In the previous episode, we had witnessed Bhagwan Krishna being hit by a hunter, with that arrow wherein the metal piece was tied. Bhagawan Krishna realizes that this is the moment that He was waiting for, to ascend back to Vaikunta. At almost the same time, all the Devas, headed by Indra gathered around the skies, inviting Bhagawan back to His divine abode. Bhagawan Krishna too acknowledged the call by Indra and Co. and this was the time when He was hit by the hunter’s arrow. Although the hunter felt bad for his “misdeed” of hurting Bhagawan’s divine lotus feet, Bhagawan Krishna explained to him calmly that this was not his fault, and this incident was bound to happen. In fact, the hunter has done a great service to Bhagawan by enabling Him to ascend towards Vaikunta. Because of this, Bhagawan Krishna granted the opportunity to this hunter to reach “Svarga Lokha”, straightaway.
Once Bhagawan grants this to the hunter, he immediately ascends to the “Svarga Lokha” without any delay. Now after this hunter left, Bhagawan is all alone. It should be remembered that even Balarama, Bhagawan’s Shanka and Chakra, Rukmini Devi, etc. have all left too! It is at this time, Bhagawan’s charioteer Dhaaruka comes to see Bhagawan Krishna, and upon seeing Him all alone, he was moved to tears! How many people have Bhagawan Krishna helped to attain Moksha? How many people have benefitted from Bhagawan’s divine grace? How many people had approached Bhagawan Krishna for various reasons, all through these 125 years? Inspite of all this, when Bhagawan Krishna is passing through His last stages of incarnation, there is none near Him! How selfish can this world be, and that too to Bhagawan Himself? Seeing all this, Dhaaruka couldn’t hold back his tears. He proposes to Bhagawan Krishna that he could be with Him for the remaining time period and he could be of some service to Bhagawan. Upon seeing Dhaaruka in tears, Bhagawan consoles him and explains that He has some important work to be assigned to him.
Bhagawan Krishna says to Dhaaruka thus, “Oh Dhaaruka! Just go to Dwaaraka city once and check if anyone is still living there! I had asked all of them to vacate the city as quickly as possible, because there is a huge danger awaiting them if they stay there any longer. If there are women in Dwaaraka, please protect them for a while and take all of them to Indraprastha, wherein Arjuna is. Please request Arjuna to take care of all these women and children carefully. If you do this assignment meticulously, you shall reach the Svarga Lokha then and there!”
Hearing thus from Bhagawan Krishna, Dhaaruka sets off to Dwaaraka to execute Bhagawan’s words. He finds that there are many people still yet to leave Dwaaraka. He thus takes all of them with him and travels all the way to Indraprastha. This Indraprastha is today’s New Delhi, which is the capital of India even today! If we go to Delhi, even now there is a place called “Indraprastha Maarg”. Thus, we can infer that our entire Bhaarata Desha (India) is the land of “Sanaatana Dharma” and nobody can refute this reality. We might term India as “Secular”, etc. today, but each and every fabric of India is made up of our “Sanaatana Dharma” principles only. If not that, how would we find all these places still, in direct correlation with what is given here, Mahabhaarata and the Ramayana texts? Thus, we should understand that each and every place that our spiritual texts explain, is all present even today. It is only we who have to take the initiative to visit these places and understand their significances for ourselves. For instance, here we’re witnessing Indraprastha, wherein the Paandavas are ruling. In the Mahabharata text, all of us know of Kurukshetra, wherein the 18-day long war took place. We can worship this place even today. Similarly, Ayodhya in Ramayana is extremely significant even today, isn’t it? Not only Ayodhya, there are “n” number of places that are extremely significant in our Bhaarata Desha. Thus, with all of these, we should understand how significant our “Bhaarata Desha” is.
Thus, Dhaaruka drives all the women and children of Dwaaraka city to Indraprastha and hands them over to Arjuna. He also communicates Bhagawan Krishna’s message to Arjuna too, and with that, Dhaaruka too attains the “Svarga Lokha”! As Dhaaruka was bringing all of these people from Dwaaraka, the sea slowly started intruding into the city. Just like how we see in some movies and shows on the TV, as people start leaving the place, the sea is engulfing each and every house of the city, and a “tsunami-like” situation arises. Since many of us might have witnessed this tsunami disaster inn the year 2004, we might be able to relate the damage that was caused by this, to what happened at Dwaaraka too. The entire city was ravaged by the sea waters, and each and every house was destroyed, except the house of Bhagawan Krishna’s father, Vasudeva. This is why we say that the entire Dwaaraka city was destroyed after Bhagawan Krishna leaves the place. Even today, we would be able to find few remains of the city if we venture into the ocean for a little distance off the Gujarat coast. I had explained this already when we had witnessed the significance of the five “Dwaaraka Kshetras”. We had discussed this when Bhagawan Krishna first moved into Dwaaraka from Mathura. Readers can recollect this episode whenever you get time!
So for today, let us understand this event fully and let us wait till the next episode to witness what happened next! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 