THE STORY OF KRISHNA AND ARJUNA
A long long time ago, people believed that by doing "yagnas", they would become strong and their every wish would be granted. What did these "yagnas" involve? Well, they involved setting up a huge fire and doing long poojas. During these poojas, lots of ghee was put into the fire.
This went on for a long time. One day, Agni the fire god started feeling very sick and weak. He went to Lord Brahma and told him, "Oh lord! I'm feeling very weak and very tired. I just don't feel my usual healthy self. What is wrong with me?" Lord Brahma answered, "Agni, you have been fed with a lot of ghee and that is making you feel like this. There is a big forest one earth, go and blaze in it. This will restore you to your former health".
Agni was very happy to hear this and went and started devouring the forest. All the animals in the forest started running helter-skelter. Now it so happened that Indra, the king of gods had a friend - the king of snakes - and Indra thought to himself, "My friend is in that forest and he will surely get burnt if Agni continues to blaze forth". So, Indra released his thunder and brought rain, thus dousing Agni.
This happened again and again. Agni finally got very sad. He went to Lord Brahma once again and the lord told him to approach Arjuna and Krishna. They were camping near the forest.
Agni went to them and told them his problem. The two friends immediately agreed to help Agni but Arjuna did not have the necessary weapons. Agni immediately gave Arjuna a magic quiver, from which the arrows would never get exhausted.
Taking this, Arjuna and Krishna went to the forest with Agni. Agni started blazing away at the forest once more. When Indra saw this, he once again came to the aid of this friend by bringing rainfall. Arjuna immediately shot arrows at the sky and blocked the entire sky above the forest. This stopped the rain from dousing the flames. Indra was frustrated and immediately took his large army and went to fight with Arjuna and Krishna. At the same time, the asuras who were hiding in the forest came out. Krishna started fighting with the asuras and Arjuna with his father's huge army. (For those who don't know, Indra is Arjuna's father.)
The war that ensued was a long and hard one. Finally, Indra's army was losing when a heavenly voice spoke out to Indra, "Indra, your friend is not in the forest. He went away just before the fire started. The forest was destined to burn down and you can't stop it". Hearing this, Indra conceded defeat.
Suddenly, they saw an asura trying to run away. Krishna raised his Sudarshana Chakra to kill him. The asura ran to Arjuna and pled with him to save his life. Arjuna promised him his life and prayed with Krishna not to kill him. This asura was an architect and in return he asked Arjuna to make a wish. Arjuna said, "Make a very beautiful palace for my brother, such a palace which the world has not seen earlier or will see again".
The asura designed a wonderful palace and the Pandava brothers went to live there after their "vanvas" of 13 year. This wonderful palace was the last nail in the coffin of the enemity between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
Agni then blazed away peacefully for 15 days and at the end of it, he regained his lost vigor.
There are many stories from mahabharata about his later part of life. We shall be adding more stories of krishna in due course of time.