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Balarama, who was seeing all this, was overwhelmed with shame and disgust
and sank to the ground. He gave up his life as he lay in a yoga trance and passed away
into the ocean in a stream of light, which issued from his forehead like a silver serpent.
Thus ended the avatar of Narayana in Balarama.
Krishna saw all his people thus destroy themselves as predestined. When
he saw the passing of Balarama, he roamed about in deep meditation in the wilderness,
pondering on the completion of his avatar. "The time has come for me to go," he
said to himself and, lying on the ground fell asleep.
In that wooded beach, a hunter, prowling for game, saw Vasudeva lying
on the ground among the shrubs and, from a distance, mistook him for a wild animal resting
on the ground.
He bent his bow and shot an arrow at the
prostrate figure which, piercing his foot in the insteep, went full through his body. Thus
did the great Vasudeva depart from the world of men?
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