The Curse of Gandhari
Curses have powers that can alter the destiny of an individual, change the course of history, change the entire landscape of earth by bringing destruction through natural forces or can cause an everlasting impact on one’s life.
The stars had now aligned to time the fulfillment of Gandhari’s curse to Krishna after the Kurukshetra war was over.
An iron mace was born to Samba, the son of Krishna and Jamvanti. The sequence of events will now lead to total destruction of his entire race, Krishna and the golden city of Dwarika.
Samba was a prankster. He once disguised as a pregnant women, went to a group of rishis and asked them to guess the gender of the baby. One of the rishis, saw through the prank. He cursed him to give birth to an iron mace that will become the cause of destruction of the whole of the Yadu dynasty and the his entire race. The curse could not be taken back, even if it was for the dynasty of Krishna. Krishna was just as he thought the curse was justified. The destruction was imminent.
The news reached to Ugrasen, the king of Yadavas and the ruler of Dwarika. He ordered the mace to be crushed immediately into fine powder before being submerged to the Prabhas sea. The order was followed. It took very very long time to completely powder the mace but there were still some tiny fragments left undetected. The powder was thrown into the sea and Yadavas thought that they had nullified the prophecy of the curse. The time will tell.
By now, Thirty six years had passed after the Kurukshetra war was over. The war was fought between the cousins Kauravas and the Pandavas for right to the succession of throne of the Hastinapur kingdom. The kingdom which was ruled by Dhritrashtra, the father of Kauravas. The Kauravas were defeated in the war and the Pandavas had emerged victorious. Dhritrashtra abdicated the throne. Yudhishtira was the new king of Hastinapur.
The humiliation of Draupadi, who was the common wife of the five Pandava brothers — Yudhishtira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadev was finally avenged. She was in grief after losing her father, brothers and five sons.
In the war, all one hundred sons born to Dhritrashtra and Gandhari, the mother of Kauravas, were killed in the war. Many other great warriors like Bhishma, Drona, Karna were also killed in the war.
Krishna had sided with the Pandavas, and helped them in the war, without participating in the war directly.
Nobody could see the tears of Gandhari for she was blind-folded. She was heart-broken, full of rage and sorrow. He had remained blind-folded after she was married to the blind Dhritrashtra. Everyone in the family had gathered after the war was over to share the grief. After she regained her strength, she turned to Krishna and blamed him responsible for the war, the death of his sons, including the eldest Duryodhana and for not doing enough to stop the war. Krishna had the capacity to stop the destruction of the war yet he chose the different path. He could have averted the war.
She cursed Krishna to witness the destruction of is Yadu dynasty, like she witnessed the destruction of Kauravas and be destroyed himself subsequently. She also cursed his golden city of Dwarika to be destroyed and wiped out from the earth. Gandhari had cursed Krishna to suffer the same pain and sorrow that she sufferred. Krishna accepted the curse.
The time had come.
The mace that was crushed and powdered to the sea, had returned to the shore to nourish the araka grass on it’s shore.
It was a festival time and Yadavas gathered on the sea shore in Dwarika. They were enjoying while drinking to their glory and valor. The drank heavily and started fighting among themselves. Having gathered for enjoyment, the did not have weapon. They then uprooted the araka grass, which was as strong as iron and whose blades were as sharp as sword. One by one, all of the great warriors were killed in this drunken brawl. Krishna dearest-of-the-dearest friend Satyaki was also lost in the brawl.
Balarama who witnessed the brawl, left to the forest to give up his life because he was disgusted to see the level of the Yadava warriors.
Krishna, who heard about the demise of Balarama, went to forest to meditate to give up his life. He sat under a tree in the forest waiting for his time to come. Suddenly, from an unknown direction, a sharp arrow struck Krishna’s left foot. Krishna was bleeding profusely. A hunter, who was passing by, mistook Krishna’s left foot for the ear of the deer. It was the only weakest point in Krishna’s body which actually was a unhealed wound. Krishna’s entire body was invincible but his left foot was vulnerable, which was once wounded by one of the arrows of Barbareek. Barbareek was another great warrior during the age of Mahabharata episode who wanted to take part in the great Kurukshetra was but Krishna had asked his head as sacrifice just before the war of Kurukshetra. The tip of the arrow was made up of a small chunk of the the iron mace that could not be completely powdered.
After the disappearance of Krishna, Dwarika was suddenly submerged into the ocean after seven days with all it’s people, wealth and animals.
Gandhari’s curse came true.
There are some ways by which the curses can be nullified. Krishna himself could have nullified the curse but he chose to accept the curse. Perhaps, he saw his own liberation coming through the curse. There some other reasons better known to him. We could only guess.
