By Acarya dasa, All-India Padayatra leader
On December 8, 2020, the All-India padayatris reached the Gujarati city of Junagadh, located at the foot of the Girnar hills. We were welcomed by Radhagovind Maharaja disciple Giridhari dasa, who had been a part of our padayatra for three years. Giridhari invited us to his house where we stayed for three days, visiting the most important places in Junagadh and going for sankirtan daily. In Junagadh there are 100 Bengali Jayapataka Maharaja disciples who gladly joined the sankirtan and also participated in a large pandal programme attended by many congregation members.
One day we went for darshan of the Muchukunda Cave. We started climbing Mt Girnar at 6am and returned to Junagadh by 3pm, having covered 4000 steps. The Srimad-Bhagavatam states that Jarasandha, having been unable to defeat Lord Krishna after multiple attacks on Mathura, made an alliance with the Yavana warrior, Kalyavana. With Jarasandha and Kalyavana’s forces threatening Mathura, Krishna relocated the inhabitants to Dwarka and then challenged Kalyavana to a duel. Krishna lured Kalyavana to a cave on Mt Girnar, where the great Treta-yuga king, Muchukunda, was in a deep slumber after fighting for the demigods in a war against asuras. For this service, that left him exhausted, he had received a boon from Indra that anyone who dared disturb his sleep would get burnt to ashes. In the dark of the cave Krishna placed His shawl over Muchukunda. Upon entering the cave Kalyavana thought the sleeping person was Krishna and kicked Muchukunda, whose repose was broken. Waking in an angry mood, the rays of fire emanating from Muchukunda’s eyes burnt Kalyavana to ashes within a moment. Realising the fate of their leader the Yavana army fled, thus Lord Krishna relieved the city of Dwarka, saving it from destruction.
