The God who died

Indian mythology is filled with memorable characters. From the Vedas to the Puranas, it has introduced astonishing characters that are either remembered as great warriors, teachers etc or worshipped as Gods. One of such character is 'Vasudev Krishna Yadav' or 'Lord Krishna' from the Mahabharata, who is portrayed as a divine God on one side whereas, on the other side, he has been shown as a mortal who met his fate in a questionable way and this is one of the most shocking facts of Indian mythology which many are unaware of. While Krishna's story is known to all but very few actually know how his story ended. To say, the beginning of the end of Krishna's story began after the great war of Kurukshetra, when Gandhari, mother to the Kauravas in her grief over the death of her sons stated Krishna solely responsible for the destruction of her family and cursed him by saying that, "You are the real culprit in this whole thing. At any time you could have brought peace and could have laid down the enmity that was between my sons and the Pandavas but instead, you took the side of the Pandavas and ensured that all my sons are dead. May your whole clan (the Yadavas) be destroyed and annihilated in the same manner as it happened with my clan, may they kill each other like my sons and their cousins (Pandavas) did and may you who fancy yourself to be a God receive a painful death". As time went by, the Yadavas grew in power and prosperity. Fueled by their pride and arrogance they soon begin to accuse each other, which ultimately resulted in a civil war among the Yadavas in which they started killing and slaughtering each other. Though Krishna tried his best to stop them but he couldn't. Instead, he himself had to kill some of his own sons and grandsons in order to protect himself as they tried to kill him too. Soon the whole Yadav clan of Krishna perished before his eyes. Seeing the destruction of his clan by their own hands. Krishna realized that fate had reflected back his karma to him. So in grief over the destruction of his whole clan and over killing his own kith and kin, Krishna left his kingdom Dwarka and went to a forest where he started to think about his life events while lying down under a tree with his feet palms on his knees. It was then a hunter who was passing nearby mistook his feet palm as a deer and shot an iron-piece-headed arrow which pierced into his feet and ended his life. And this is how Krishna met his fate. Now the question to think about is that if Krishna was a God as the scriptures depict him to be then how could a God die, that too in such a shocking way.

Dibyajyoti Brahma,

Cotton University