Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s Departure for Dvārakā
This chapter contains thirty-six verses, out of which the first is spoken by Śrī Śaunaka, verses 2–20 by Śrī Sūta, verses 21–30 by the women of Hastināpura, and the final six verses are again spoken by Śrī Sūta. The previous chapter ended with the description of the extraordinary passing away of Bhīṣma. Following this, Yudhiṣṭhira returned to Hastināpura along with his brothers and Śrī Kṛṣṇa to assume his royal duties. This chapter now begins with Śaunaka inquiring from Sūta as to how Yudhiṣṭhira, who was still aggrieved at the death of his relatives, became engaged in ruling the kingdom.
In verses 2–6, Sūta describes the ideal reign of King Yudhiṣṭhira, who was by now freed from all delusion after hearing the instructions of Bhīṣma and Kṛṣṇa. Under his rule, nature supplied all of the people’s needs in abundance. The clouds delivered sufficient rain, the earth gave generously of its bounty, and the cows were overflowing with milk. The trees yielded lavish quantities of fruit in every season, and the rivers supplied clean sweet water. The inhabitants of his kingdom experienced no material discomfort, disease, or distress.
In verses 7–20, Sūta describes Kṛṣṇa’s preparations to leave Yudhiṣ-ṭhira’s capital. After spending a few months in Hastināpura, the time had come for Him to return to Dvārakā. As He readied Himself to depart, the Pāṇḍava brothers, Kuntī, Subhadrā, Draupadī, Uttarā, Gāndhārī, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and other members of the Kuru family, all became overwhelmed with emotion. Anticipating separation from Kṛṣṇa, their eyes were filled with tears. When Kṛṣṇa sat on His chariot and began to move through the city, many people came forward to offer Him gifts, while musical instruments resounded, and the brāhmaṇas pronounced benedictions.
At this time, the young women of the city, being anxious to see Kṛṣṇa, went to the palace rooftops and showered flowers on Him. The conversation that took place between them was enchanting to all, including even the Upaniṣads personified. The ten verses spoken by them (21–30) form the core philosophical content of this chapter. Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī’s comments on verses 16 and 28 make it clear that the first seven verses spoken by these women were from the perspective of śānta-rasa, while the final three were from the perspective of śṛṅgāra-rasa. The first seven verses primarily describe Kṛṣṇa as the Primeval Puruṣa, the source of the cosmos and all living beings. In the final three verses, the women of Hastināpura especially praised Kṛṣṇa’s wives, who enjoyed the extraordinary fortune of rendering intimate service to Him and drinking the nectar of His lips.
In the final six verses, Sūta relates that Kṛṣṇa acknowledged the words of the city women with glances and gentle smiles and then departed from the city, accompanied by a military division supplied by King Yudhiṣṭhira. The Pāṇḍavas and other Kuru members accompanied Kṛṣṇa for a long distance until He convinced them to return to Hastināpura. After crossing the lands of Kuru-jāṅgala, Pāñcāla, Śūrasena, Brahmāvarta, Kurukṣetra, Matsya, Sārasvata, and the desert regions, Kṛṣṇa finally arrived at Dvārakā.
All Verses
- Verse 1Śrī Śaunaka inquired: After killing the aggressors who contended for his wealth, how did Yudhiṣṭhira, the foremost of the upholders of dharma, whose enjoyment of life was curtailed due to the pain he felt at the death of his relatives, undertake to rule the kingdom, along with his younger brothers? Thereupon, what did he do?
- Verse 2Śrī Sūta replied: Having resown the seed of the Kuru dynasty, which was consumed by the forest fire of war born of interfamily strife [just as a bamboo forest is consumed by the fire produced from the friction between its own trees], and having established Yudhiṣṭhira in his kingdom, Hari, the originating source of the world’s existence and the Supreme Immanent Regulator, became pleased at heart.
- Verse 3Yudhiṣṭhira was freed of delusion by the realization that became firmly established after hearing Bhīṣma’s instructions and thereafter those of Acyuta [Kṛṣṇa]. With Ajita as his refuge and assisted by his younger brothers, Yudhiṣṭhira ruled over the earth extending to the sea, just as Indra rules over the three worlds.
