Did Krishna return to Vrindavan as per his promise? Please explain the pastime.

Question, did Krishna not fulfill his promise to the Vrajvasis that he will return to Vrindavan or did he actually return to Vrindavan? If yes, then can you please describe the past time when it happened and how? Answer, yes, Krishna always keeps his promise and when he made the promise to the Vrajvasis that he will return to Vrindavan, he did indeed return to Vrindavan and this is described in the Padma Purana and it has been elaborately analyzed by Shri Jiva Goswami in his book Gopala Champu. So in Gopala Champu, Shri Jiva Goswami takes not only the Padma Purana but several other scriptures and he gives an impressive and exhaustive analysis to explain how Krishna kept his promise.

So Krishna promised the Gopis himself that he will return. When he was to the Gopas, Nanda Maharaj and Yashoda Mai, Krishna made the promise four times. First is when he was in Mathura with Nanda Maharaj and other Vrajvasis, the Gopis were not there.

He told them after some time I will soon return. Then when Krishna sent Uddhava and Krishna sent Balram, through both of them he gave assurances that he will return. And then when the Vrajvasis met Krishna in Kurukshetra on the occasion of the eclipse, then also Krishna assured them that I will soon come back and Krishna had left Vrindavan for the sake of firstly pacifying his parents and secondly for freeing the world from the burden of the demons.

So it is described that after Krishna arranged to have all the formidable demons either killed by Svair Daur Bhair, either by himself or by his agents, the devotees, then Krishna felt that his mission was completed and he returned back to Vrindavan. So during the Rajasuya sacrifice which was held in Indraprastha, Krishna had Shishupal, Krishna killed Shishupal and then while the Rajasuya sacrifice was going on and Krishna was living in Indraprastha, at that time Shalya attacked Dwarka and the Dwarkavasis who were, Krishna was not there, Balram was not there, Dwarkavasis tried their best to defend under Pradyumna's leadership, Dwarka and when Krishna came to know, he rushed back to Vrindavan, from Indraprastha to Dwarka, he killed Shalya and when he killed Shalya, actually another demon who had not attended the Rajasuya sacrifice was Tantavakra. So Shishupal and Tantavakra were Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu.

So Tantavakra went and performed severe tapasya to get powers from Lord Shiva and he got formidable powers and he, after from the Himalayas, he came to the area of Mathura and he was wondering where he can meet Krishna and when he heard that Krishna's Shakra had killed Shishupal, then he became fearful. So then he, but still he was angry and then he, then Narada Muni, seeing that Tantavakra had got powers which had maddened him, decided to accelerate the pastimes of the Lord by which the Lord will also return to Vrindavan as well as deliver the demons. So he told Tantavakra that Krishna will soon come to Mathura and then Narada Muni went and told Krishna, who was on the outskirts of Dwarka, just having killed that Tantavakra was waiting near Mathura for fighting with him.

Then Krishna, seeing this opportunity, he had been long time also desiring to go to Vrindavan, but his parents, Vishudhaiva and Devaki, were very fearful that if Krishna goes to Vrindavan, the love of the Lord will return back to us and that is why they would never give him permission to go. But now when Krishna heard that a demon is right next to Mathura, he decided that that would be a good reason for him to be able to go there and he, under Daruka's, with Daruka as a charioteer, Krishna used his extraordinary inconceivable powers to rush in a trice to Mathura and there he fought with Tantavakra and killed Tantavakra. Tantavakra's younger brother Viduratha came and Krishna delivered him also and then after that Krishna felt that now my work is over.

So Krishna in a sense renounced his weapons and he did not use any weapons afterwards. Actually, not only the Kurukshetra war, but even the exiling of the Pandavas happened after this. But with Yudhishthira established as the king and Shalya, Tantavakra, Viduratha and Shishupala, the primary kings who had opposed Yudhishthira's Rajasuya being killed, Krishna felt that now his work is over and he decided no longer to lift weapons and that is also one reason why Krishna did not lift weapons during the Kurukshetra war.

