In Kṛṣṇa's House

Kṛṣṇa himself told this story to his son Pradyumna, Rukmiṇī's son. Kṛṣṇa said: The brahmin Durvāsa once went about the worlds of gods and men, singing these verses about himself in the squares and the halls: Who will lodge Durvāsa in his house and honour him? Who will give him shelter, having heard my conditions? Whoever lodges me must never anger me. No one would take him in, and so I took him in.

Durvāsa was tawny-yellow, dressed in rags, with a staff of bilva wood, a long beard and long nails, taller than the tallest men. Sometimes he ate the food of many thousands at one sitting, sometimes a little, and sometimes he went out and did not come back. He would laugh for no reason and weep for no reason. He came to our house and burned the beds and the coverings, and then went away of his own accord.

Then Durvāsa said to me: Kṛṣṇa, I want to eat pāyasa, and quickly. I knew his mind, and had told my household to have every kind of food ready, so I brought him pāyasa, rice boiled in milk, still steaming. He ate some, and said to me, Quick, smear your body with this pāyasa. Without stopping to think, I smeared my limbs and my head with what he had left. Then he saw your mother Rukmiṇī standing near, and smiling, he smeared her with pāyasa too, and yoked her to a chariot, and climbed in, and drove out of my house, goading her with the whip before my eyes. I felt not the least pain of jealousy. He drove out along the royal road, blazing like fire, and the Dāśārhas, my kinsmen, who saw it said to each other, Who else could ride in that chariot and live? When Rukmiṇī stumbled on the road, Durvāsa would not bear it, and drove her on faster.

Then, in a great rage, Durvāsa jumped down from the chariot and ran south on foot, off the road. I ran after him, smeared with pāyasa, crying, Be gracious, sir! Durvāsa looked back at me and said: You have conquered anger by your very nature, Kṛṣṇa. I see no fault in you. I am pleased with you. As long as men love food, they will love you as they love food. As long as your holy fame endures in the worlds, so long you will be first in the three worlds, dear to all. Whatever of yours was broken or burned you will find whole again, or better. Where this pāyasa is smeared on your limbs, you need have no fear of death, for as long as you wish. But why did you not smear the soles of your feet too, my son? That does not please me.

And I saw my own body shining with beauty. To Rukmiṇī he said, You will have the highest fame among women. Old age and sickness and loss of colour will not touch you. You will be fragrant, you will serve Kṛṣṇa, and of his sixteen thousand wives you will be the first, and share his world. And to me he said, May your mind towards brahmins always be as it is now, Kṛṣṇa, and vanished. When I went back into the house, everything he had broken or burned was new and whole again.

So Kṛṣṇa told his son. Long afterwards, at the end of his days on earth, Kṛṣṇa, who knew all that was to come, lay down in an empty forest, and he remembered what Durvāsa had said to him when he was smeared with pāyasa. He entered into yoga, and a hunter named Jarā, taking him for a deer, shot an arrow into the sole of his foot, and Kṛṣṇa comforted the hunter and went up from the world.