The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry

by W. G. Archer

(i) The Return to Court

The death of Kansa brings to a close the first phase of Krishna's career. His primary aim has now been accomplished. The tyrant whose excesses have for so long vexed the righteous is dead. Earth's prayer has been granted. Krishna has reached, in fact, a turning-point in his life and on what he now decides the rest of his career depends. If he holds that his earthly mission is ended, he must quit his mortal body, resume his sublime celestial state and once again become the Vishnu whose attributes have been praised by Akrura when journeying to Brindaban. If, on the other hand, he regards his mission as still unfulfilled, is he to return to Brindaban or should he remain instead at Mathura? At Brindaban, his foster parents, Nanda and Yasoda, his friends the cowherds and his loves the cowgirls long for his return. He has spent idyllic days in their company. He has saved them from the dangers inherent in forest life. He has kept a host of demon marauders at bay. At the same time, his magnetic charms have aroused the most intense devotion. If he returns, it will be to dwell with people who have doted on him as a child, adored him as a youth and who love him as a man. On the other hand, Mathura, it is clear, has also strong claims. Although reared and bred among the cowherds, Krishna is, in fact, a child of Mathura. Although smuggled from the prison immediately afterwards, it was in Mathura that he left his mother's womb. His true father is Vasudeva, a leader of the Yadava nobility and member of the Mathura ruling caste. His true mother, Devaki, is related to the Mathura royal family. If his youth and infancy have been passed among the cowherds, this was due to special reasons. His father's substitution of him at birth for Yasoda's baby daughter was dictated by the dire perils which would have confronted him had he remained with his mother. It was, at most, a desperate expedient for saving his life and although the tyrant's unremitting search for the child who was to kill him prolonged his stay in Brindaban, his transportation there was never intended as a permanent arrangement. A deception has been practised. Nanda and Yasoda regard and believe Krishna to be their son. None the less there has been no formal adoption and it is Vasudeva and Devaki who are his parents.

It is this which decides the issue. As one who by birth and blood belongs to Mathura, Krishna can hardly desert it now that the main obstacle to his return—the tyrant Kansa—has been removed. His plain duty is to his parents and his castemen. Painful therefore as the severance must be, he decides to abandon the cowherds and see them no more. He is perhaps fortified in his decision by the knowledge that even in his relations with the cowgirls a climax has been reached. A return would merely repeat their nightly ecstasies, not achieve a fresh experience. Finally although Kansa himself has been killed, his demon allies are still at large. Mathura and Krishna's kinsmen, the Yadavas, are far from safe. He can hardly desert them until their interests have been permanently safeguarded and by then he will have become a feudal princeling, the very reverse of the young cowherd who night after night has thrilled the cowgirls with his flute.

Following the tyrant's death, then, a train of complicated adjustments are set in motion. The first step is to re-establish Krishna with his true parents who are still in jail where the tyrant has confined them. Krishna accordingly goes to visit them, frees them from their shackles and stands before them with folded hands. For an instant Vasudeva and Devaki know that Krishna is God and that in order to destroy demons he has come on earth. They are about to worship him when Krishna dispels this knowledge and they look on him and Balarama as their sons. Then Krishna addresses them. For all these long years Vasudeva and Devaki have known that Krishna and Balarama were their children and have suffered accordingly. It was not Krishna's fault that he and Balarama were placed in Nanda's charge. Yet although parted from their mother, they have never forgotten her. It pains them to think that they have done so little to make her happy, that they have never had her society and have wasted their time with strangers. And he reminds them that in the world only those who serve their fathers and mothers obtain power. Vasudeva and Devaki are greatly touched by Krishna's words. Their former woe vanishes and they embrace Krishna and Balarama fondly.

Having acknowledged Vasudeva and Devaki as his true parents, Krishna has now to adjust his social position. Since Nanda and the cowherds belong to a lower caste than that of Vasudeva and the other Yadavas, Krishna and Balarama, who have eaten and drunk with the cowherds and have been brought up with them, are not true members of the Yadava community. The family priest is accordingly consulted and it is decided that a ceremony for admitting them into caste must be performed. This is done and Krishna and Balarama are given the customary sacred threads. They are now no longer cowherds but true Yadavas. At the same time they are given a spiritual preceptor who instructs them in the sacred texts and manuals of learning. When they have finished the course, they express their gratitude by restoring to him his dead son who has been drowned in the sea.

