{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/vp/vp145.htm","path":"hin/vp/vp145.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp145.htm","text":"The Vishnu Purana, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, [1840]\nWives of Krish\u0144a. Pradyumna has Aniruddha: nuptials of the latter. Balar\u00e1ma beat at dice, becomes incensed, and slays Rukmin and others.\nRUKMIN\u00cd bare to Krish\u0144a these other sons, Ch\u00e1rudesh\u0144a, Sudesh\u0144a, Ch\u00e1rudeha, Sushena, Ch\u00e1rugupta, Bhadrach\u00e1ru, Ch\u00e1ruvinda, Such\u00e1ru, and the very mighty Ch\u00e1ru; also one daughter, Ch\u00e1rumat\u00ed. Krish\u0144a had seven other beautiful wives, K\u00e1lind\u00ed, Mitravrind\u00e1, the virtuous N\u00e1gnajit\u00ed, the queen J\u00e1mbavat\u00ed; Rohi\u0144\u00ed, of beautiful form; the amiable and excellent daughter of the king of Madra, M\u00e1dr\u00ed; Satyabh\u00e1m\u00e1, the daughter of \u015aatrujit; and Lakshma\u0144\u00e1, of lovely smiles 1. Besides these, he had sixteen thousand other wives 2.\nThe heroic Pradyumna was chosen for her lord, at her public choice of a husband, by the daughter of Rukmin; and he had by her the powerful and gallant prince Aniruddha, who was fierce in fight, an ocean of prowess, and the tamer of his foes. Ke\u015bava demanded in marriage for him the granddaughter of Rukmin; and although the latter was inimical to Krish\u0144a, he betrothed the maiden (who was his son's daughter) to the son of his own daughter (her cousin Aniruddha). Upon the occasion of the nuptials R\u00e1ma and other Y\u00e1davas attended Krish\u0144a to Bhojakat\u0301a, the city of Rukmin. After the wedding had been solemnized, several of the kings, headed by him of Kalinga, said to Rukmin, \"This wielder of the ploughshare is ignorant of the dice, which may be converted into his misfortune: why may we not contend with him, and beat him, in play?\" The potent Rukmin replied to them, and said, \"So let it be:\" and he engaged Balar\u00e1ma at a game of dice in the palace. Balar\u00e1ma soon lost to Rukmin a thousand Nishkas 3: he then staked and lost another thousand; and then pledged ten thousand, which Rukmin, who was well skilled in gambling, also won. At this the king of Kalinga laughed aloud, and the weak and exulting Rukmin grinned, and said, \"Baladeva is losing, for he knows nothing of the game; although, blinded by a vain passion for play, he thinks he understands the dice.\" Halayudha, galled by the broad laughter of the Kalinga prince, and the contemptuous speech of Rukmin, was exceedingly angry, and, overcome with passion, increased his stake to ten millions of Nishkas. Rukmin accepted the challenge, and therefore threw the dice. Baladeva won, and cried aloud, \"The stake is mine.\" But Rukmin called out as loudly, that he was the winner. \"Tell no lies, Bala,\" said he: \"the stake is yours; that is true; but I did not agree to it: although this be won by you, yet still I am the winner.\" A deep voice was then heard in the sky, inflaming still more the anger of the high-spirited Baladeva, saying, \"Bala has rightly won the whole sum, and Rukmin speaks falsely: although he did\nnot accept the pledge in words, he did so by his acts (having cast the dice).\" Balar\u00e1ma thus excited, his eyes red with rage, started up, and struck Rukmin with the board on which the game was played, and killed him 4. Taking hold of the trembling king of Kalinga, he knocked out the teeth which he had shewn when he laughed. Laying hold of a golden column, he dragged it from its place, and used it as a weapon to kill those princes who had taken part with his adversaries. Upon which the whole circle, crying out with terror, took to flight, and escaped from the wrath of Baladeva. When Krish\u0144a heard that Rukmin had been killed by his brother, he made no remark, being afraid of Rukmin\u00ed on the one hand, and of Bala on the other; but taking with him the newly wedded Aniruddha, and the Y\u00e1dava tribe, he returned to Dw\u00e1rak\u00e1.\n578:1 The number specified, however, both in this place and in c. 32, is nine, instead of eight. The commentator endeavours to explain the difference by identifying Rohi\u0144\u00ed with J\u00e1mbavat\u00ed; but in the notices of Krish\u0144a's posterity, both in this work and in the Bh\u00e1gavata, she is distinct from J\u00e1mbavat\u00ed. She seems, however, to be an addition to the more usually specified eight, of whose several marriages the Bh\u00e1gavata gives the best account. In addition to the three first, respecting whom particulars are found in all, K\u00e1lind\u00ed, or the Yamun\u00e1, is the daughter of the sun, whom Krish\u0144a meets on one of his visits to Indraprastha, and who claims him as the reward of her penance. His next wife, Mitravind\u00e1, is the daughter of his maternal aunt, R\u00e1j\u00e1dhidev\u00ed (p. 437), and sister of Vinda and Anuvinda, kings of Avant\u00ed: she chooses him at her Swayambara. The Hari Van\u015ba calls her Saudatt\u00e1, daughter of \u015aivi; and she is subsequently termed \u015aaivy\u00e1 by our text. N\u00e1gnajit\u00ed or Saty\u00e1, the next wife, was the daughter of Nagnajit, king of Kaus\u00e1la, and was the prize of Krish\u0144a's overcoming seven fierce bulls, whom no other hero had encountered with success. Bhadr\u00e1, princess of Kekaya, also Krish\u0144a's cousin, the daughter of \u015arutak\u00edrtti (p. 437), was his next: and his eighth wife was M\u00e1dr\u00ed, the daughter of the king of Madra; named, according to the Bh\u00e1gavata, Laksha\u0144\u00e1; and to the Hari V., Saubh\u00edm\u00e1; distinguishing, as does our text, clearly Lakshma\u0144\u00e1 from M\u00e1dr\u00ed, and like it having no satisfactory equivalent for Bhadr\u00e1. The Hari Van\u015ba does not name Rohi\u0144\u00ed, but specifies other names, as Vrihat\u00ed, &c. In the life of Krish\u0144a, taken from the Bh\u00e1gavata through a Persian translation, published by Maurice, there is a curious instance of the barbarous distortion of Sanscrit names by the joint labours of the English and Persian translators: the wives of Krish\u0144a are written, Rokemenee (Rukmin\u00ed), Seteebhavani (Satyabh\u00e1m\u00e1), Jamoometee (J\u00e1mbavat\u00ed), Kalenderee (K\u00e1lind\u00ed), Lechmeena (Lakshma\u0144\u00e1), Soeta (Saty\u00e1?), Bhedravatee (Bhadr\u00e1), Mihrbenda (Mitravinda).\n578:2 These, according to the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata, p. 579 \u00c1di P., were Apsarasas, or nymphs. In the D\u00e1na Dharma they become Krish\u0144a's wives through a boon given him by Um\u00e1.\n579:3 The Nishka is a weight of gold, but according to different authorities of very different amount. The commentator here terms it a weight of four Suvar\u0144as, each about 175 grains troy.\n580:4 The Bh\u00e1gavata and Hari Van\u015ba, which both tell this story, agree in the death of Rukmin; but in the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata he appears in the war, on the side of the Pa\u0144d\u0301avas. The occurrence is a not very favourable picture of courtly manners; but scenes of violence have never been infrequent at the courts of Rajput princes.","title":"The Vishnu Purana: Book V: Chapter XXVIII","type":"page"}