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Skandha 10, adhyayas 52-54 · Saptah day 6
A princess about to be married against her will sends a brahmana with a letter: come and take me, or I give up my life.
By the fifty-second chapter Krishna has left Mathura and built Dvaraka in the sea. The first wedding the Bhagavatam tells there in full is Rukmini's, and Shuka begins it, at Parikshit's request, with a family in Vidarbha.
King Bhishmaka of Vidarbha had five sons and one daughter, Rukmini. She had heard visitors to her father's court speak of Krishna, of his beauty, his character, his strength and his wealth, and she decided that he and no one else was the husband for her. Krishna, for his part, had heard of her intelligence, her good qualities and her beauty, and thought her a fitting wife. Her family wanted the match. But her eldest brother Rukmi hated Krishna, overruled them all, and promised her instead to Shishupala, king of Chedi.
Rukmini did not wait for her life to be decided. She chose a brahmana she trusted and sent him to Dvaraka. Krishna received him with full honour and fed him, and the brahmana gave him her letter. The text records it in seven verses.
She began with what she had heard. O beauty of the worlds, bhuvana-sundara, your qualities have entered my ears and removed my pain, and my mind, without shame, has fixed itself on you. What woman of good family, at the age of marriage, would not choose such a man? So I have chosen you as my husband and given myself to you. Come and take me as your wife, and do not let the king of Chedi carry off what belongs to the hero, as a jackal steals a lion's share.
She was practical. Come secretly to Vidarbha the day before the wedding, with your commanders. Defeat the armies of Chedi and Magadha, and take me by your own valour. And since you may wonder how to take me from the inner palace without killing my kinsmen, there is a way: on the day before the wedding, the bride goes out of the city in procession to the temple of the family goddess.
And she was absolute. If I do not receive your grace, whose foot-dust great souls like Shiva long to bathe in, I will give up my life, worn out with vows, and keep giving it up through a hundred births until I do.
Krishna took the brahmana's hand and smiled. He could not sleep for thinking of her, he said; he knew Rukmi had blocked the marriage out of hatred. He would bring her out of the midst of those unworthy kings as fire is drawn out of kindling wood. He had his chariot yoked and reached Vidarbha in a single night. Balarama, hearing that he had gone alone and fearing a fight, followed with an army. Shishupala arrived with Jarasandha and the other kings who hated Krishna, ready for exactly that.
In the palace, Rukmini watched the dawn come with no sign of him and no sign of her messenger. She began to fear that he had found some fault in her. Then her left eye, arm and thigh began to throb, a good omen, and the brahmana appeared and told her Krishna had come. She had nothing worthy to give him, the text says, so she simply bowed.
She walked out to the temple of Ambika in silence, surrounded by guards, her mind on Krishna's feet, and prayed to the goddess Ambika that Krishna would be her husband. As she came out, holding a friend's hand, the assembled kings could not take their eyes off her. She looked for Krishna among them, and in front of them all he lifted her into his chariot and drove away, the text says, as a lion takes its share from among jackals.
The kings gave chase and the Yadava army broke them. Shishupala was consoled by Jarasandha, who reminded him that he himself had once lost to Krishna seventeen times. Rukmi alone kept coming. He had vowed not to return home without killing Krishna and bringing his sister back. Krishna shattered his weapons and raised his sword to kill him, and Rukmini fell at his feet and begged for her brother's life. Krishna let him live, but tied him up and shaved his head in patches to shame him. When Balarama arrived he freed Rukmi and rebuked Krishna: to disfigure a kinsman is as bad as killing him. Then he consoled Rukmini. Rukmi, too ashamed to go home, built a new city, Bhojakata, and lived there.
Krishna brought Rukmini to Dvaraka and married her with all the proper rites, and the city celebrated.
Rukmini is Lakshmi in the Bhagavatam's understanding, and her story is the first full account of Krishna's royal life after Vraja. It is also a rare moment in the tenth book when a woman writes to God and tells him exactly what to do. That is why a Bhagavata Saptah celebrates her wedding on its sixth day, as a custom of the katha rather than a command of the text: the household listening is invited to read the letter as its own.
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