Please Download Our Android App to Continue Editing

Bhalka Tirtha located in the Prabhas  Kshetra  near Veraval in Saurashtra is the place where Lord Krishna was hit by an arrow shot by a hunter named Jara, after which He is said to have left the earth for the heavenly abode, an act referred to in the puranas as Shri Krishna Neejdham Prasthan Leela.

According to Mahabharata, on the night before Duryodhana's death, Lord 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, then gave up His body using 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, wounding Him mortally. 

While still bleeding, Lord Krishna told Jara, "O Jara, you were Vali in your previous birth, killed by myself as Rama in Tretayuga. 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 Lord Krishna, with His physical body ascended back to His eternal abode, Goloka vrindavan and this event marks departure of Lord Krishna from the earth.

The news was conveyed to Hastinapur and Dwaraka by eyewitnesses to this event. The place of this incident is believed to be Bhalka, near Somnath temple.

According to Puranic sources,  Lord Krishna's disappearance marks the end of Dvapara Yuga and the start of Kali Yuga, which is dated to February 17/18, 3102 BCE.

There is a temple built near  the tree that is said to be the same tree under which Lord Krishna was sitting. On the altar there is an idol of Lord Krishna in a sitting posture. One can see the bottom of Lord Krishna’s foot, pink colored with different auspicious symbols. Nearby is the idol of hunter, Jara, with folded hands and one knee on the floor.