Alone After the Clan Destroyed Itself
Following the Mausala Parva's destruction of the Yadava clan, an episode covered elsewhere in this series, and Balarama's own peaceful departure from his body shortly after, an episode also covered elsewhere in this series, Krishna withdrew alone into the forest near Prabhasa, choosing solitude and meditation over any attempt to rebuild or continue leading a clan that had already destroyed itself according to the terms of Gandhari's curse.
The text describes him seated in deep meditative absorption, having completed everything the tradition understood his avatar to be responsible for on earth, dharma taught, adharma corrected, the Bhagavad Gita delivered, and his own clan's fated end already come to pass, positioning this final period as a conscious, willing conclusion to his time in the world rather than an unexpected tragedy.
Mistaken for a Deer
A hunter named Jara, whose name in Sanskrit means old age, was passing through the forest and, seeing Krishna's reddish-hued foot moving through the underbrush at a distance, mistook it for the ear or face of a deer, a common enough error given the forest's dim light and the distance involved. Jara shot an arrow at the movement, striking Krishna in the sole of his foot, the one part of his body understood in various tellings as vulnerable, sometimes explained through the earlier curse from the sage Durvasa or another figure whose specific details vary across tellings, marking this precise point as the single place a weapon could actually cause him fatal harm.
Realising his mistake upon approaching and seeing whom he had actually struck, Jara was overcome with horror and begged forgiveness, but Krishna, according to the text, comforted him, revealing that the hunter's arrow was in fact the fulfilment of a fate long set in motion, including, in some tellings, connecting Jara to a soul with an old debt or connection from a previous life, tying his role in this death to the deeper causal chain that also included Samba's curse and the reed-grass weapons, an episode covered elsewhere in this series.
An Ordinary Ending for an Extraordinary Life
Krishna's death, an ordinary accident rather than a battle, defeat, or dramatic confrontation, fulfils Gandhari's curse precisely: an unremarkable, quiet end for someone who had, across his entire life, defeated Kamsa, Jarasandha's repeated sieges, Kalayavana, Narakasura, and countless other threats through combinations of strength, wisdom and strategy.
This deliberate contrast, between the scale of Krishna's earlier feats and the mundane manner of his actual death, is generally read as the tradition's own theological statement: divinity taking human form accepts human vulnerability completely, including the possibility of an unremarkable accidental death, rather than existing as a permanently invulnerable force even while incarnate. His death marks the traditional beginning of Kali Yuga, an episode covered elsewhere in this series, closing the Dwapara Yuga's era with the same understated finality that had characterised the fulfilment of every curse and prophecy leading up to this moment.
Common Questions From Devotees
Why was Krishna's foot specifically the vulnerable point?+
Different tellings offer different origins for this vulnerability, most commonly tracing it to an earlier curse, though the epic's own emphasis is less on the mechanical cause and more on the death fulfilling Gandhari's curse in its unremarkable, accidental character.
Is Jara considered guilty of any sin for killing Krishna?+
No, the text presents it clearly as an honest, unintentional mistake, and Krishna's own comforting response to Jara reinforces that he bore no blame, with some tellings describing him ascending directly to a heavenly realm afterward due to the significance of his role.
What happened to Krishna's body after his death?+
Most tellings describe his mortal remains being cremated according to appropriate rites, with Arjuna arriving afterward to handle the remaining affairs of Dwarka and its surviving population, an episode covered elsewhere in this series.
About the author
Anjali Mehta · Editor, M.A. Religious Studies
Anjali is the managing editor for Vandnaa and oversees the festival and vrat coverage. She holds an M.A. in Religious Studies and reviews every published article for accuracy, accessibility, and tradition-fidelity.
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