Lord Vishṇu and Sri Krishn in Hinduism
This article is an excerpt from HINDU GODS AND HEROES STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF BY LIONEL D. BARNETT, M.A., Litt The Wisdom of the East Series Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor |
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THE EPICS, AND LATER
I. VISHṆU-KṚISHṆA
The Great War and the Pāṇḍavas
We now enter upon an age in which the old gods, Indra and Brahmā, retire to the background, while Vishṇu and Śiva stand in the forefront of the stage. The Hindus are of the same opinion as the Latin poet: ferrea nunc aetas agitur. We are now living in an Iron Age, according to them; and it began in the year 3102 b.c., shortly after the great war described in the Mahābhārata. The date 3102, I need hardly remark, is of no historical value, being based merely upon the theories of comparatively late astronomers; but the statement as a whole is important. The Great War marks an epoch. It came at the end of what may be called the pre-historic period, and was followed by a new age. To be strictly correct, we must say that the age which followed the Great War was not new in the sense that it introduced any startling novelties that had been unknown previously; but it was new in the sense that after the Great War India speedily became the India that we know from historical records. A certain fusion of different races, cultures, and ideals had to take place in order that the peculiar civilisation of India might unfold itself; and this fusion was accomplished about the time of the Great War, and partly no doubt by means of the Great War, some ten centuries before the Christian era.
The story of the Great War is told with a wild profusion of mythical and legendary colouring in the Mahābhārata, an epic the name of which means literally "The Great Tale of the Bharata Clan." It relates how the blind old King Dhṛitarāshṭra of Hastināpura had a hundred sons, known as the Kuru or Kaurava princes, the eldest of whom was Duryōdhana, and Dhṛitarāshṭra's brother Pāṇḍu had five sons, the Pāṇḍava brethren; how the Pāṇḍavas were ousted by the Kauravas from the kingdom, the eldest Pāṇḍava prince Yudhishṭhira having been induced to stake the fortunes of himself and his brethren on a game of dice, in which he was defeated; how the five Pāṇḍavas, with their common wife Draupadī (observe this curious and ugly feature of polyandry, which is quite opposed to standard Hindu morals, but is by no means unparalleled in early Indian literature[20])[ See H. Raychaudhuri, Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 27.] retired into exile for thirteen years, and then came back with a great army of allies, and after fierce and bloody battles with the Kauravas and their supporters in the plain of Kurukshētra at last gained the victory, slew the Kauravas, and established Yudhishṭhira as king in Hastināpura. Among the Pāṇḍavas the leading part is played by the eldest, Yudhishṭhira, and the third, Arjuna; of the others, Bhīma, the second, is a Hercules notable only for his strength, courage, and fidelity, while the twins Nakula and Sahadēva are colourless figures. Kṛishṇa plays an important part in the story; for on the return of the Pāṇḍavas to fight the Kauravas he accompanies Arjuna as his charioteer, and on the eve of the first battle delivers to him a discourse on his religion, the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song, which has become one of the most famous and powerful of all the sacred books of India.
Vishṇu-Kṛishṇa
Now if the Mahābhārata were as homogeneous even as the Iliad and Odyssey, which give us a fairly consistent and truthful picture of a single age, we should be in a very happy position. Unfortunately this is not the case. Our epic began as a Bhārata, or Tale of the Bharata Clan, probably of very moderate bulk, not later than 600 b.c., and perhaps considerably earlier; and from that time onward it went on growing bigger and bigger for over a thousand years, as editors stuffed in new episodes and still longer discourses on nearly all the religious and philosophic doc trines admitted within the four walls of Hinduism, until it grew to its present immense bulk, which it claims to amount to 100,000 verses. Thus it pictures the thought not of one century but of more than ten, and we cannot feel sure of the date of any particular statement in it.
Nevertheless we can distinguish in a general way between the old skeleton of the story, in which the theme is treated in simple epic fashion, society is far freer than in later days and no one objects to eating beef, from the additional matter, in which the tale is recast in a far more grandiose vein and is padded out with enormous quantities of moral, religious, and philosophic sermons. The religion too is different in the different parts. In the older portions the gods who are most popular are Indra, Agni, and Brahmā—not the neuter abstract Brahma, but the masculine Brahmā, the Demiurge, who corresponds more or less to Prajāpati of the Brāhmaṇas and is represented in classical art as a four-headed old man reciting the Vēdas—and Kṛishṇa seems to figure only as a hero or at best as a demigod; but the later parts with fine impartiality claim the supremacy of heaven variously for Śiva, Brahmā, and Vishṇu; and Vishṇu, as we have seen, is sometimes identified with Kṛishṇa, notably in the chapters known as the Bhagavad-gītā.