- Verse 4The clouds poured sufficient rain, the earth supplied all desired products, and the cows, whose udders were heavily laden, joyfully drenched the pasturing grounds with their milk.
- Verse 5The rivers, oceans, mountains, trees, shrubs, and medicinal herbs all yielded their respective fruits to King Yudhiṣṭhira as abundantly as desired in each and every season.
- Verse 6During the reign of King Yudhiṣṭhira, whose enemy was never born, mental anguish, bodily diseases, and miseries occasioned by nature, other living beings, or their own psychophysical constitutions, never occurred to the living beings.
- Verse 7-8After remaining in Hastināpura for a few months to console His friends and relatives and to please His sister Subhadrā, Kṛṣṇa requested Yudhiṣṭhira’s permission to leave, and on receiving his approval, He embraced and honored him. Being then embraced by others of the same age and honored by juniors, Kṛṣṇa mounted His chariot [and prepared to depart for Dvārakā].
- Verse 9-10Subhadrā, Draupadī, Kuntī, and Virāṭa’s daughter Uttarā, Gāndhārī, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and Yuyutsu, Kṛpācārya, the twin brothers Nakula and Sahadeva, Bhīma, and Dhaumya, as well as Satyavatī and other women, almost fainted, being unable to tolerate separation from Kṛṣṇa [the wielder of the Śārṅga bow].
- Verse 11-12Having heard even just once the enchanting glory of Śrī Kṛṣṇa being sung by authentic devotees, a person of awakened discernment, who is freed from all attachments due to the association of those devotees, is unable to give up their company. How then could the Pāṇḍavas, whose minds were resolutely fixed on Kṛṣṇa, while directly seeing, touching, conversing, lying down, sitting, and dining with Him, bear His separation?
- Verse 13Being completely bound to Kṛṣṇa through affection and with their melted hearts thus running after Him, they all gazed upon Him alone with unblinking eyes, as they scurried here and there [to honor Him with gifts].
- Verse 14When Kṛṣṇa, the son of Devakī, departed from His mansion, the wives of His relatives restrained their tears that overflowed out of affection, so that inauspiciousness might not befall Him.
- Verse 15At that time, mṛdaṅga drums, conches, bheri kettledrums, vīṇās, cymbals, horns, dhundhurī drums, ānaka kettledrums, dundubhi drums, bells, and other musical instruments, all sounded simultaneously.
- Verse 16Being anxious to see Kṛṣṇa, the women of the Kuru dynasty ascended to the palace roofs, where they glanced upon Him with bashfulness and mild smiles filled with love and showered Kṛṣṇa with flowers.
- Verse 17-18Kṛṣṇa’s dear companion Arjuna, who had conquered over sleep, held above the head of his most beloved friend [Kṛṣṇa] a white umbrella decorated with strings of pearls and fitted with a gem-studded handle. Uddhava and Sātyaki themselves held astoundingly beautiful fans. Being showered with flowers along the way, Kṛṣṇa, the Lord of the Madhus, appeared radiantly beautiful.
- Verse 19The true benedictions pronounced by the brāhmaṇas that were heard here and there were both inappropriate for He who is beyond all material qualification, and appropriate for He who is self-endowed with transcendental qualities [with which He descends to enact His humanlike play].
- Verse 20The conversation between the women of the capital of the king of the Kurus, whose minds were absorbed in Uttamaśloka [Śrī Kṛṣṇa], was enchanting to everyone’s ears and hearts [and even to the Upaniṣads].
- Verse 21He indeed, the Primeval Puruṣa, is assuredly this Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who, being one without a second, alone existed in His own essential being unqualified by phenomenality, in the beginning, prior to the activation of the guṇas, and during the night of cosmic dissolution, when the creative potencies were dormant and the living beings were merged in Īśvara, the Immanent Self of the cosmos and all living beings.
- Verse 22Intending to assign names and forms to the jīvas, who were then devoid of names and forms, that very same [Puruṣa, Śrī Kṛṣṇa] once again presided over primordial nature, His extrinsic potency that bewilders His own integrated parts in the form of the living beings. And being impelled by His own dynamic potency in the form of time, primordial nature became structurally aligned in such a manner as to evolve the world. Toward this end, He manifested the scriptures [to establish the path of prescribed action for the living beings].
