Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 66

The Justification of Krsna's Annihilation of His Own Clan
attendants are all eternal (VC, VD on 11.30.5). Their contention is that ordinary people, and even others, will be deceived by māya and think that Krsna is destroying the Yādavas and that he himself abandons his body, but actually the Yādavas and Krsna are only becoming invisible22 in the prakațOalīlā and entering into the aprakata-līlā. This is how they explain it : It is only after Krsna's līlās are over, i.e. when his prakata-lilā ceases, that the age of Kali will have authority on earth. Krsna has already destroyed those who were opposed to him (namely demons, wicked kings, etc. who were a burden to the earth (see., e.g., 11.1.1-3.)]; those who are for him will have their bhakti doubled, and those who are very much for him will have their love multiplied a hundredfold; and even those who are indifferent to him will become devotees. Hence dharma will in fact increase and, as a result, Kali's power cannot become manifest. (So in order to usher in the Kali Yuga), Krsna decides to bring about the restriction of dharma in the following manner. He decides to reign in Dvārakā together with his attendants, namely the Yādavas, but, becoming hidden to the empirical (prāpañcika) world, he will first expel the deities who have entered his attendants and establish those deities in their heaven, and then enter Vaikuntha together with his retinue (i.e., he will enter into his aprakata-līlā]. Now, due to the defect of māyā, the ordinary people mistakenly think that all the Yādavas go to Prabhāsa where, under the influence of the curse of the Brahmins, they become intoxicated and, being killed by one another, they give up their bodies. Similarly, the people erroneously think that Krsna, too, together with Balarāma, abandons his human body and ascends to his abode. In fact, others will publicly proclaim that just as the Kuru race was wiped out, so also Krsna falls in Prabhāsa together with his own clan. Due to such despicable proclamations, dharma will suddenly be left with only one leg, 23 and then not only the ordinary people, but also Krsna's amśas like Arjuna and others, will look upon Krsna's exit (niryāna) līlā as an ordinary and calamitous (duravasthāmayī) one. Sages like Vaišampāyana, Parāśara and others have described in their Samhitās that, in order to establish the power of Kali, even Krsna's devotee Sankara, who will be born in the Kali Yuga, will write his commentary on the Vedānta in a false light so that the other commentators, whose intellects are deprived of sense, will come to the wrong conclusion that the body of Krsna is illusory (VC, VD on 11.30.5). So these