HV 88.1
तं प्राविध्यत सप्तत्या बाणैर् गाढं जनार्दनः । यतमानश् च चिच्छेद ध्वजं चास्य महाबलः ॥
taṃ prāvidhyata saptatyā bāṇair gāḍhaṃ janārdanaḥ | yatamānaś ca ciccheda dhvajaṃ cāsya mahābalaḥ
Janārdana pierced him deeply with seventy arrows, and, striving, the mighty one cut his banner.
The Living Words
*Saptatyā bāṇair gāḍham*, 'with seventy arrows, deeply' — the number is exact. *Yatamānaś ca ciccheda dhvajam*: 'striving, he cut the banner' — the striving is named. *Mahābalaḥ*, 'of great strength'. The verse is precise in a way early combat-verses often are not: not a flood of arrows, but seventy; not a casual cut, but a striving one.
The Heart of It
The Harivaṃśa is careful here not to make Kṛṣṇa appear effortless. He strives. The action requires effort. This is an important theological choice. God-avatāras do not perform their deeds by wave-of-hand; they labor, they count their arrows, they strive. The Varkari understanding that devotion is also laborious — the Name requires strength of tongue and mind, not just a casual word — is continuous with this. Jñāneśvar's discipline in Haripāṭh 9 and elsewhere — *jhāḍanī*, sweeping, repeated daily — is in the same register.