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Prasena who used to hang the gem around his neck went out into the woods one day to hunt. During the hunt, he was mauled and killed by a lion. After killing Prasena, when the lion was about to go in search of other prey, he suddenly noticed the bright red gem on the neck of his victim. He then managed to take the jewel from Prasena and having stored it in his mouth was about to leave the place.
However, Jambavat, the king of bears had noticed the lion taking the Syamantaka gem in his mouth. He therefore challenged the lion to a fight. After having killed the lion, the gem was then taken by Jambavat to his cave in the jungle. There, he gave the gem to his son Sukumara to play with.
When Prasena did not return from the hunt for a few days, rumors started floating within the Yadava population that Krishna had probably killed Prasena himself or would have had him executed in order to possess the Syamantaka gem for himself.
Distressed by these rumors, Krishna put together a band of trusted Yadavas and decided to find the whereabouts of Prasena. Tracking his horse’s hoof tracks, they reached the place in the jungle where the horse and its rider had been mauled and killed by the lion. From this spot onwards, the group tracked the lion’s hoof tracks and reached the place where the lion had been killed by Jambavat, the bear king. Following the foot marks of the bear, they arrived at the foot of a mountain.
Krishna asked his fellow Yadava companions to wait at the foot of the mountain and continued tracking the foot prints. He discovered a cavern and was about to enter it when he heard voices – “The lion killed Prasena, your father Jambavat killed the lion. Weep not Sukumara, the Syamantaka is yours now”
Having been assured that he was on the right track, when Krishna entered the cavern, he saw the bear prince playing with his nurse who had uttered the earlier statement. Seeing Krishna approach them, and noticing his unflinching gaze on the precious gem, then nurse raised the alarm which almost immediately brought an angry Jambavat to the place.
Thus began a wild, bloody fight between the bear king and Krishna who had intruded his domain with the intention of stealing the Syamantaka gem. When the fight went on for seven-eight days, the Yadava companions believed that Krishna must have died in the fight and therefore returned to Dwaraka and announced that Krishna had been killed.
When the kinsmen and family of Krishna heard the news, they were saddened beyond belief. As per the norms of those days, they performed Krishna’s last rites. The food and water so offered to Krishna by them as part of his shraadh formalities served to sustain Krishna and keep him invigorated in his fight with Jambavat. The bear king however did not have any source of nourishment and therefore his strength to fight Krishna was slowly but surely eroding.
Finally overcome by Krishna, Jambavat surrendered before him and said “You, mighty one, are destined to be invincible by the demons, the spirits of heaven, hell and earth, much less by humans, even less by creatures such as myself born of brute origin. You surely are a portion of my sovereign lord Narayana, the defender of the universe.”
Pleased by the fact that Jambavat had recognized him, Krishna explained that he had taken this form to take upon himself the burden of the earth, and saying so alleviated the bear king of all the wounds that he had suffered as a result of the conflict. Honored by this gesture of Krishna, the bear king offered the hand of his daughter Jambavati to Krishna and also handed over the Syamantaka gem to him as well. Given that his personal reputation was at stake, Krishna took the gem from Jambavat and proceeded to Dwaraka with the gem and his bride Jambavati.
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