- Verse 23He indeed [the Primeval Puruṣa] is this Śrī Kṛṣṇa, whose essential being the mystic sages, who have conquered their senses and regulated their life force, directly intuit here in this world by their purified intellective faculty, longingly incited through devotion. Certainly, [O sakhī], He alone [Śrī Kṛṣṇa] is able to completely cleanse the heart.
- Verse 24O my friend, He indeed [the Primeval Puruṣa] is this [Śrī Kṛṣṇa], whose sacred stories are repeatedly praised in the Vedas and in other esoteric scriptures by sages who are well versed in confidential topics, and who, as one alone, the Supreme Immanent Self, evolves, sustains, and dissolves the cosmos as a matter of His cosmic play, without becoming identified or attached to it.
- Verse 25Whenever kings whose intelligence is overpowered by ignorance conduct themselves unrighteously, then this very Śrī Kṛṣṇa certainly manifests various forms out of His intrinsic potency of unalloyed being in each yuga for the preservation of the world, and thus reveals His majesty, truthfulness, veracity, compassion, and fame.
- Verse 26Oh! The dynasty of King Yadu is most assuredly supremely praiseworthy, because this Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the best of all Puruṣas and the Husband of the Goddess Śrī, honors it by His birth among them. And Oh! The forest of Madhuvana [the entire region of Mathurā] is most assuredly supremely sacred because this Śrī Kṛṣṇa honors it by His playful movements in its midst.
- Verse 27How wondrous! This city of Dvārakā belittles the fame of heaven and establishes the sacred fame of the earth because its residents constantly behold their Master casting His smiling glances and bestowing His grace upon them.
- Verse 28O friend, this very Lord has certainly indeed been perfectly worshiped [in birth after birth], through austere vows, bathing in holy places, fire sacrifices, and other such practices, by those women who have been accepted in marriage by Him [Śrī Kṛṣṇa], because they constantly drink the nectar of His lips, for obtaining which, the women of Vraja, whose hearts are fully immersed in this nectar alone, become maddened.
- Verse 29Those queens, who have sons such as Pradyumna, Sāmba, and Āmba, were forcibly abducted by Kṛṣṇa after He subdued powerful kings headed by Śiśupāla through contests of valor alone in the ceremony of selecting the worthiest bridegroom among various suitors (svayaṁvara). In addition, there are thousands of other women who were rescued by Kṛṣṇa after He killed the ungodly Naraka, son of the Earth.
- Verse 30How wondrous it is that these queens confer supreme honor on womanhood as a whole, which has been deprived of its independence and stripped of its purity, because their lotus-eyed husband [Śrī Kṛṣṇa] never withdraws from their palaces and delights their hearts with precious gifts!
- Verse 31Śrī Sūta said: By casting glances imbued with gentle smiles, Hari [Śrī Kṛṣṇa] acknowledged such manner of extraordinary speech of the city women, who were conversing among themselves, and left Hastināpura.
- Verse 32Being apprehensive from the threat of enemies, even King Yudhiṣṭhira, whose enemy had never been born, sent an army of four military divisions, consisting of elephants, cavalry, chariots, and infantry, for the protection even of Kṛṣṇa Himself, the enemy of Madhu, doing so out of affection.
- Verse 33Thereafter, Kṛṣṇa set out for His city of Dvārakā, accompanied by His confidential associates [such as Uddhava], after first carefully consoling and sending back the Pāṇḍavas, who were exceedingly dear to Him, who had accompanied Him for a long while, and who were distressed at the prospect of separation.
- Verse 34-35Thereafter, O Śaunaka, having passed through Kuru-jāṅgala, Pāñcāla, Śūrasena with its lands along the bank of the Yamunā, Brahmāvarta, Kurukṣetra, Matsya, Sārasvata, and the desert land, the Omnipotent Śrī Kṛṣṇa reached Ānarta, which is beyond Sauvīra and Ābhīra. By that time, His horses had become somewhat tired.
- Verse 36In each and every district along the way to Dvārakā, Hari [Kṛṣṇa] was respectfully honored with gifts by the people of those different lands. In the evening, when He finally reached the western direction [Dvārakā], the sun just then set over the western sea.