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Do we have any account of the afterlives of Vasudeva, Devaki, Nandagopa and Yashoda? I generally hear about Nandagopa and Yashoda's last incident to be while they were being separated from Krishna, i.e. Krishna going to Mathura. About Vasudeva and Devaki, the last thing I heard was that they were freed after Kamsa's killing and Vasudeva was made the Crown Prince under King Ugrasena. Do we have any further stories or incidents where they have a role to play and also how did they die?

Dr. Vineet Aggarwal
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Aby
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The last time that Krishna saw Nandagopa was during a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra. There was once a solar eclipse, so people from all over India made a pilgrimage to the Samanta Panchaka of five ponds of Kurukshetra. The Srimad Bhagavatam describes Krishna and the Yadavas meeting Nandagopa and Yashoda there:

Seeing Nanda, the Vṛṣṇis were delighted and stood up like dead bodies coming back to life. Having felt much distress at not seeing him for so long, they held him in a tight embrace. Vasudeva embraced Nanda Mahārāja with great joy. Beside himself with ecstatic love, Vasudeva remembered the troubles Kaṁsa had caused him, forcing him to leave his sons in Gokula for Their safety. O hero of the Kurus, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma embraced Their foster parents and bowed down to them, but Their throats were so choked up with tears of love that the two Lords could say nothing. Raising their two sons onto their laps and holding Them in their arms, Nanda and saintly mother Yaśodā forgot their sorrow.

But that was not the last time Krishna saw Yashoda. When Yashoda was on her deathbed, Krishna came to visit her. Yashoda told him that her one regret in life was that she never got to see any of Krishna's marriages. So Krishna promised her that in a future birth she would see him get married. Yashoda was reborn in the Kali Yuga as Vakuladevi, and she got to see the marriage of Venkateshwara (the Vishnu deity in Tirupati, AKA Balaji or Srinivasa).

As I discuss in this answer, Krishna died after being shot by a hunter who mistook his foot for the mouth of a deer. And after Krishna's father Vasudeva heard the news, he gave up his body the next morning, as described in the Mausala Parva of the Mahabharata:

Arjuna passed that night in the mansion of Keshava. He was suddenly overwhelmed with great grief and stupefaction. When morning dawned, Vasudeva of great energy and prowess attained, through the aid of Yoga, to the highest goal. A loud and heart-rending sound of wailing was heard in Vasudeva’s mansion, uttered by the weeping ladies. They were seen with dishevelled hair and divested of ornaments and floral wreaths. Beating their breasts with their hands, they indulged in heart-rending lamentations. Those foremost of women, Devaki and Bhadra and Rohini and Madira threw themselves on the bodies of their lord.

And then Vasudeva's four wives, including Devaki, threw themselves into the funeral pyre:

The body of the hero was followed by his wives decked in ornaments and surrounded by thousands of women and thousands of their daughters-in-law. The last rites were then performed at that spot which had been agreeable to him while he was alive. The four wives of that heroic son of Sura ascended the funeral pyre and were consumed with the body of their lord. All of them attained to those regions of felicity which were his.

