Context
Years after the Mahabharata war, the Yadava clan is cursed to destroy itself. In their final drunken brawl at Prabhasa, Krishna watches his own people murder each other. This is his farewell.
The Dialogue
The beach at Prabhasa was littered with bodies. The wine they had drunk was stronger than any they'd tasted—deliberately so. The iron clubs they fought with had grown from the cursed powder of that pestle, the one created from Samba's mock pregnancy. Now the entire Yadava clan lay dead or dying, killed not by enemies but by each other.
Krishna walked among the corpses. His son Pradyumna. His grandson Aniruddha. Satyaki, who had survived eighteen days of Kurukshetra. Kritavarma, who had sided with the Kauravas. Enemies in war, now united in death.
The Yadava Clan: "Why? Why did you let this happen?"
Krishna sat beside him.
Krishna: "I didn't let it happen. I ensured it happened."
The Yadava Clan: "You... You could have stopped the curse. You could have saved them."
Krishna: "And then what? Watch them grow more arrogant? Watch them challenge the gods themselves? Watch them become worse than the Kauravas we destroyed? Brother, I have watched our clan for decades. Since we returned to Mathura, since we built Dwaraka, I have watched power corrupt them. Slowly. Inevitably."
The Yadava Clan: "Not all of them."
Krishna: "No. But enough. And the rest followed. That is how it always works—the good tolerate the bad, then enable them, then become them. The Yadavas who survived the Mahabharata war believed themselves immortal. Invincible. Above consequences. Sound familiar?"
The Yadava Clan: "The Kauravas."
Krishna: "Every empire. Every dynasty. Every clan that rises high enough to believe they have escaped the wheel. The wheel comes for everyone, Balarama. Even us."
The Yadava Clan: "But to die like this... drunk, foolish, at each other's throats..."
Krishna: "Would a heroic death have been better? Would dying in battle against demons have taught the lesson that needed teaching? This is the lesson. Pride ends in self-destruction. Not in epic tragedy—in pathetic farce. Future generations will look at Prabhasa and see what happens when power believes it is immune to karma."
Balarama's breath was shallow now.
Krishna: "And you, brother? What happens to you?"
The Yadava Clan: "I will wait here. A hunter will come. He will mistake my foot for a deer and shoot. And that will be the end of this avatar."
Krishna: "A hunter's arrow? The Lord of the Universe, killed by accident?"
Krishna: "It's fitting, don't you think? I entered this world in a prison, smuggled across a river, hidden among cowherds. I'll leave it in a forest, killed by a man who wasn't even aiming at me. No grand finale. No epic speech. Just... ending."
The Yadava Clan: "That seems wrong."
Krishna: "That seems real. The gods love irony, Balarama. Or perhaps we are the irony—divine beings playing at mortality, then surprised when mortality wins."
Balarama's eyes closed. His breath stopped. A great serpent emerged from his body—Shesha, the cosmic serpent, returning to the eternal waters.
Krishna sat alone among the dead.
Hours later, the hunter came. The arrow flew. The wound was small.
But it was enough.
Krishna: "It's done, The Yadava chapter closes. The Kali Yuga begins. And somewhere, in some other time, I will return. As always. As promised. As needed."
His body grew still. The ocean claimed Dwaraka. And an age ended not with a battle cry but with a sigh.
✨ Key Lesson
No clan or empire is immune to the wheel of karma. Pride leads to self-destruction, often in pathetic rather than heroic ways. Even divine incarnations end simply—the entrance and exit are less important than the time between.