According to
Mahabharata, the
Kurukshetra war resulted in the death of all the hundred sons of
Gandhari. On the night before
Duryodhana's death,
Krishna visited Gandhari to offer his condolences. Gandhari felt that Krishna knowingly did not put an end to the war, and in a fit of rage and sorrow, Gandhari cursed that Krishna, along with everyone else from the
Yadu dynasty, would perish after 36 years. Krishna himself knew and wanted this to happen as he felt that the Yadavas had become very haughty and arrogant
(), so he ended Gandhari's speech by saying "
tathastu" (so be it). After 36 years passed, a fight broke out between the
Yadavas, at a festival, who killed each other. His elder brother,
Balarama,
left his body through
Yoga. Krishna retired into the forest and started meditating under a tree. The Mahabharata also narrates the story of a hunter who becomes an instrument for Krishna's departure from the world. The hunter Jara mistook Krishna's partly visible left foot for that of a deer, and shot an arrow, mortally wounding him. After Jara realised his mistake, while still bleeding, Krishna told Jara, "O Jara, you were
Vali in your previous birth, killed by myself as
Rama in
Treta Yuga. Here you had a chance to even it and since all acts in this world are done as desired by me, you need not worry for this". Then Krishna, left his physical body ascended back to his eternal abode,
Vaikuntha and this event marks departure of Krishna from the earth. The news was conveyed to
Hastinapur and
Dwaraka by eyewitnesses to this event. ==Story==