Krishna's death by the hunter Jara

In the text — not yet checked

The hunter's name Jara literally means 'old age'.

The Yadavas have destroyed one another in a drunken brawl at Prabhasa, with handfuls of grass turning into iron clubs in their hands. Krishna has fought in it himself. Now the story moves to its last, quiet act.

Balarama, Krishna's elder brother, goes first. Krishna finds him sitting alone in yoga, and a white snake comes out of his mouth and goes toward the ocean, where the Ocean and heavenly serpents honour it. That is how Balarama leaves the world.

Krishna then sends his charioteer Daruka to the Kurus, to tell Arjuna that the Yadus have been wiped out. He sends another man, Vabhru, to look after the women, but a hunter's iron bolt kills Vabhru on the way. Krishna goes back to the women himself and tells them that Arjuna will come.

Then he goes into the forest. He thinks back on the curses that were laid on his people, and he understands that his own time has come. He holds back his senses and lies down in yoga.

Now the hunter enters. His name is Jara. He sees a shape lying among the trees, mistakes it for a deer, and shoots, striking Krishna in the heel. When he comes up close he sees a figure in yellow robes, with many arms, and he is terrified at what he has done. He touches Krishna's feet. Krishna comforts him.

Then Krishna rises. His splendour fills the sky. The gods, the sages, the Gandharvas and the Apsaras come out to receive him, and Indra praises him.

That is the whole account in the Mahabharata's Mausala Parva, and it is much shorter than the popular story. The text I read does not say the hunter was weeping, it does not say what made the hunter think of a deer, and it does not give a long speech by Krishna. What it gives is a simple chain: a man at rest, a shot from a man who made a mistake, the shooter's fear, a gentle word, and a departure into light.

The later Bhagavata Purana, in its eleventh canto, tells the same event with more detail, including the four-armed form of Krishna. Popular tellings also mention a reddish sole of the foot or a mark that looked like a deer's eye. These details are from those later sources and not from the Mausala Parva page I read.

Look at how it fits with what came before. Gandhari's curse on the battlefield said that in the thirty-sixth year Krishna would die in the wilderness by a shameful means. Here is the wilderness and the means. Krishna himself recalls that curse and takes it as a sign. There is no struggle, no complaint, and no revenge on the man who shot him. The god who drove Arjuna's chariot and spoke the Gita goes out as quietly as the grass.

Who: Krishna, Jara

Bound to

Jara the hunter was Vali reborn past-life-explains

Gandhari's curse: 36 years and the Yadavas die curse→payoff

Samba's pregnancy prank and the iron bolt that ended the Yadavas causes

Balarāma Leaves the World origin

Places: Bhalka Tirtha, Veraval, Gujarat

Where this comes from

purana · Wikipedia: Bhalka (cites Mausala Parva, Bhagavata Purana 11.30-31)
commentary · Wikipedia: Mausala Parva
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Mausala Parva, section 4 (as labelled on page): Balarama, Daruka and Vabhru, Krishna and Jara, ascent
read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Mausala Parva, preceding section: omens, Prabhasa, the Eraka-grass brawl

See it on the tree · All stories

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