Sishupala

Shishupāla

When Shishupāla was born into the royal family of Chedi, he was a freak of nature, with four arms, three eyes, and a cry like the braying of an ass. His father, King Damaghosha, deeply disturbed, summoned the royal priests, who advised that the child be abandoned as a sign of ill omen. But even as they spoke, a voice boomed from the sky, declaring that the child would bring no harm to the kingdom, that abandoning him would change nothing, and that he was fated to die at the hands of the one born to slay him.

His mother, Queen Sutasabha, sister of Vasudeva, anxiously asked how she would know that person, and the voice answered that when the child was placed in the lap of his destined slayer, all his deformities would vanish.

So the search began. Every guest who entered the palace was made to hold the infant, but none healed him — until one day Sri Krishna came to visit his aunt and found her weeping. When she told him her son's tale, Krishna calmly asked that the child be placed in his lap, and no sooner had she done so than all of Shishupāla's deformities disappeared, leaving a normal, healthy child. Terrified, Sutasabha fell at Krishna's feet and begged that he pardon her son's offenses.

Krishna granted that he would forgive Shishupāla up to a hundred offenses, but warned that upon the hundredth he would spare him no longer.

Years passed, and Shishupāla grew to be king of Chedi, his hatred for Krishna boundless. After the slaying of Jarāsandha, the Pāṇḍavas invited all the kings of Aryavarta to the great Rajasuya Yajña at Indraprastha. By custom, the first honor of the rite was to be bestowed upon the most distinguished person in the assembly, and when a debate arose as to who that should be, Bhīshma unhesitatingly advised Yudhi-shṭhira to give the honor to Sri Krishna, king of Dwārakā.

Accepting his counsel, Yudhi-shṭhira instructed Sahadeva to present the honor to Krishna.

No sooner had Sahadeva stepped forward than Shishupāla broke into scornful laughter and denounced the choice as ridiculous. He insulted Sahadeva as one born of illegitimacy, thereby insulting Kuntī and the Pāṇḍavas, and mocked Bhīshma as one born of an everdeclining lineage, thereby insulting Gangā.

He derided Krishna as a mere cowherd, a milkdrinker from Vrindāvana unworthy of such honor, and named the many dignitaries present — Droṇa the teacher, the learned sage Vyāsa, Kripāchārya the royal advisor, Karṇa the disciple of Parashurāma — as each more deserving.

He called Krishna a coward who had fled from Mathurā to save his own skin, a trickster and a thief who had stolen the honor meant for true warriors, and his insults poured out relentlessly, each more venomous than the last, as he sought to provoke Krishna and the Pāṇḍavas beyond restraint.

At last the hundredth insult left his lips. Krishna rose from His seat, and without a word summoned His Sudarshana Chakra, and with a single swift motion severed Shishupāla's head from his body. The assembly fell silent, awestruck at the divine justice that had unfolded, for the prophecy had come to pass, and the king of Chedi had met his destined end at the hands of Sri Krishna.