KRŠNA

KRŠNA. – Before being identified with the god Višnu and elevated to the honors of worship, K. was a valorous prince of the Višni lineage who, having deprived Kamsa, tyrant of Mathurā, of his kingdom and his life, became the leader and national hero of the Yādava. On his father’s side, he was cousin to the Paṇḍuḍi, with whom he is found allied in the great battle described in the Mahābhārata, which ends with the defeat of the Kuruḍi.

But K. does not always cut a fine figure in the epic poem. A hero in the hour of battle, he has too few scruples in his choice of means when it comes to achieving success. It is he who induces Arjuna to signal to Bhima to break Duryodhana’s thighs with the blow of the club forbidden to duelists by the rules of chivalry, and his conduct is not always worthy of the god made man who, in the Bhagavadgītā (v.), imparts such lofty teachings to Arjuna. For the complex figure of the god, derived from the fusion of various divinities, V. INDUISMO. Here we shall mention only the constituent elements of the legend of K., in the form in which it was transmitted by the Haricamla, or “Genealogy of Hari (Višnu),” an appendix to the Mahābhārata dating no earlier than the 3rd century A.D.

The prophet Nārada had foretold to Kaṃsa, king of Mathurā, that he would be killed by the eighth son of his cousin Devakī, wife of Vasudeva. The cruel tyrant had therefore had Devakī’s first six children killed, and only by a miracle had the seventh escaped death. Vasudeva then decided to save the eighth by a stratagem, and when he was born, exchanged him for the daughter of the shepherd Nanda, who had been born on the same day. K., incarnation (avatāra) of the god Viṣṇu, was raised among the shepherds as Nanda’s son, and gave proof of miraculous strength while still an infant, overturning with a kick a large cart beneath which he had been placed to sleep. At the age of seven, he engaged in a victorious combat with the king of the serpents, and killed a dreaded demon. His youth passed amid games and dances, not without amorous encounters with the shepherdesses (gopi) of Vṛndāvana, until, having returned to Mathurā at Kaṃsa’s invitation, he killed the hated tyrant with his own hand.

K.’s pastoral life is completely unknown to the Mahābhārata and therefore belongs to a later legendary biography. Bhandarkar connects it with the appearance of the Abhīra, nomadic shepherds who, in the first centuries of the Christian era, occupied Rājputāna, «probably» bringing with them the cult of the child-god, of Christian derivation. But this hypothesis is not supported by evidence, for such cannot be considered to consist in outward similarities such as childhood in humble circumstances, the putative father, and the slaughter of Devakī’s innocent children. The childhood exploits of K.-Viṣṇu are moreover more appropriate to a child Hercules than to the infant Jesus; the legend of the Harivaṇṭa must therefore be regarded as indigenous. Christian derivations are instead evident in Book V of the Viṣṇupurāṇa, although it is impossible to determine their date because of the uncertainty concerning the age and formation of the Purāṇa (v.). It is not known when Mathurā began to be regarded as the Indian Bethlehem, but the feast of K.’s nativity (Kṛṣṇajāmāṣṭamī), on the 8th day of the dark fortnight of the month of Bhādrapada, dates at least from the 13th century and is probably an imitation of Christmas.