The last Journey of the Pandavas.

The last journey of Pandavas.

The Pandavas heard the news of the death of Krishna  and lost all interest in the life of this world and started to go to different temples and on pilgrimage and finally went to Himalayas. Before going  they crowned Parishath the son of Abimanya who alone escaped the sure death by Aswathaama by the grace of Krishna who prevented his death in the womb of Abhimanyu’s wife, Uthira and was born as a black baby and called Parishath, as the king and  left for pilgrimage. 

One dog also accomplished them. One by them they climbed the Himalayas and on the way one by one fell down and died except Yudhishtra and the dog.

Then Indra, the King of Devas came with  an aircraft and asked Yudhishtra to climb on  it to go to heaven in his own human body. But Indra stopped the dog when it started to climb the aircraft saying that the dog should not come to heavens as it was banned to enter the heaven.

Yudhishtra then refused to come to heaven without the dog. Indra was happy and told Yudhishtra that he was tested to find his love and care for all as the dog was nothing but the DHARMA (justice)  god and the dog just vanished.

Yudhishtra then climbed on the craft and went to heaven and found all the bad Kauravas sitting and enjoying there while he could not find his brothers and other Pandavas. He asked for them and was told that they were all in hell. So he went to the hell and it was so hot, dirty and foul smelling and people there suffering innumerable punishments. He saw his friends, brothers and all others there suffering the horrible conditions of the hell. He was so badly shaken and hence refused to go to heaven and wanted to remain with his clan and relatives in the hell. Then Indra told him that he was again tested and that it was not hell but heaven.

Yudhishtra who was till  then in his human body left it and settled down in the heaven

The end of Krishna Avatar

As all avatars have to end. Krishna also had to die.

Krishna came back to Dwaraka and reigned for thirty six  years.  All the relatives and others of Krishnan called the Yadavas, Vrishnis, Bhojars etc lived a life of luxury and comfort and indulged in all kinds of vices and gamble.

One day some learned sages came to the Dwaraka. The inebriated Yadavas and other relatives of Krishna  disguised one of their men as a woman and brought him in front of the sages and asked them when he would deliver a child.

The sages got angry and cursed them that this “girl will deliver an iron mace which will destroy all of you and your community and sect.”

The next day the man Samban  who was disguised as a woman delivered a mace and the Yadavas recalling the curse of the sages burnt the mace and dispersed the ash of  it into the sand on the shore of the sea. Next season the ashes grew as wild grass. One day the Yadavas drank liquor to the full  argued on some matter and fought among themselves and took the wild grass and hit themselves with it and the grass was so powerful they all became maces and they hit each other  with it and all got killed. Seeing all of this Balaram took penance and died.

Only Krishna was alive. One day Krishna  was sleeping on the floor of the sea  and only his feet was hanging. A forest dweller seeing Krishna’s feet from a distance saw it as a pair of parrots and shot an arrow at them and it killed Krishna instantly and his avatar as Krishna came to an end. He went to heaven leaving his last Avatar.

The end of the Eighteen days of Kurushetra war

The end.

After the war all the brothers went to meet Dhirthrashtra to get his blessings. He was in sorrow thinking of death all his sons  but was consoled by Yudhishtra as he was also in sorrow of losing all his sons and army and friends. Dhirthrashtra wanted to hug each of them in blessings. But when Bheema’s turn came Krishna did not allow him but put an iron doll looking like Bheema to hug by Dhirthrashtra who when hugging crushed it to pieces. Then cried aloud saying he killed Bheema. Krishna then said that he had put a doll and not real Bheema as he knew about the  vengeance in Dhirthrashtra’s mind. 

Dhirthrashtra felt ashamed and requested pardon  and blessed all of them. Then the Pandavas went to meet Kanthari, the mother of Duryodhana  who was the wife of Dhirthrashtra and mother of all kauravas. She was also in sorrow and looked at the feet of Yudhishtra and even though  her eyes were blinded by the cloth she wore  her look made Yudhishtra’s feet black.

Later Kanthari blessed them and asked them to rule with justice and well beings of the subjects in mind.

