Chapter 2

Vaishampayana said: “While the Vrishnis and the Andhakas were thusendeavouring (to avoid the impending calamity), the embodied form of Time(death) every day wandered about their houses. He looked like a man ofterrible and fierce aspect. Of bald head, he was black and of tawnycomplexion. Sometimes he was seen by the Vrishnis as he peered into theirhouses. The mighty bowmen among the Vrishnis shot hundreds and thousandsof shafts at him, but none of these succeeded in piercing him, for he wasnone else than the Destroyer of all creatures. Day by day strong windsblew, and many were the evil omens that arose, awful and foreboding thedestruction of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The streets swarmed withrats and mice. Earthen pots showed cracks or broke from no apparentcause. At night, the rats and mice ate away the hair and nails ofslumbering men. Sarikas chirped, sitting within the houses of theVrishnis. The noise made by those birds ceased not for even a short whileby day or by night. The Sarashas were heard to imitate the hooting of theowl, and goats imitated the cries, O Bharata, of jackals. Many birdsappeared, impelled by Death, that were pale of complexion but that hadlegs red of hue. Pigeons were seen to always disport in the houses of theVrishnis. Asses were born of kine, and elephants of mules. Cats were bornof bitches, and mouse of the mongoose. The Vrishnis, committing sinfulacts, were not seen to feel any shame. They showed disregard forBrahmanas and the Pitris and the deities, They insulted and humiliatedtheir preceptors and seniors. Only Rama and Janardana acted differently.Wives deceived their husbands, and husbands deceived their wives. Fires,when ignited, cast their flames towards the left. Sometimes they threwout flames whose splendour was blue and red. The Sun, whether when risingor setting over the city, seemed to be surrounded by headless trunks ofhuman form. In cook rooms, upon food that was clean and well-boiled, wereseen, when it was served out for eating, innumerable worms of diversekinds. When Brahmanas, receiving gifts, blessed the day or the hour(fixed for this or that undertaking) or when high-souled men were engagedin silent recitations, the heavy tread was heard of innumerable menrunning about, but no one could be seen to whom the sound of such treadcould be ascribed. The constellations were repeatedly seen to be struckby the planets. None amongst the Yadavas could, however, obtain a sightof the constellation of his birth. When the Panchajanya was blown intheir houses, asses of dissonant and awful voice brayed aloud from everydirection. “Beholding these signs that indicated the perverse course ofTime, and seeing that the day of the new moon coincided with thethirteenth (and the fourteenth) lunation, Hrishikesa, summoning theYadavas, said unto them these words: The fourteenth lunation has beenmade the fifteenth by Rahu once more. Such a day had happened at the timeof the great battle of the Bharatas. It has once more appeared, it seems,for our destruction. “The slayer of Keshi, Janardana, thinking upon theomens that Time showed, understood that the thirty-sixth year had come,and that what Gandhari, burning with grief on account of the death of hersons, and deprived of all her kinsmen, had said was about to transpire.The present is exactly similar to that time when Yudhishthira noted atsuch awful omens when the two armies had been arrayed in order of battle.Vasudeva, having said so, endeavoured to bring about those occurrenceswhich would make Gandharis words true. That chastiser of foes commandedthe Vrishnis to make a pilgrimage to some sacred water. The messengersforthwith proclaimed at the command of Keshava that the Vrishnis shouldmake a journey to the sea-coast for bathing in the sacred waters of theocean.”