The City on the End of the Plough

Samba, the son of Krishna and Jambavati, went to the bride-choosing of Lakshmana, the daughter of Duryodhana, and carried her off.

The Kurus were furious.

"This ill-mannered boy has taken our unmarried daughter by force," they said. "Seize him. If the Vrishnis come for him, we will humble them too."

Karna, Shala, Bhuri, Yajnaketu and Duryodhana himself went after him. Samba turned and faced them all, alone, like a lion. He fought so well that even the men he was fighting praised him. But they were many and he was one. They broke his bow, struck down his horses and his driver, pulled him from his chariot, tied him up, and took him and the princess back to Hastinapura.

Narada brought the news to Dwaraka. The Yadus were enraged, and King Ugrasena urged them to war, and they put on their armour.

Balarama stopped them.

"No," he said. "There will be no fighting between our two families. I will go and talk to them."

He drove to Hastinapura with brahmins and elders of the family, and camped in a garden outside the walls. He sent Uddhava in ahead to find out what King Dhritarashtra was thinking.

The Kurus were glad to hear he had come. Bhishma, Drona, Duryodhana and the rest came out to the garden with gifts and cows and water, and bowed to him, and everyone asked after everyone's health.

Then Balarama gave them Ugrasena's message.

"Our king commands you," he said. "You ganged up on one young man and beat him unfairly. For the sake of peace between us, he will overlook it. Now let Samba go."

The Kurus went red with anger.

"Listen to this!" they said. "The shoe wants to climb up onto the head that wears the crown! It was we who let the Yadus sit on thrones. We gave them their fans and their royal umbrellas. And now they give us orders? It is like a lamb claiming the lion's kill."

They turned their backs on him and went into the city.

Balarama's face changed. It became terrible to look at, and he began to laugh, again and again.

"So this is how it is," he said. "Some animals only understand the stick. I held back the Yadus. I held back Krishna himself, because I wanted peace. And these fools, drunk on their own importance, answer me with insults."

"Ugrasena is fit to rule over Indra. Krishna took the gods' own assembly hall and the tree of heaven from them. And they will not let him sit on a throne? Today I will rid the earth of the Kauravas."

He took his plough, drove its blade into the ground under Hastinapura, and began to drag the whole city towards the Ganga, to throw it in.

The city lurched. It rocked and tossed like a raft at sea, and the river came closer.

The Kurus came running out of their gates with their wives and children, terrified. They put Samba and Lakshmana in front of them and stood with their palms joined.

"Forgive us!" they cried. "We did not know your power. You hold up the whole earth on one of your heads. Your anger is not hatred. It is how you teach us. We bow to you. Protect us."

Balarama's anger went out of him.

"Do not be afraid," he said.

Duryodhana loved his daughter, and he sent her to her husband's house with a great dowry: twelve hundred elephants sixty years old, a hundred and twenty thousand horses, six thousand golden chariots that shone like the sun, and a thousand maidservants. Balarama took the young couple home to Dwaraka.

And Hastinapura, says the Bhagavata, still stands raised up on its southern side, along the Ganga.

The Vishnu Purana does not hide that Balarama had been drinking when the news came. His words were unsteady, but he forbade the Yadavas to arm.

"I will go alone," he said. "They will set Samba free if I ask."

He did not even go into the city. He waited in a grove outside it, and the Kurus sent him a cow, fruit, flowers and water, the welcome due to a guest.

"Ugrasena commands you," he told them, "to set Samba free."

Bahlika and the others were scandalised.

"What is this, Balabhadra? What Yadava gives orders to the Kurus? If Ugrasena sends us commands, we will take away the white umbrella he has no right to. Who ever heard of a servant commanding his master? Go home. We respect you, but the boy did wrong, and we will not let him go."

They went back inside. Balarama struck the ground with his heel, and it burst open with a crash that rang through the sky. His eyes went red.

"Their throne is the leavings of a hundred kings," he said, "and they are proud of it? I will not go home until I have rid the world of them all. Or I will take their city of the elephant, with every Kuru in it, and throw it into the Ganga."

He thrust his ploughshare down beneath the city's ramparts and pulled them towards him.

Hastinapura tottered. "Rama! Rama!" the Kurus shouted. "Stop! Stop! Have mercy! Here is Samba, and his wife with him. We did not know your strength!"

They came hurrying out and handed the couple over. Bhishma, Drona and Kripa spoke to him gently, and Balarama bowed to them.

"I am satisfied," he said, and let go.

The city, says the Vishnu Purana, bears the marks of that shaking to this day.