The gods have changed somewhat since earlier days. Indra has settled down in the constitu tional monarchy of Paradise assigned to him by the Brāhmaṇas; he now figures as the prototype of earthly kings, leading the armies of the gods to war against the demons when occasion requires, and passing the leisure of peace in the enjoyment of celestial dissipation. His morals have not improved: he is a debonair debauchee. Brahmā the Creator, a more popular version of Prajāpati, is still too impersonal to have much hold on the popular imagination; the same is the case with Agni the Fire-god. Plainly there was a vacancy for a supreme deity whose character was powerful enough to move men's souls, either through awe or love; and for this vacancy there were two strong candidates, Vishṇu and Śiva, who in course of time succeeded to the post and divided the supremacy between them. Vishṇu has altered immensely since last we met him. First, after an extraordinary change in his own character, he has been identified with Nārāyaṇa, and then both of them have been equated with Kṛishṇa. The development is so portentous that it calls for a little study.
We have seen that in the Vēdas Vishṇu appears to be, and in the Brāhmaṇas certainly is, the embodied Spirit of the Sacrifice, and that ritual mysticism has invented for him a supreme home in the highest heaven. But in the Epics he has developed into a radiant and gracious figure of ideal divinity, an almighty saviour with a long record of holy works for the salvation of mankind, a god who delights in moral goodness as well as in ritual propriety, and who from time to time incarnates himself in human or animal form so as to maintain the order of righteousness. Symbolism has further endowed him with a consort, the goddess Śrī or Lakshmī, typifying fortune; sometimes also he is represented with another wife, the Earth-goddess. The divine hawk or kite Garuḍa, who seems to have been originally the same as the eagle who in the Ṛigvēdic legend carried off the sōma for Indra, has been pressed into his service; he now rides on Garuḍa, and bears his figure upon his banner.
I have already suggested a possible explanation of this evolution (above, p. 41): owing to his close association with Indra, the most truly popular of Ṛigvēdic deities, the laic imagination transfused some of the live blood of Indra into the veins of the priestly abstraction Vishṇu. To the plain man Indra was very real; and as he frequently heard tales of Indra being aided in his exploits by Vishṇu, he came to regard Vishṇu as a very present helper in trouble. The friend of Indra became the friend of mankind. The post of Indra had already been fixed for him by the theologians; but the functions of Vishṇu, outside the rituals, were still somewhat vaguely defined, and were capable of considerable expansion. Here was a great opportunity for those souls who were seeking for a supreme god of grace, and were not satisfied to find him in Śiva; and they made full use of it, and wholly transformed the personality of Vishṇu.
Nārāyaṇa
One of the stages in this transformation was the absorption of Nārāyaṇa in Vishṇu. Nārāyaṇa was originally a god of a different kind. The earliest reference to him is in a Brāhmaṇa which calls him Purusha Nārāyaṇa, which means that it regards him as being the same as the Universal Spirit which creates from itself the cosmos; it relates that Purusha Nārāyaṇa pervaded the whole of nature (ŚB. XII. iii. 4, 1), and that he made himself omnipresent and supreme over all beings by performing a pañcha-rātra sattra, or series of sacrifices lasting over five days (ib. XIII. vi. 1, 1). Somewhat later we find prayers addressed to Nārāyaṇa, Vāsudēva, and Vishṇu as three phases of the same god (Taitt.
Āraṇ. X. i. 6). But was Nārāyaṇa in origin merely a variety of the Vēdic Purusha or our old acquaintance Prajāpati? His name must give us pause. The most simple explanation of it is that it is a family name: as Kārshṇāyaṇa means a member of the Kṛishṇa-family and Rāṇāyana a man belonging to the family of Raṇa, so Nārāyaṇa would naturally denote a person of the family of Nara. But Nara itself signifies a man: is the etymology therefore reduced to absurdity? Not at all: Nara is also used as a proper name, as we shall see.[21][ It must be admitted that ancient writers give different etymologies of the name: thus, a poet in the Mahābhārata (III. clxxxix. 3) derives it from nārāḥ, "waters," and ayanam, "going," understanding it to mean "one who has the waters for his resting-place"; Manu (I. 10, with Mēdhātithi's commentary), accepting the same etymology, interprets it as "the dwelling-place of all the Naras"; and in the Mahābhārata XII. cccxli. 39, it is also explained as "the dwelling-place of mankind." But these interpretations are plainly artificial concoctions.] Probably the name really means what naturally it would seem to mean, "a man of the Nara family"; that Nārāyaṇa was originally a divine or deified saint, a ṛishi, as the Hindus would call him; and that somehow he became identified with Vishṇu and the Universal Spirit.