After vanquishing his enemy Yudhishtra was not very happy as all his relatives, friends, army etc have been destroyed and lost. But Krishna had persuaded him to ascend the throne and hence Yudhishtra crowned himself the King of all the lands of the Kauravas which included their own, took over by the Kaurava, Duryodhana. He ascended the throne at Hasthinapura. The Pandavas, led by Yudhishtra  went to the death bed of Bheeshma who was waiting for his auspicious time to die for his blessings. He blessed them whole heartedly for a just and proper rule of the land under their care.

After some years Dhirthrashtra, Kanthari and Kunti left for the forest to live a solitary life and Sanjaya  followed them there. Dhirthrashtra asked Sanjaya to leave them and he left them to live as ascetic there.   Later they lived there for three years and one day a fire engulfed the forest and all the three perished in that fire.

The final blow to Pandavas by Duryodhana.

The final blow to Pandavas by Duryodhana.

As Duryodhana was lying in death bed Aswathama and his uncle Kirubar met him. Aswathama was already seething with anger thinking about the death of his father by deceit and now seeing his friend Duryodhana dying slowly in the pond and swore to kill all the Pandavas on that night.

Duryodhana was very happy and made him the commander of whatever of left of his army and his kingdom. In the night both Aswathama and Kirubar went to the tents of the Pandavas and killed all in their sleep except the five Pandavas, and burnt their tents. They went back to Duryodhana and told him about the killing and destruction they have carried out. Listening to their infamous and cowardly act Duryodhana was so happy and appreciated their deed by saying that what they had accomplished was not done by any of his generals and died as a happy man.

The next day he Pandavas came to terrible grief and went and found the hiding Aswathama and brought him for justice. Then Krishna said that killing him is not worth but remove the precious stone from his head and let him go and live like a SANDALA (a devil) wandering the world for ever. And from that day Aswathama is wandering the world alone without death.

Death of Duryodhana

Death of Duryodhana

After the death of Karna Duryodhana was terribly  sad and was crestfallen . Defeat was staring at him. At that time Kirubar, the brother in law of Drona came and advised him to stop the war and come to agreement with the Pandavas as he has lost everything and is more or less left alone.  All His ninety nine brothers and his brother in law Jayathradhan and all his friends and relatives had been killed. He had only Salliyan and His uncle Sakuni who were also successfully killed one after the other when they led the army of the Kauravas. Finally Duryodhana was left alone defeated and humiliated.   He was left with nothing as no warrior, no army and no single soldier was left for him to fight. So he took his mace and went to a pool and hid inside it. But the Pandavas came there in search of him and called him out of the pool to come and fight.

Duryodhana was completely defeated and said that he came to cool himself from fatigue and did not run away like a coward and he asked Yudhishtra to take the Kingdom and rule it as he had lost all his desire to live and rule.

But Yudhishtra did not agree as he said “since you  refused to give us even a place on the end of a needle to live and you disgraced Draupadi, got her pulled by her hair when she was on her periods  and who was your own cousin’s  wife whom you should have respected and so you have to come out and fight for your life and honour.”

As he has no other way to defend himself Duryodhana got up and called the Pandavas to come and fight him one by one and go to hell. He also said as he was wounded and tired all should not join and fight him.

Then Yudhishtra asked him”if fighting one by many is not justice then how you all joined and killed an unarmed Abhimanyu? So justice will come only for you? So come and fight and die like a true warrior. You select one among us to fight and die”.

Duryodhana finally came out of the water and chose Bheema to fight  with mace as the chosen weapon as both were famous fighters with mace. They started fighting and the fight went on for some time.

Then Krishna said “Beema would kill Duryodhana by hitting him at his thighs as he had taken a vow to kill him so when Draupadi was asked by him to sit on the thighs of Duryodhana, there by hinting to Bheema to do so as hitting at the thighs was against the rules of mace fight.

Hearing Krishna’s words Bheema hit Duryodhana on his thighs and wounded him seriously and he fell down to die a slow death. Bheem danced on his body and stomped on it. Duryodhana wriggled in the mud with pain and Krishna stopped Bheema saying that “being your own relative and from the royal family you should not do this “ and stopped him from further humiliating Duryodhana.

They left Duryodhana to die in the pool. He died but before dying got a promise from Aswathama to kill all Pandavas when they were sleeping.