Then the night was haunted by a black woman with yellow teeth who grinned horribly at house doors. All the inhabitants of the city were stricken with terror.... Evil spirits came also and robbed the jewels of the women and the weapons of the men.... At length the chakra[291] of Krishna went up to heaven, and his chariot and horses followed it.... The end of the Yádavas was not afar off, and the day came when Apsaras called out of heaven: “Depart from hence,” and all the people heard them.
When the people gathered on the seashore they held a feast, and being allowed to drink wine for one day, they drank heavily and began to quarrel. At length Satyaki slew Kritavarman, who had gone to the Pandava camp with Drona's son on the night of slaughter. Then Kritavarman's friends killed Satyaki and one of Krishna's sons. Krishna slew the rebels, but he could not quell the tumult and the fighting which ensued; fathers slew their sons, and sons their fathers, and kinsmen contended fiercely against kinsmen.
Then Krishna and Balarama left the city, and both died in the jungle. From Balarama's mouth issued a mighty snake, for he was the incarnation of the world serpent.... Krishna was mistaken for a gazelle by a hunter, who shot an arrow which pierced his foot at the only spot where he could be mortally wounded. He then departed to his heaven, which is called Goloka.
Ere Krishna had left Dwaraka he caused messengers to hasten for Arjuna, who came speedily, to find the women wailing for the dead. Then Vasudeva, father of Krishna, died, and Arjuna laid the body of the old man upon the pyre, and he was burned with four of his widows, who no longer desired to live. The bodies of Krishna and Balarama were cremated also.
Arjuna then set forth towards Indra-prastha with a remnant of the people; and when they had left Dwaraka, the sea rose up and swallowed the whole city, with those who had refused to depart from it.... Such was the end of the power of the Yadavas.
Deep gloom fell upon the Pandavas after this, and Vyasa, the sage, appeared before them, and revealed that their time had come to depart from the world.
Then Yudhishthira divided the kingdom. He made Parikshit, son of Abhimanyu, Rajah of Hastinapur; and Yuyutsu, the half-brother of Duryodhana, who had joined the Pandava army on the first day of the great war, was made Rajah of Hastinapur. He counselled them to live at peace one with another.
The Pandavas afterwards cast off their royal garments and their jewels and put on the garb of hermits, and the bright-eyed and faithful Draupadi did likewise. Yudhishthira departed first of all, and his brethren walked behind him one by one, and Draupadi went last of all, followed by a hound. They all walked towards the rising sun, and by the long circuitous path which leads to Mount Meru, through forests and over streams and across the burning plains, never again to return.
One by one they fell by the way, all save Yudhishthira. Draupadi was the first to sink down, and Bhima cried: “Why hath she fallen who hath never done wrong?”
Said Yudhishthira: “Her heart was bound up in Arjuna, and she hath her reward.”