The mischievous boy meets us
again…
Based on scriptural details and astrological
calculations the date of Krishna's birth,
known as Janmashtami, is 18 July 3228 BCE and
departed on 3102 BCE. Krishna belonged to the Vrishni clan of Yadavas from Mathura, and was the eighth son born to
the princess Devaki, and her husband Vasudeva. Mathura was the capital of the Yadavas, to which Krishna's parents Vasudeva and Devaki
belonged. The king Kansa, Devaki's brother, had ascended the throne by imprisoning his father, King Ugrasena. Afraid of a prophecy that predicted his death at the hands of Devaki's eighth son, Kansa had the couple locked into a prison
cell. After Kansa killed the first six children, and Devaki's apparent
miscarriage of the seventh (which was actually a secret transfer of the infant
to Rohini as Balarama), Krishna was born.
Since Vasudeva believed
Krishna's life was in danger, Krishna was secretly taken out of the prison cell
to be raised by his foster parents, Yasoda and Nanda, in Gokula. Two of his other siblings also survived, Balarama (Devaki's seventh child, transferred to the
womb of Rohini, Vasudeva's first wife) and Subhadra (daughter of Vasudeva and Rohini, born much
later than Balarama and Krishna). Once, Kansa sent an ogress named Putana to poison baby Krishna with milk. Instead of
her poisoning him, he revealed her true form.
Nanda was the head of a
community of cow-herders, and he settled in Vrindavana. The stories of Krishna's childhood and
youth tell how he became a cow herder, his mischievous pranks as Makhan Chor
(butter thief), his foiling of attempts to take his life, and his role as a
protector of the people of Vrindavana.
Krishna killed the demoness-like
Putana, sent by Kansa for Krishna's life. He tamed the serpent Kāliyā, who previously poisoned the waters of Yamuna river, thus leading to the death of the
cowherds. In Hindu art, Krishna is often depicted dancing on the multi-hooded
Kāliyā.
Krishna lifted the Govardhana
hill and
taught Indra, the king of the devas and rain, a lesson to protect native people
of Vrindavana from persecution by Indra and prevent the devastation of the
pasture land of Govardhan. Indra had too much pride and was angry when Lord
Krishna advised the people of Vrindavana to take care of their animals and
their environment that provide them with all their necessities, instead of
worshipping Indra annually by spending their resources. In the view of some,
the spiritual movement started by Lord Krishna had something in it which went
against the orthodox forms of worship of the Vedic gods such as Indra. In Bhagavat Purana, Lord
Krishna says that the rain came from the nearby hill Govardhana, and advised
that the people worshiped the hill instead of Indra. This made Indra furious,
so he punished them by sending out a great storm. Lord Krishna then lifted
Govardhan and held it over the people like an umbrella.
The stories of his play with the
gopis (milkmaids) of Vrindavana, especially Radha
(daughter of Vrishbhanu, one of the original residents of Vrindavan) became
known as the Rasa lila and were romanticised in the poetry of Jayadeva, author of the Gita
Govinda.
These became important as part of the development of the Krishna bhakti traditions worshiping Radha
Krishna.
On his return to Mathura as a
young man, Krishna overthrew and killed his maternal uncle, Kansa, after
avoiding several assassination attempts from Kansa's followers. He reinstated
Kansa's father, Ugrasena, as the king of the Yadavas and became a
leading prince at the court. During this period, he became a friend of Arjuna and the other Pandava princes of the Kuru kingdom, who were his cousins. Later, he
took his Yadava subjects to the city of Dwaraka (in modern Gujarat) and established his own kingdom there.
Krishna married Rukmini, the Vidarbha princess, by abducting her, at her request,
from her proposed wedding with Shishupala. Krishna subsequently married 16,100 maidens
who were held captive by demon Narakasura, to save their honour. of which eight were
chief—collectively called the Ashta Bharya—including Rukmini, Satyabhama, Jambavati, Kalindi, Mitravrinda, Nagnajiti, Bhadra and
Lakshana. Krishna killed the demon and released them all. According to social
custom of the time, all of the captive women were degraded, and would be unable
to marry, as they had been under the Narakasura's control. However Krishna
married them to reinstate their status in the society. This symbolic wedding
with 16,000 abandoned daughters was more of mass women rehabilitation. In
Vaishnava traditions, Krishna's wives are forms of the goddess Lakshmi— consort of Vishnu, or special souls who attained this qualification after many
lifetimes of austerity, while his queen Satyabhama, is an expansion
of Radha.
