​What happens to Krishna’s queens after he departs from the world?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
What happens to the queens of Dwarka? Krishna takes the Gopis back to Indawar, Gopis back to the spiritual world. Actually this is quite a technical subject and Rukmini is actually not an expansion of Radharani. Rukmini is an expansion of Chandravali and Radharani, her expansion is Satyabhama.
So we will not get into this. But they have different moods over there. But the point is that it is described, two things happen.
One is that when Krishna departs from this world, at that time Arjuna comes and Arjuna performs the last rites of all the Yadavas. So at that time, some of the queens of Krishna, they enter into the fire with him, with her. So they go Sati.
And some of the other queens, especially those who have children, they stay with Arjuna. And Arjuna decides to get them all back with him to Hastinapur. So while they are getting along, it is said that some infidel cowherd men come and they attack Arjuna.
And Arjuna tries to defend them but Arjuna is defeated. So Vishwanath Chakrathakar quotes the Puranas and he describes actually it is Krishna himself who comes as those cowherd men. Why is it that, they could have described some bandit scheme, some dacoit scheme.
Why is it cowherd men scheme? We never hear of cowherd men being plunderers. So why is it described? It is actually Krishna who comes as the cowherd men. And Arjuna is such a great person that Arjuna cannot be defeated by anyone else.
But Arjuna’s arrow is practically, they feel, they fall short. Arjuna’s arrow is so powerful that they can even run through the mountains. But here they don’t even reach the target.
How does such a thing happen? It is because it is Krishna himself who has come and then Krishna, he takes those queens with him. And then after that with him, now in one sense Krishna has already departed from this world. But for performing this particular pastime, Krishna re-manifests in this world and he takes these queens and then he takes them back to the spiritual world with him.
So this pastime, this whole pastime actually, where the Yadudva, the destruction of the Yadu dynasty happens, that Madhvacharya describes and Krishna’s Kaviraj Goswami also mentions that this whole pastime is Asur Mohan Leela. Asur Mohan Leela means that some pastimes are depicted in Shastra for the purpose of deluding the demons. Just like Krishna, he comes as Mohini Murthy and he deludes the demons so that he can fulfil the purpose of the gods.
So like that sometimes within scripture, Krishna performs certain pastimes by which the demoniac can get rationalization for staying demoniac. Those who want to stay demoniac, Krishna performs so many wonderful pastimes throughout his life. But they will not see that.
They will see only this pastime. Oh if Krishna is God, how could he have been killed? How could he have died such a tragic death? He was a hunter killing. How could his whole dynasty have been killed like that? So now the Acharyas give many explanations.
First of all Krishna had gone to Yama’s abode and brought the dead back. How can Krishna be killed? And on top of that Krishna is a Kshatriya. You know a Kshatriya, even when their body is so tough that even when they are wounded in their chest or their head, they don’t get wounded.
You know how can Krishna be hit on the leg and be killed by that? You know an arrow hitting the leg is never fatal unless it gets infected and the infection spreads all over the body or whatever. In the case of Krishna, how can just one arrow in the leg kill anyone? So for those who are ready to see reason, they will see that there is something odd about this pastime. It is not in sync with the whole glory of Krishna Ji.
So that is done so that Krishna allows those who are demoniac. They will not see all the glorious pastimes that Krishna has performed. They will see this particular pastime.
Therefore Krishna cannot be God. How can he be God? How can he have been killed like this? So for those who are demoniac, Krishna allows them to stay demoniac. That is what they want to know.
So this is a Asura Mohan Leela. So although it seems that Krishna Leela in a sense ends in a tragic note, but Krishna is transcendental, Krishna is eternal. Krishna comes in this world and Krishna goes back from this world.
And his pastimes continue ecstatically both in this and the next other world. But for those who are demoniac and want to stay demoniac, Krishna performs some pastimes to delude them. So thank you very much.