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Kṛishṇa, the other great incarnation of Vishṇu, is one of the most conspicuous figures in the Indian pantheon, but his historical origin remains obscure. The word which means black or dark blue occurs in the Ṛig Veda as the name of an otherwise unknown person. In the Chândogya Upanishad,[366] Kṛishṇa, the son of Devakî, is mentioned as having been instructed by the sage Ghora of the Âṅgirasa clan, and it is probably implied that Kṛishṇa too belonged to that clan.[367] Later sectarian writers never quote this verse, but their silence may be due to the fact that the Upanishad does not refer to Kṛishṇa as if he were a deity, and merely says that he received from Ghora instruction after which he never thirsted again. The purport of it was that the sacrifice may be performed without rites, the various parts being typified by ordinary human actions, such as hunger, eating, laughter, liberality, righteousness, etc. This doctrine has some resemblance to Buddhist language[368] and if this Kṛishṇa is really the ancient hero out of whom the later deity was evolved, there may be an allusion to some simple form of worship which rejected ceremonial and was practised by the tribes to whom Kṛishṇa belonged. I shall recur to the question of these tribes and the Bhâgavata sect below, but in this section I am concerned with the personality of Kṛishṇa.
Vâsudeva is a well-known name of Kṛishṇa and a sûtra of Pâṇini,[369] especially if taken in conjunction with the comment of Pataṅjali, appears to assert that it is not a clan name but the name of a god. If so Vâsudeva must have been recognized as a god in the fourth century B.C. He is mentioned in inscriptions which appear to date from about the second century B.C.[370] and in the last book of the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka,[371] which however is a later addition of uncertain date.
The name Kṛishṇa occurs in Buddhist writings in the form Kaṇha, phonetically equivalent to Kṛishṇa. In the Dîgha Nikâya[372] we hear of the clan of the Kaṇhâyanas (= Kârshṇâyanas) and of one Kaṇha who became a great sage. This person may be the Kṛishṇa of the Ṛig Veda, but there is no proof that he is the same as our Kṛishṇa.
The Ghata-Jâtaka (No. 454) gives an account of Kṛishṇa's childhood and subsequent exploits which in many points corresponds with the Brahmanic legends of his life and contains several familiar incidents and names, such as Vâsudeva, Baladeva, Kaṃsa. Yet it presents many peculiarities and is either an independent version or a misrepresentation of a popular story that had wandered far from its home. Jain tradition also shows that these tales were popular and were worked up into different forms, for the Jains have an elaborate system of ancient patriarchs which includes Vâsudevas and Baladevas. Kṛishṇa is the ninth of the Black Vâsudevas[373] and is connected with Dvâravatî or Dvârakâ. He will become the twelfth tîrthankara of the next world-period and a similar position will be attained by Devakî, Rohinî, Baladeva and Javakumâra, all members of his family. This is a striking proof of the popularity of the Kṛishṇa legend outside the Brahmanic religion.
No references to Kṛishṇa except the above have been found in the earlier Upanishads and Sûtras. He is not mentioned in Manu but in one aspect or another he is the principal figure in the Mahâbhârata, yet not exactly the hero. The Râmâyaṇa would have no plot without Râma, but the story of the Mahâbhârata would not lose its unity if Kṛishṇa were omitted. He takes the side of the Pâṇḍavas, and is sometimes a chief sometimes a god but he is not essential to the action of the epic.
The legend represents him as the son of Vasudeva, who belonged to the Sâttvata sept[374] of the Yâdava tribe, and of his wife Devakî. It had been predicted to Kaṃsa, king of Mathura (Muttra), that one of her sons would kill him. He therefore slew her first six children: the seventh, Balarâma, who is often counted as an incarnation of Vishṇu, was transferred by divine intervention to the womb of Rohinî. Kṛishṇa, the eighth, escaped by more natural methods. His father was able to give him into the charge of Nanda, a herdsman, and his wife Yâsodâ who brought him up at Gokula and Vrindâvana. Here his youth was passed in sporting with the Gopîs or milk-maids, of whom he is said to have married a thousand. He had time, however, to perform acts of heroism, and after killing Kaṃsa, he transported the inhabitants of Mathura to the city of Dvârakâ which he had built on the coast of Gujarat. He became king of the Yâdavas and continued his mission of clearing the earth of tyrants and monsters. In the struggle between the Pâṇḍavas and the sons of Dhṛitarâshtṛa he championed the cause of the former, and after the conclusion of the war retired to Dvârakâ. Internecine conflict broke out among the Yâdavas and annihilated the race. Kṛishṇa himself withdrew to the forest and was killed by a hunter called Jaras (old age) who shot him supposing him to be a deer.
In the Mahâbhârata and several Purâṇas this bare outline is distended with a plethora of miraculous incident remarkable even in Indian literature, and almost all possible forms of divine and human activity are attributed to this many-sided figure. We may indeed suspect that his personality is dual even in the simplest form of the legend for the scene changes from Mathurâ to Dvârakâ, and his character is not quite the same in the two regions. It is probable that an ancient military hero of the west has been combined with a deity or perhaps more than one deity. The pile of story, sentiment and theology which ages have heaped up round Kṛishṇa's name, represents him in three principal aspects. Firstly, he is a warrior who destroys the powers of evil. Secondly, he is associated with love in all its forms, ranging from amorous sport to the love of God in the most spiritual and mystical sense. Thirdly, he is not only a deity, but he actually becomes God in the European and also in the pantheistic acceptation of the word, and is the centre of a philosophic theology.
The first of these aspects is clearly the oldest and it is here, if anywhere, that we may hope to find some fragments of history. But the embellishments of poets and story-tellers have been so many that we can only point to features which may indicate a substratum of fact. In the legend, Kṛishṇa assists the Pâṇḍavas against the Kauravas. Now many think that the Pâṇḍavas represent a second and later immigration of Aryans into India, composed of tribes who had halted in the Himalayas and perhaps acquired some of the customs of the inhabitants, including polyandry, for the five Pâṇḍavas had one wife in common between them. Also, the meaning of the name Kṛishṇa, black, suggests that he was a chief of some non-Aryan tribe. It is, therefore, possible that one source of the Kṛishṇa myth is that a body of invading Aryans, described in the legend as the Pâṇḍavas, who had not exactly the same laws and beliefs as those already established in Hindustan, were aided by a powerful aboriginal chief, just as the Sisodias in Rajputana were aided by the Bhîls. It is possible too that Kṛishṇa's tribe may have come from Kabul or other mountainous districts of the north west, although one of the most definite points in the legend is his connection with the coast town of Dvârakâ. The fortifications of this town and the fruitless efforts of the demon king, Salva, to conquer it by seige are described in the Mahâbhârata,[375] but the narrative is surrounded by an atmosphere of magic and miracle rather than of history.[376]