When Yudhisthira was assuming
the title of emperor, he had invited all the great kings to the ceremony and
while paying his respects to them, he started with Krishna because he considered
Krishna to be the greatest of them all. While it was a unanimous feeling
amongst most present at the ceremony that Krishna should get the first honours,
his cousin Shishupala felt otherwise and started berating Krishna.
Due to a vow given to Shishupal's mother, Krishna forgave a hundred verbal
abuses by Shishupal, and upon the one hundred and first, he assumed his Virat
(universal) form and killed Shishupal with his Chakra. The blind king Dhritarashtra also obtained divine vision during this time
to be able to see the Lord's form. Essentially, Shishupal and Dantavakra were both re-incarnations of Lord Vishnu's
gate-keepers Jaya and Vijaya, who were cursed to be born on Earth, to be
delivered by the Lord back to Heaven.
Once battle seemed inevitable,
Krishna offered both sides the opportunity to choose between having either his
army called narayani sena or himself alone, but on the condition that
he personally would not raise any weapon. Arjuna, on behalf of the Pandavas,
chose to have Krishna on their side, and Duryodhana, Kaurava prince, chose Krishna's army. At
the time of the great battle, Krishna acted as Arjuna's charioteer, since this
position did not require the wielding of weapons.
Upon arrival at the battlefield,
and seeing that the enemies are his family, his grandfather, his cousins and
loved ones, Arjuna becomes doubtful about fight. He lost all his hopes and put
down his Gandiv(Arjuna's bow). Krishna then advises him about the
battle, with the conversation soon extending into a discourse which was later
compiled as the Bhagavad Gita.
Krishna had a profound effect on
the Mahabharata war and its consequences. He considered the Kurukshetra war as
a last resort by voluntarily making himself as a messenger in order to
establish peace between the Pandavas and Kauravas. But, once these peace
negotiations failed and was embarked into the war, then he became a ruthless
strategist. During the war, upon becoming angry with Arjun for not fighting in
true spirit against his ancestors, Krishna once picked up a carriage wheel and
converted it to a Chakra (discus) to challenge Bhishma when the latter injured him. Upon seeing
this, Bhishma dropped his weapons and asked Krishna to kill him. However,
Arjuna apologized to Krishna, promising that he would fight with full
dedication hereafter, and the battle continued. Krishna had directed Yudhisthira and Arjuna to return to Bhishma the boon of
"victory" which he had given to Yudhisthira before the war commenced,
since he himself was standing in their way to victory. Bhishma understood the
message and told them the means through which he would drop his weapons—which
was if a woman entered the battlefield. Next day, upon Krishna's directions, Shikhandi (Amba reborn) accompanied Arjuna to the
battlefield and thus, Bhishma laid down his arms. This was a decisive moment in
the war because Bhishma was the chief commander of the Kaurava army and the
most formidable warrior on the battlefield. Krishna aided Arjuna in killing Jayadratha, who had held the other four Pandava
brothers at bay while Arjuna's son Abhimanyu entered Drona's Chakravyuha formation—an effort in which he got killed
by the simultaneous attack of eight Kaurava warriors. Krishna also caused the
downfall of Drona, when he signalled Bhima to kill an elephant called Ashwatthama, the namesake of Drona's son. Pandavas
started shouting that Ashwatthama was dead but Drona refused to believe them
saying he would believe it only if he heard it from Yudhisthira. Krishna knew
that Yudhisthira would never tell a lie, so he devised a clever ploy so that
Yudhisthira wouldn't lie and at the same time Drona would be convinced of his
son's death. On asked by Drona, Yudhisthira proclaimed
Ashwathama Hatahath, naro va Kunjaro va
i.e. Ashwathama had died but he
was not sure whether it was a Drona's son or an elephant. But as soon as
Yudhisthira had uttered the first line, Pandava army on Krishna's direction
broke into celebration with drums and conchs, in the din of which Drona could
not hear the second part of the Yudhisthira's declaration and assumed that his
son indeed was dead. Overcome with grief he laid down his arms, and on Krishna's
instruction Dhrishtadyumna beheaded Drona.
