.

Her brother had reasons of his own to feel untouchable. Rukmi was a formidable warrior. He had won divine weapons from Druma, king of the Kimpurushas, and had received the Brahma-weapon from Parashurama, the son of Jamadagni. Whenever the two men met, he liked to remind Krishna of his own prowess. A man that certain of his own arm does not imagine he can be crossed, least of all in the matter of a sister he means to give away as he pleases.

The Chariot at the Temple

When the wedding drew near, the kings came to Kundina. Jarasandha came, and Shishupala the bridegroom, and Dantavakra, and behind them the kings of Anga, Banga, Kalinga, and the Poundra country, each with his army, until the plain outside the city was a field of tents. Krishna came too, and his brother Balarama, riding in with the Vrishni warriors as kinsmen invited to the marriage. Everyone moved on the same assumption, that the thing was settled and only the ceremony remained.

On the day before the wedding, dressed and blessed with all the auspicious rites, Rukmini rode out from her father’s house. Her chariot was drawn by four horses and ringed with soldiers, and it carried her to the temple of Indra, where she was to worship the goddess Sachi, Indra’s queen. Krishna saw her there. He saw a woman of dark, wide eyes and unhurried grace, and the sight caught in him like a fire fed with ghee. He said a word to Balarama, and his mind was made.

As Rukmini came out from her worship, Krishna moved. He scattered the guards around her, lifted her onto his chariot in full view of the wedding camp, and turned his horses for Dwarka. The assembled kings came to their feet in fury. Jarasandha, Shishupala, and their allies armed and gave chase, and the field broke into battle. Balarama met them with the Vrishnis, uprooting a great tree and sweeping the attackers back, and under that cover Krishna drove clear with Rukmini beside him. He had done it in the open, in front of every king who had come to hand her to another man. It was a public declaration that Rukmini had chosen, and that her choice was being carried out.

Rukmi’s Broken Pride

Rukmi could not live with it. Before his father and the whole court he swore that he would not set foot in Kundina again until he had killed Krishna and brought his sister back. He armed, took a large force, and rode hard after them, overtaking Krishna at the river Narmada. There he called Krishna out to a single combat of chariots. For all his divine weapons, the fight went one way. Krishna cut away his standard and his charioteer, broke his bow, broke the second bow he snatched up, and shattered the chariot beneath him. When Rukmi leaped down with sword and shield, Krishna sheared the sword from his hand and drove three arrows into his chest. Rukmi fell senseless to the earth. Krishna could have finished him where he lay.

But Rukmini’s eyes were on him. She came and fell at Krishna’s feet and begged for her brother’s life, and Krishna could no more refuse her that than he could have refused her his rescue. He raised her, held her, and calmed her, and for her sake he let Rukmi live, taking only his pride. Rukmi kept his life and lost his vow. Too ashamed to return to Kundina, where he had sworn to come back a victor, he raised a new city in Vidarbha, called it Bhojakata, and ruled there apart, while old Bhishmaka held Kundina to the end. Krishna carried Rukmini home to Dwarka and married her, and she became the first and foremost of his queens. This is a love story, and it is also the story of a choice honored. A woman had decided the course of her own life in silence, and held to it against her brother and against a gathering of kings, and it stood. And Krishna, having won everything, still spared the brother who had wronged her, because she asked, and because a bond is a bond even when the man who holds it has failed it.

Source: Harivamsha (the khila-parva of the Mahabharata), Vishnu Parva, chapters 87 to 90; critical edition (P. L. Vaidya, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune). Told as story, following the original sequence of events.