Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana Book 1 Chapter 15:21-35

Book 1: Chapter 15

Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana: Book 1: Chapter 15: Verses 21-35 Stricken with grief at their separation from Sri Krsna, the Pandavas instal Pariksit on the throne of Hastinapura and ascend to heaven The same indeed is my Gandiva bow, and the same my shafts; the same my chariot and drawn by the same horses; nay, I am the same car-warrior before whom monarchs bowed their head. Bereft of the Lord, however, all these were reduced to nothingness in a moment, like an oblation poured into ashes, service done with some covert motive and the seed sown in a barren land. "O king, as regards our relations at Dwaraka (the city of the Yadavas) about whom you have made enquiries just now, they all lost their reason under the influence of a curse pronounced by the Brahmanas, and drank wine; and their mind having been thrown completely off the balance through revelry, they struck one another with their fists like strangers and perished with the exception of only four or five. In fact, it is a diversion of the Almighty Lord that living beings now kill one another and now foster one another. Even as in water (the deep), O king, the larger among the aquatic creatures devour the smaller ones, the stronger consume the weaker and the larger and the stronger ones eat up one another, even so the Lord caused the other powerful princes to be exterminated by the mighty and most powerful Yadus and had the Yadus killed by the Yadus themselves, since they had now grown to be a burden to the earth. The words of Lord Govinda (Sri Krsna), appropriate as they were to the place and occasion of the talk and pertinent to the subject in hand and soothed the agony of the heart, ravish my soul even as I call them to mind." Suta said : As Jisnu (Arjuna) was thus contemplating on Sri Krsna's lotus-feet with most intense devotion, his mind became tranquil and free from passion. All the impurities of his mind (in the shape of lust, anger and so on) having been wiped out by Devotion that had grown in intensity through contemplation on the feet of Lord Va had been forgotten through mental obscurity occasioned by lapse of time and intense worldly activity. The veil of Maya (Nescience) having been withdrawn from him through the realization of Brahma, Arjuna transcended the three Gunas (modes of Prakrti). His illusion in the shape of (the sense of) duality was fully resolved, his astral body was dissolved and he was finally rid of sorrow and secured immunity from transmigration. Hearing of the Lord's departure (for His divine Abode) and the extermination of the race of Yadu, Yudhisthira, whose mind was now completely set at rest, resolved to ascend to heaven. When Prtha (the mother of the Pandavas) heard from Yudhisthira of the destruction of the Yadus and the Lord's mysterious departure, as told by Arjuna, she fixed her mind with exclusive devotion on Lord Adhoksaja (Sri Krsna) and turned her back on this world consisting of birth and death. Lord Sri Krsna (who is ever free from birth. and death) cast off (in the eyes of the world) the very body with which He had relieved the earth's burden, dust as a man throws away the thorn with which he has extracted another; for both were equal in the eye of the Lord. Even as the Lord, like an actor, assumes and then drops the forms of a fish etc., so did He shuffle off the body with which He had removed the earth's burden.