Now he wanted his assistants, devotees like Pandavas to do the work. So after that, after Krishna delivered the demons by killing them and then he gave up his weapons, then he came back to Vrindavan and when he came to Vrindavan, the Vrajavasis were overjoyed and there were enormous festivities to celebrate his return and Daruka and his chariot was there and the Vrajavasis seeing that chariot were constantly fearful because they knew earlier a chariot had come and taken Krishna away from them. So although they were elated, delighted to have Krishna, but along with that they were also fearful that Krishna may go away again.

So it is during this time that Krishna, it is described that in Gopalachampu that actually Krishna married all the Gopis officially, publicly. The Gopis are eternally his wives, but here Krishna formalized in a public way with the approval and indeed the joy of all the Vrajavasis, Krishna married all the Gopis and for two months he performed endless pastimes with them and then based on the desire of the Vrajavasis who were still fearful that Krishna may leave us, he took, he arranged by his mystical power to have his chariot expanded so that all the Vrajavasis and even all the cows were accommodated in the chariot and then the same spiritual abode, spiritual world which Krishna had shown the Vrajavasis earlier, earlier when Krishna had lifted Govardhan, the Vrajavasis had been amazed who is this boy who has such extraordinary power and when Nanda Maharaja told them Gargamuni's indication that actually he is the supreme lord and they were satisfied and they wondered can he show the supreme abode and there near the Yamuna by immersing in the water in a place called Brahmaratha, Krishna had shown the spiritual world, the Brahmajyoti, beyond Brahmajyoti Vaikuntha, beyond Vaikuntha, Goloka and there they had seen Krishna being worshipped by the personified Vedas and everyone else. So that same abode which the Vrajavasis had seen, now the Vrajavasis for the sake of rasa did not know that Yoga Maya had covered their knowledge so that they did not know that they were the eternal associates of Krishna.

In fact, they did not even know that they were or that Krishna was God and they thought is Krishna is just we are cowherd folks and Krishna is the most lovable among all our cowherds. So they were amazed to see Krishna in the spiritual world at that time. So occasionally they would get glimpses of the divinity of Krishna but their love would overwhelm that awareness of Krishna's divinity and they would love Krishna for what he is.

Such a lovable person, not for the fact that he is God. So the Vrajavasis did not during the Manifest Dila know or remember that they were eternal associates of Krishna but when Krishna took them in his chariot, so he got all of them to board the chariot and he took them all back to the spiritual world where Krishna along with the Vrajavasis, I will describe along with Balram and Rohini and Balram, Rohini and Uddhava who had also desired to be a servant in the Vrindavan of the Gopis by being a shrub over there. All of them went with them with Vrajavasis.

However, when Krishna went, Krishna kept a manifestation. He went back in his one intimate Vraja manifestation but in his Vasudeva manifestation there is within Krishna there is Vasudeva Krishna and there is the son of Vasudeva and there is Vrindavan Krishna. So Vrindavan Krishna went back to the spiritual world but the Vasudeva Krishna stayed on in the world and along with similar expansions of Balram and the other associates, they returned back and they continued the pastimes in Dwarka.

So all this happened when Krishna was in his manifest pastimes 44 years old. So actually when Krishna was fighting with Shalya, the fight went for a long time and during that time Yudhishthira was cheated and dispossessed to direct gambling match and in 13 years later, they, after the 13 years of agnyatva, the vanvas and agnyatvas, then there was the great Kurukshetra war. So essentially there are different, in different kalpas Krishna manifests and performs these deelas in slightly different ways.

Accordingly the ages might be slightly different. In this particular analysis, Gopal Champu, Jeeva Swamy used this particular analysis but the essential point is that Krishna did fulfill his promise and after completing his mission of killing the demons, he returned to Vrindavan and in order to not let the Vrindavasis have to go through the agony of again being separated from him, he took them back with him to the spiritual world. While in another expansion of himself, he stayed on to complete whatever pastimes were remaining.