Devalok
Legend · 2 tellings · North India

The city on the end of the plough

Who is in it

Places: Hastinapura · Texts: Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana

The story, beat by beat

  1. Samba carries off Lakshmana from her svayamvara and is captured after fighting alone.
  2. The Yadus arm for war; Balarama stops them and goes to make peace.
  3. He camps outside Hastinapura and delivers Ugrasena's demand.
  4. The Kurus answer with insults and go back inside.
  5. Balarama drives his plough under the city and drags it toward the Ganga.
  6. The Kurus come out with Samba and Lakshmana and beg; he calms; a great dowry; the city still bears the marks.

anger pride peacemaking family

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Bhagavata Purana 10.68

North India · Hastinapura Vaishnava

Samba, son of Jambavati, carries off Duryodhana's daughter Lakshmana from her svayamvara. Karna, Shala, Bhuri, Yajnaketu and Duryodhana go after him; he fights alone, is unhorsed and bound. Narada tells the Yadus, who arm at Ugrasena's urging. Balarama calms them, wanting no quarrel between the two families, goes with brahmins and elders, camps in a garden outside the city and sends Uddhava. The Kurus welcome him, but answer Ugrasena's demand with insults: the shoe climbing onto the crowned head, a lamb claiming the lion's kill. He laughs in anger, vows to rid the earth of the Kauravas, and drags Hastinapura toward the Ganga with his plough. The city tosses like a raft; the Kurus come out with Samba and Lakshmana in front and praise him as the holder of the earth. He calms; Duryodhana gives elephants, horses, chariots and maidservants as dowry. The city's southern side is still raised along the Ganga.

Srimad Bhagavatam 10.68 (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, vedabase)

Primary text (translation)

Vishnu Purana 5.35

North India Vaishnava

Baladeva, his speech unsteady with drink, forbids the Yadavas to arm and goes alone. He waits in a grove outside the city; the Kurus send a cow, fruit, flowers and water. Bahlika and others reject Ugrasena's command as a servant ordering his master. Balarama strikes the ground with his heel, threatens all the Kurus by name, Pandavas included, thrusts his ploughshare under the ramparts and draws them toward him. The Kurus cry for mercy and hand over Samba and his wife; he bows to Bhishma, Drona and Kripa and says he is satisfied. The city bears the marks to this day. Wilson notes the tale is not in the Mahabharata and may recall damage by earthquake or river; the Vishnu Purana elsewhere says the Ganga washed Hastinapura away and the capital moved to Kausambi.

What is different here:

He goes alone and has been drinking; no envoy; the heel strike; he threatens the Pandavas too.

Vishnu Purana 5.35, tr. H. H. Wilson (1840), sacred-texts (archived); Vishnu Purana 4.21, tr. H. H. Wilson (1840), sacred-texts (archived)

Sources: Srimad Bhagavatam 10.68 (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, vedabase); Vishnu Purana 5.35, tr. H. H. Wilson (1840), sacred-texts (archived); Vishnu Purana 4.21, tr. H. H. Wilson (1840), sacred-texts (archived)

More stories with the same people

Legend

The demon in the cowherds' game

The Asura Pralamba joins the cowherd boys' game disguised as one of them, loses to Balarama and has to carry him, and runs off with him growing huge; in the Vishnu Purana Krishna reminds Balarama of his own nature, in the Bhagavata he remembers alone; he kills the demon.

Legend

The bride who came back too tall

King Raivata takes his daughter Revati to Brahma to ask whom she should marry; while he waits for the heavenly singers to finish, ages pass on earth; Brahma sends him back to give her to Balarama, and in the Vishnu Purana Balarama shortens the too-tall bride with his ploughshare.

From the epics

The brother who would not take a side

Balarama, teacher of the mace to both Bhima and Duryodhana, refuses to fight in the Kurukshetra war and goes on pilgrimage; he returns for the final duel, and when Bhima strikes below the navel he rushes at him with his plough until Krishna holds him back, then leaves for Dwaraka. In the Bhagavata he tries to stop the duel and fails.

Legend

Krishna and the serpent Kaliya

The boy Krishna leaps into the Yamuna pool poisoned by the serpent Kaliya, is bound in his coils while Vrindavan weeps on the bank, then dances on his hoods until the serpent's wives beg for his life, and sends him back to the sea.

From the epics

The chariot from Raivataka

Arjuna sees Subhadra at the Raivataka festival; Krishna advises him to carry her off rather than risk a swayamvara; the Yadavas rush to arms and Balarama rages until Krishna persuades them to bring Arjuna back for the wedding. The Bhagavata has Arjuna come as an ascetic, Subhadra want him too, and her parents agree.

Local story

The sister at the door

In a Gaudiya Vaishnava telling, Subhadra guards the door while Rohini tells Krishna's queens about Vrindavan; she and her brothers are so absorbed that all three take the round-eyed, handless forms of Puri, and Krishna promises Narada to show them there. At Puri she rides between her brothers on her chariot Darpadalana, with Arjuna as its charioteer.

Legend

Shesha, the serpent who holds the earth

Shesha, eldest of the thousand naga brothers, leaves them for their envy and malice and does austerities until his body dries to sinew; Brahma asks him to hold the unsteady earth, and he goes below and bears it on his head; the epic's last books show him leaving the dying Balarama as a white serpent going home to the sea.

Legend

Saraswati the river

The Rigveda's hymn portrait of the river Sarasvati, and the Mahabharata's account of the river that vanishes and comes when called.