One further obligation springs from their new position. We have seen how in the epic, the Mahabharata, Krishna stands in a special relation to the Pandavas, the faction which emerges victorious from the great feud. The mother of the Pandavas is called Kunti and it is Kunti who is the sister of Krishna's father, Vasudeva. Since he is now with his true father, rumours concerning Kunti reach Krishna and he learns that along with her sons, the five Pandavas, she is being harassed by the Kaurava king, the blind Dhritarashtra, egged on by his son, the evil Duryodhana. Being now a part of his father's family, Krishna can hardly be indifferent to the fate of so intimate a relative. Akrura, the leading Yadava diplomat, whom the tyrant had employed to bring Krishna to Mathura, is accordingly despatched on yet another mission. He is to visit the Kauravas and Pandavas, ascertain the facts, console Krishna's aunt, Kunti, and then return and report. Akrura reaches the Kauravas' capital and discovers that the rumours are only too correct. Relations between the two families are strained to breaking point. The blind king is at the mercy of his son, Duryodhana, and it is the latter who is ceaselessly harrying Kunti and her sons. A little later, as we have already seen, a final attempt on their lives will be made, they will be induced to sleep in a new house, the house will be fired and only by a fortunate chance will the Pandavas escape to the forest and dwell in safety. This, however, is in the future and for the moment Kunti and her sons are still at court. Akrura assures Kunti of Krishna's abiding concern and returns to Mathura. Krishna and Balarama are perturbed to hear his news, deliberate on whether to intervene, but decide for the moment to do nothing.

The second adjustment which Krishna has now to make is to reconcile the cowherds to his permanent departure from them and to wean them from their passionate adherence to his presence. This is much more difficult. We have seen how on the journey to Mathura, Krishna has been accompanied by Nanda and the cowherds and how during the closing struggle with the tyrant they also have been present. When the fight is finally over, they prepare to depart, taking it for granted that Krishna and Balarama will come with them. Krishna has therefore to disillusion Nanda. He breaks the news to him that it is not he and Yasoda who are actually his parents but Vasudeva and Devaki. He loads Nanda with jewels and costly dresses and thanks him again and again for all his loving care. He then explains that he has now to stay in Mathura for a time to meet his castemen, the Yadavas. Nanda is greatly saddened by the news. The cowherds strive to dissuade him but Krishna is adamant. He retains a few cowherds with him, but the rest return to Brindaban, Krishna promising that after a time he will visit them. On arrival Nanda strives in vain to console Yasoda and is forced to tell her that Krishna has now acknowledged Vasudeva as his true father, that he has probably left Brindaban for good and that his own early intuition that Krishna was God is correct. Yasoda, as she thinks of her lost 'son,' is overwhelmed with grief, but recovers when she realizes that actually he is God. As to the cowgirls, their grief is endless as they recall Krishna's heart-ensnaring charms.

Such a step is obviously only the first move in what must necessarily be a long and arduous operation. Finding it impossible to say outright that he will never see them again, Krishna has committed himself to paying the cowherds a visit. Yet he realizes that nothing can be gained by such a step since, if his future lies with the princely Yadavas, any mingling with the cowherds will merely disrupt this final role. Yet clearly he cannot just abandon his former associates without any regard at all for their proper feelings. Weaning is necessary, and it must above all be gradual. He decides, therefore, that since he himself cannot go, someone must be sent on his behalf. Accordingly, he instructs a friend, Udho, to go to Brindaban, meet the cowherds and make excuses for his absence. At the same time, he must urge the cowgirls to give up regarding Krishna as their lover but worship him as God. Udho is accordingly dressed in Krishna's clothes, thereby making him appear a real substitute and is despatched in Krishna's chariot.

When Udho arrives, he finds Nanda and Yasoda still lamenting Krishna's absence and the cowgirls still longing for him as their lover. He begs them to regard Krishna as God—as someone who is constantly near those who love him even if he cannot be seen. Krishna, he says, has forbidden them to hope for any further impassioned ecstasies and now requires them to offer him their devotion only. If they do penance and meditate, Krishna will never leave them. From the day they commenced thinking of him, none have been so much loved as they. 'As earth, wind, water, fire, rain dwell in the body, so Krishna dwells in you; but through the influence of his delusive power seems to be apart.' Udho's pleading shocks and embitters the cowgirls. 'How can he talk to us like that?' they ask. 'It is Krishna's body that we adore, not some invisible idea high up in the sky. How has Krishna suddenly become invisible and imperceptible, a being without qualities and form, when all along he has delighted us with his physical charms. As to penance and meditation, these concern widows. What woman does penance while her husband is alive? It is all the doing of Kubja, the girl of Mathura whose charms have captivated Krishna. Were it not for Kubja and other beauties of Mathura, Krishna would now be with us in Brindaban. Had we known he would not return, we would never have let him go.' In such words they repudiate Udho's message, upbraid Krishna for his fickle conduct and demonstrate with what intensity they still adore him.

Udho is reduced to silence and can only marvel at the cowgirls' bliss in abandoning everything to think only of Krishna. Finally they send Krishna the message—that if he really desires them to abandon loving him with their bodies and resort to penance, he himself must come and show them how to do it. Unless he comes, they will die of neglect.