The Rājasūya and the First Honour

With Jarāsandha slain and the captive kings freed, the Rājasūya of Yudhishthira went forward in unmatched splendour, drawing sages and kings and teachers from across the whole land. And it came to the height of the ceremony, the moment of the arghya, the offering of the first and highest honour of the whole assembly to the one worthiest soul present; and on the recommendation of Bhīshma himself, that honour was offered by Sahadeva to Lord Krishna, acknowledging him as the supreme refuge of all beings.

And this choice enraged one man: Shishupāla, the king of Chedi, who bore Krishna a long and bitter hatred. Blinded by envy and by pride, Shishupāla rose and poured out a torrent of insult, mocking the aged Bhīshma as a senile fool and Yudhishthira as an ignorant boy, and above all deriding Krishna as a mere cowherd of no royal blood, unfit to be honoured above venerable teachers like Droṇa and sages like Vyāsa.

It was the very voice of spiritual blindness, that could look upon the Supreme Lord himself and see only a low-born herdsman bound by the rankings of the world.

But Krishna sat in serene silence and let the insults come, counting them; for he had made a promise long ago to Shishupāla's mother, that he would forgive his cousin a hundred offences. And so he waited, and let Shishupāla heap up his insults, patiently, until they reached a hundred. And when the hundred and first insult left Shishupāla's lips, the promise was fulfilled and the patience was complete; and Krishna released his discus, the Sudarshana Chakra, and struck off the head of the king of Chedi in the midst of the whole assembly.

And from the fallen body there rose a light, which passed into the feet of the Lord; for even this, the story tells us, is a mystery of grace: that Shishupāla, who had fixed his whole mind upon Krishna, even in hatred, even in the intensity of his enmity, was in the end drawn back into the very source he had opposed, so complete had his attention been, though its form was loathing rather than love.