The Murti That Escaped a Drowning City

The sea came in and took the city, and two of them went back for one thing.

Dwaraka had been built on reclaimed land along the coast while Krishna was alive. Puranic tradition holds that not long after his death the water began taking the ground back, and that it went quickly, the whole capital, under. In the wider account that submersion is what closes the story of the Yadava dynasty once Krishna has left the world.

Everything in it was lost. Houses, streets, the court, the people who had not got out.

Except one object.

Somewhere inside Dwaraka there was a murti of Krishna that Krishna himself had worshipped. Not an image of him carved later by devotees who loved him. The image he had knelt in front of.

Two figures went in and brought it out.

Who carried it

The first was Brihaspati, guru of the gods, the tradition's great figure of wisdom and good counsel, associated with the planet Jupiter and with sound judgement.