The Vision in the River

The sages told the Pandavas of Akrura, the devoted kinsman of Krishna, who was sent to bring the Lord from the cowherds' village to the city, and who, on the way, was granted a wondrous vision of the divine - a tale of pure devotion and of the grace by which the Lord reveals himself to those who love him.

Akrura was a noble and devout man of the Yadava clan, an uncle and kinsman of Krishna, and above all a true devotee, whose heart had long been given to the Lord though he had not yet beheld him. Now the wicked king Kamsa, who ruled at Mathura and who sought Krishna's death, devised a plan to lure the boy from the safety of the cowherds' village; and he chose Akrura to go and fetch Krishna and his brother Balarama to the city, not knowing that Akrura was a devotee whose heart leapt with joy at the errand. So Akrura was sent, by the schemes of a wicked king, on the journey his own devout heart most longed to make: to go and at last behold the Lord.