A marriage she did not choose
Rukmiṇī, princess of Vidarbha, had heard of Kṛṣṇa's reputation and resolved on her own that she wanted him as her husband. Her brother Rukmī, hostile to Kṛṣṇa, arranged her marriage instead to Śiśupāla, king of Chedi. The wedding date was set without her consent to the match itself — the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Canto 10) is explicit that the choice of groom was her brother's, not hers.
The letter
Rather than accept the marriage, Rukmiṇī sent a trusted brāhmaṇa as a secret messenger to Kṛṣṇa, carrying a letter. The letter itself is preserved in the text — Canto 10, Chapter 52 (its verses most often cited as roughly 52.37–43) — in which she names Kṛṣṇa directly as the husband she has already chosen in her own mind, and asks him to come before the wedding and take her away by force, framing an abduction as the only form the marriage custom of her own kṣatriya class would actually recognize as a claiming, rather than a request anyone could simply refuse.
The abduction, and the battle that followed
Kṛṣṇa rode to Vidarbha and, during the wedding procession, took Rukmiṇī from it before the ceremony with Śiśupāla could be completed (Canto 10, Chapters 53–54). Rukmī pursued with an armed force, intent on stopping the marriage to Kṛṣṇa entirely; his army was defeated. The text records Rukmī's defeat and humiliation at losing the engagement he had arranged, though this essay has not independently verified the more elaborate details of his treatment that circulate in some popular retellings, and leaves them out rather than repeat them unchecked.
Whose choice was it
The Bhāgavata frames the entire episode around Rukmiṇī's own stated wish, recorded in her own letter, rather than as a conquest Kṛṣṇa initiated on his own account. That still leaves open what her brother's army, and whatever political consequences followed for Vidarbha and Chedi, are owed against one woman's letter — a single written request, however clearly stated, does not by itself settle what the wider cost of honoring it should have been, or to whom that cost was fairly distributed.
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Canto 10, Chapter 52. Rukmiṇī's letter to Kṛṣṇa, delivered via a brāhmaṇa messenger; commonly cited to verses 52.37–43.
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Canto 10, Chapters 53–54. The abduction from the wedding procession, Rukmī's pursuit and defeat, and the marriage of Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī.
- Excluded. Some popular retellings describe a specific, more elaborate humiliation of Rukmī after his defeat (shaving or disfigurement); this essay could not independently verify those details against the Bhāgavata's own text in this pass and has left them out rather than repeat an unverified claim.