When Arjuna was fighting Karna, the latter's chariot's wheels sank into the
ground. While Karna was trying to take out the chariot from the grip of the
Earth, Krishna reminded Arjuna how Karna and the other Kauravas had broken all
rules of battle while simultaneously attacking and killing Abhimanyu, and he
convinced Arjuna to do the same in revenge in order to kill Karna. During the
final stage of the war, when Duryodhana was going to meet his mother Gandhari for taking her blessings which would convert
all parts of his body on which her sight falls to steel, Krishna tricks him to
wearing banana leaves to hide his groin. When Duryodhana meets Gandhari, her
vision and blessings fall on his entire body except his groin and thighs, and
she becomes unhappy about it because she was not able to convert his entire
body to steel. When Duryodhana was in a mace-fight with Bhima, Bhima's blows
had no effect on Duryodhana. Upon this, Krishna reminded Bhima of his vow to
kill Duryodhana by hitting him on the thigh, and Bhima did the same to win the
war despite it being against the rules of mace-fight (since Duryodhana had
himself broken Dharma in all his past acts). Thus, Krishna's unparalleled
strategy helped the Pandavas win the Mahabharata war by bringing the downfall
of all the chief Kaurava warriors, without lifting any weapon. He also brought
back to life Arjuna's grandson Parikshit, who had been attacked by a Brahmastra weapon from Ashwatthama while he was in his
mother's womb. Parikshit became the Pandavas' successor.
Krishna had a total of 16,108
wives, out of which eight were his princely wives and 16,100 were rescued from
Narakasura, who had forcibly kept them in his harem, but all of them are
considered to be incarnations of Goddess Lakshmi.
The first son of Queen Rukmini
was Pradyumna, and also born of her were Charudeshna,
Sudeshna and the powerful Charudeha, along with Sucharu, Chharugupta, Bhadracaru,
Charuchandra, Vicaru and Caru, the tenth. Pradyumna fathered the greatly
powerful Aniruddha in the womb of Rukmavati, the daughter of Rukmi. This took place
while they were living in the city of Bhojakata.
The ten sons of Satyabhama were
Bhanu, Subhanu, Svarbhanu, Prabhanu, Bhanuman, Chandrabhanu, Brihadbhanu,
Atibhanu (the eighth), Sribhanu and Pratibhanu.
Samba, Sumitra, Purujit,
Satajit, Sahasrajit, Vijaya, Citraketu, Vasuman, Dravida and Kratu were the
sons of Jambavati. These ten, headed by Samba, were their father's favorites.
The sons of Nagnajiti were Vira,
Candra, Asvasena, Citragu, Vegavan, Vrisha, Ama, Sanku, Vasu and the opulent
Kunti.
Sruta, Kavi, Vrisha, Vira,
Subahu, Bhadra, Santi, Darsa and Purnamasa were sons of Kalindi. Her youngest
son was Somaka.
Madra's sons were Praghosha,
Gatravan, Simha, Bala, Prabala, Urdhaga, Mahasakti, Saha, Oja and Aparajita.
Mitravinda's sons were Vrika,
Harsha, Anila, Gridhra, Vardhana, Unnada, Mahamsa, Pavana, Vahni and Kshudhi.
Sangramajit, Brihatsena, Sura,
Praharana, Arijith, Jaya and Subhadra were the sons of Bhadra, together with
Vama, Ayur and Satyaka.
Diptiman, Tamratapta and others
were the sons of Lord Krishna and Rohini.
At a festival, a fight broke out
between the Yadavas who exterminated each other. His elder
brother Balarama then gave up his body using Yoga. Krishna retired into the forest and sat
under a tree in meditation. While the Mahabharata narrates the story that a
hunter named Jara mistook his partly visible left foot for a deer and shot an
arrow wounding him mortally; while Krishna's soul ascended to heaven, his
mortal body was cremated by Arjuna.
According to Puranic sources, Krishna's disappearance marks the end of Dvapara
Yuga and
the start of Kali Yuga, which is dated to February 17/18, 3102 BCE.
Vaishnava teachers such as Ramanujacharya and Gaudiya Vaishnavas held the view that the body of Krishna is
completely spiritual and never decays as this appears to be the perspective of
the Bhagavata Purana. Krishna never appears to grow old or age at
all in the historical depictions of the Puranas despite passing of several decades, but
there are grounds for a debate whether this indicates that he has no material
body, since battles and other descriptions of the Mahabhārata epic show clear
indications that he seems to be subject to the limitations of nature. While
battles apparently seem to indicate limitations, Mahabharatha also shows in
many places where Krishna is not subject to any limitations as through episodes
Duryodhana trying to arrest Krishna where his body burst into fire showing all
creation within him. Krishna is also explicitly described as
without deterioration elsewhere.
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