Dáruka, being thus instructed, prostrated himself again and again before Krishńa, and walked round him repeatedly, and then departed as he had been desired; and having conducted Arjuna to Dwárávatí, the intelligent servant of Krishńa established Vajra as king. The divine Govinda then, having concentrated in himself that supreme spirit which is one with Vásudeva, was identified with all beings 14. Respecting the words of the Brahman, the imprecation of Durvásas 15, the illustrious

[paragraph continues] Krishńa sat engaged in thought, resting his foot upon his knee. Then came there a hunter, named Jará 16, whose arrow was tipped with a blade made of the piece of iron of the club, which had not been reduced to powder; and beholding from a distance the foot of Krishńa, he mistook it for part of a deer, and shooting his arrow, lodged it in the sole 17. Approaching his mark, he saw the four-armed king, and, falling at his feet, repeatedly besought his forgiveness, exclaiming, "I have done this deed unwittingly, thinking I was aiming at a deer! Have pity upon me, who am consumed by my crime; for thou art able to consume me!" Bhagavat replied, "Fear not thou in the least. Go, hunter, through my favour, to heaven, the abode of the gods." As soon as he had thus spoken, a celestial car appeared, and the hunter, ascending it, forthwith proceeded to heaven. Then the illustrious Krishńa, having united himself with his own pure, spiritual, inexhaustible, inconceivable, unborn, undecaying, imperishable, and universal spirit, which is one with Vásudeva, abandoned his mortal body and the condition of the threefold qualities 18.

Footnotes

606:1 A name of Arjuna, the great friend of Krishńa, to whom the latter served as charioteer in the war between the Páńd́us and Kurus.

606:2 With Balaráma, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, and the rest.

606:3 The legend of the destruction of the Yádava race, and the death of Krishńa, appears probably in its earliest extant form in the Mauśala Parva of the Mahábhárata. It forms the narrative portion of the eleventh book of the Bhágavata, having been previously briefly adverted to in the first and third books; and it is summarily told in the Uttara Khańd́a of the Padma P.

606:4 The village of Pińd́áraka, still held in veneration, is situated in Guzerat, about twenty miles from the north-west extremity of the Peninsula. Hamilton, II. 664.