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Keshav Srinivasan
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    Thanks a lot Keshav. Its good to know that Lord was with Yashoda while she was on her deathbed. It must have been a sigh of relief for her and good to know that she was Lord's mother again in his re-birth. – Aby Nov 11 '14 at 07:28
  • IS vyenkateshwara purna avatar or ansha avatar? – Yogi Nov 11 '14 at 18:32
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    @Creator Venkateshwara is either Vishnu himself or Purna Avatara of Vishnu. It's not clear which, because Hindu scripture just says that Vishnu came down to the Earth on a golden Vimana from Vaikunta. It's not clear on whether he changed his appearance to look like a human or whether he maintained his four-armed form. In any case, after marrying Padmavathi he turned into a statue, which captured his appearance exactly: http://i.stack.imgur.com/T7b7Z.jpg As you can see, the statue has four arms, so that suggests that Vishnu may not have even taken on a human form when he went to Earth. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 11 '14 at 18:56
  • I watched some episodes of a TV serial earlier called 'Tirupati Balaji'. It said that while Rama was born with 8 kalas of Vishnu, Krishna was born with 16 Kalas and Tirupati Balaji was with all 32 Kala. So, taking that into account, it should be a poorna avtar. But that depends on how much of the TV serial is taken from scriptures. We know that TV serials do take liberty with content. – Aby Nov 12 '14 at 07:43
  • @Aby Yeah, TV shows definitely take artistic license. But yeah, people think that Venkateshawara is either a poorna avataram, or he's just Vishnu himself. As far as Rama and Krishna not being poorna avatarams, most people think they are poorna avatarams, but at least in the case of Krishna there's some evidence that he's an amsa avataram. For instance the Vishnu Puranas says that Krishna was born from a single black hair of Vishnu: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp118.htm And the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata says Krishna was "a portion of him called Narayana". – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 12 '14 at 08:33
  • @Aby And this excerpt from the Shatarudra Samhita of the Shiva Purana says that Vishnu "shall be born as Krishna with his one sixth part": http://gdurl.com/Ixm9 The Shiva Purana has a lot of interpolations though, so take that last quote with a grain of salt. In any case, most people think that any avataram that has the same facial appearance of Vishnu are poorna avatarams. So by that standard Rama, Krishna, and Venkateshwara would all be poorna avatarams (assuming Venkateshwara is not just Vishnu himself.) – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 12 '14 at 16:35
  • @KeshavSrinivasan - can you provide a reference for the last meeting of Krishna and Yashoda ? –  Jan 09 '16 at 13:37
  • @Keshav Where is it mentioned that Krsna met Yashoda on her deathbed? I always assumed that the promise was made at Samantapanchaka. – Surya Mar 18 '16 at 12:45
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    @Keshav Srinivasan, Krishna is Supreme Godhead. He is never an amsha avatar. Read Brahma Samhita. I am stating the slokas here. 1) Krsna who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes. 2) Enlightened by the recollection of that Gayatri, embodying the three Vedas, Brahma became acquainted with the expanse of the ocean of truth. Then he worshiped Sri Krishna, the essence of all Vedas, with this hymn.
    1. I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor
     – rishi Sep 25 '16 at 10:51
  • @Rishi Before giving information to Keshav first have information about Brahma Samhita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Samhita ... "Mitsunori Matsubara in his Pañcarātra Saṁhitās and Early Vaisṇava Theology dates the text at ca 1300 AD." – Tezz Sep 25 '16 at 11:43
  • @Tezz I think that we shouldn't take wiki articles very seriously, and one simple reason for this is that they are often written from the point of view of modern indology, and every true Hindu believer knows that he shouldn't believe that world view which they advocate!, but should believe the world view presented in the Hindu scriptures instead. And also I want to say (not related to the Brahma Samhita) is that I agree with member Rishi who said in the above comment that Lord Krishna is not an amsha (partial) avatara, but is the fullest of all manifestations of Lord Vishnu that exist. – brahma jijnasa Sep 25 '16 at 14:56
  • @brahma jijnasa yes, I agree with you that we shouldn't take dating of Wikipedia seriously... but this doesn't mean that we can't get any information from it... we can get many information like... eg. It dated Brahma Samhita to 1300 AD.. i) this means that no acharyas before 1300 AD like sri Ramanuj, sri Shankara and others quoted it.. ii) it also means the sandhi and language type of verses used in Brahma Samhita are modern type.. for eg see eg. Of Aruneya Upanishad...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aruneya_Upanishad no Acharya quoted it but still wiki dates it in BC... it's due to language. – Tezz Sep 25 '16 at 15:10
  • @Tezz First of all it's not true that no acarya quoted from the Brahma Samhita (BS). Gaudiya vaishnava acaryas did quote from it, and that thing what you said "no acharyas before 1300 AD like sri Ramanuj, sri Shankara and others quoted it" is not a proof that some Hindu scripture is fake. And that what you said about language analysis of a scripture was never accepted by a Hindu tradition and acaryas as a means to consider whether some scripture is genuine or fake. – brahma jijnasa Sep 25 '16 at 15:27
  • @Brahma jijnasa I'm not saying if it's not quoted by Acharya before 1300 AD it's fake... I'm just saying "From that information or dating of Wiki we know that no Acharya before 1300 AD quoted it."... Regarding language matter... it doesn't matter whether one accepts ot not... but you yourself can find difference when you read scripture in Sanskrit... – Tezz Sep 25 '16 at 15:41
  • @Tezz Well, we are living in the world where everyone believes whatever he wants to believe. But I think that if we want to be genuine Hindu believers we should adjust our beliefs with the traditional Hindu beliefs about Hindu scriptures. And regarding that what you mentioned about the language analysis of a scripture was never accepted by a Hindu tradition and acaryas as a means to consider whether some scripture is genuine or fake. That language analysis of a scripture to provide a means to consider a scripture as modern or ancient has become popular recently in modern time with indology.... – brahma jijnasa Sep 25 '16 at 16:33
  • @Tezz ... But it was never presented by the traditional acaryas. And that another thing that some Hindu scripture was never quoted by some prominent acarya like Shankara, Ramanuja, etc, before 14th century is not very much important, because those few acaryas have quoted just one finite number of Hindu scriptures in their books. And there were many other scriptures that existed in their time that they have never quoted. So just because those few acaryas did not quote all those many scriptures doesn't mean all those scriptures must be fake or modern. – brahma jijnasa Sep 25 '16 at 16:34
  • @Tezz and @other-members Btw, there is yet another important argument in my opinion that can be given in favor of the view that the Brahma Samhita (BS) is a genuine Hindu scripture, and that is simple the fact that the manuscript of the BS was found in the Adikesava Temple which is a Vaishnava temple. It is reasonable to assume that the temple priests would keep and preserve in the temple a genuine scripture and not some fake text. That's what a temple library priests do, they take care of scriptures that are worth to be preserved. – brahma jijnasa Sep 26 '16 at 02:06
  • @brahma jijnasa Language analysis is not a thing which some Acharya tell or not... we can see it when we read it.. for eg. ValmikiRamayana being Adikavya is in developing state of poetry... so if you read both ValmikiRamayana verses and Mahabharat in Sanskrit... you can easily know that ValmikiRamayana is earlier than Mahabharata.. similar case in Upanishads also... likewise we can also look for any scripture... However this doesn't mean that this is 100% genuine method to conclude authenticity of scriptures.... – Tezz Sep 26 '16 at 02:43
  • @Tezz However this doesn't mean that this is 100% genuine method to conclude authenticity of scriptures This method is highly speculative and should not be relied upon to consider whether a scripture is ancient or not. Acaryas did not use that method. – brahma jijnasa Sep 26 '16 at 08:27