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THE DOOM OF THE VRISHNIS 235 self there in meditation. Deeply pondered He on all that had passed, grasping in His mind the curse of Gandhari, a^nd the nature of Time and Death. Then did He set Himself towards the restraint of all His senses. Seated firmly beneath a tree, He steadied His own mind upon itself, and drew m all His perceptions, one after another. At last He became all stillness and all silence, reaching the uttermost rest. . . . Then, it is said, that all might be fulfilled, wrapped thus in self-communion as in an impenetrable mantle, Krishna laid Him- self down upon the bare earth. Nothing in His whole body was vulnerable save the soles of His feet. And as He lay thus, a fierce huntsman came that way, and mistaking the feet of the Lord for a crouching deer, aimed at them an arrow, which struck Him in the heel.

Coming quickly up to his prey, the huntsman, to his dismay, beheld One dressed in the yellow cloth, and wrapped in meditation ; and he knew Him moreover to be divine, for behind Him he beheld the shining-forth of innumerable arms. Filled with remorse, not untouched with fear, that huntsman fell to the earth and touched the feet of Krishna. And He, the blessed Lord, smiled upon His slayer, and blessed and comforted him. Then, with these words of compassion upon His lips, He ascended upwards, filling the whole sky with His splendour. Reaching tlie threshold of the