This theory really is not by any means as wild as at first sight it may seem to be. Divine saints are sometimes mentioned in the Ṛig-vēda and Brāhmaṇas as being the creators of the universe[22];[ RV. X. cxxix. 5, ŚB. VI. i. 1, 1-5. Cf. Charpentier, Suparṇasage, p. 387.] and they appear again and again in legend as equals of the gods, attaining divine powers by their mystic insight into the sacrificial lore. But there is more direct evidence than this.
Bhagavad-gītā and Nārāyaṇīya
In the Mahābhārata there are incorporated two documents of first-rate importance for the doctrines of the churches that worshipped Vishṇu. One of these is the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song (VI. xxv.-xlii.); the other is the Nārāyaṇīya, or Account of Nārāyaṇa (XII. cccxxxvi.-cccliii.). Their teachings are not the same in details, though on most main points they agree; for they belong to different sections of the one religious body. Leaving aside the Bhagavad-gītā for the moment, we note that the Nārāyaṇīya relates a story that there were born four sons of Dharma, or Righteousness, viz. Nara, Nārāyaṇa, Hari or Vishṇu, and Kṛishṇa. In other places (I. ccxxx. 18, III. xii. 45, xlvii. 10, V. xlviii. 15, etc.) we are plainly told that Nara is a previous incarnation of Arjuna the Pāṇḍava prince, and Nārāyaṇa is, of course, the supreme Deity, who in the time of Arjuna was born on earth as Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, and that in his earlier birth Nara and Nārāyaṇa were both ascetic saints. This tradition is very important, for it enables us to see something of the early character of Nārāyaṇa. He was an ancient saint of legend, who was connected with a hero Nara, just as Kṛishṇa was associated with Arjuna; and the atmosphere of saintliness clings to him obstinately. Tradition alleges that he was the ṛishi, or inspired seer, who composed the Purusha-sūkta of the Ṛig-vēda (X. 90), and represents him by choice as lying in a yōga-nidrā, or mystic sleep, upon the body of the giant serpent Śēsha in the midst of the Ocean of Milk. Thus the worship of Vishṇu, like the worship of Śiva, has owed much to the influence of live yōgīs idealised as divine saints; though it must be admitted that the yōgīs of the Vaishṇava orders have usually been more agreeable and less ambiguous than those of the Śaiva community.
We must briefly consider now the religious teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā and the Nārāyaṇīya, and then turn to the inscriptions and contemporary literature to see whether we can find any sidelights in them. We begin with the Bhagavad-gītā, or The Lord's Song.
The Bhagavad-gītā purports to be a dialogue between the Pāṇḍava prince Arjuna and Kṛishṇa, who was serving him as his charioteer, on the eve of the great battle. In order to invent a leading motive for his teaching, the poet represents Arjuna as suddenly stricken with overwhelming remorse at the prospect of the fratricidal strife which he is about to begin. "I will not fight," he cries in anguish. Then Kṛishṇa begins a long series of arguments to stimulate him for the coming battle. He points out, with quotations from the Upanishads, that killing men in battle does not destroy their souls; for the soul is indestructible, migrating from body to body according to its own deserts. The duty of the man born in the Warrior-caste is to fight; fighting is his caste-duty, his dharma, and as such it can entail upon him no guilt if it be performed in the right spirit.
But how is this to be done? The answer is the leading motive of Kṛishṇa's teaching. For the maintenance of the world it is necessary that men should do the works of their respective castes, and these works do not operate as karma to the detriment of the future life of their souls if they perform them not from selfish motives but as offerings made in perfect unselfishness to the Lord. This is the doctrine of Karma-yōga, discipline of works, which is declared to lead the soul of the worshipper to salvation in the Lord as effectually as the ancient intellectualism preached in the Upanishads and the Sāṃkhya philosophy. But there is also a third way to salvation, the way through loving devotion, or bhakti, which is as efficacious as either of the other two; the worshippers of Śiva had already preached this for their own church in the Śvētāśvatara Upanishad. Besides treating without much consistency or method of many incidental questions of religious theory and practice, Kṛishṇa reveals himself for a few instants to Arjuna in his form as Virāj, the universal being in which all beings are comprehended and consumed. Finally Arjuna is comforted, and laying the burden of all his works upon Kṛishṇa, he prepares in quiet faith for the coming day of battle.
There are four main points to notice in this teaching. (1) The Supreme God, superior to Brahma, he who rules by grace and comprehends in his universal person the whole of existence, is Vishṇu, or Hari, represented on earth for the time being by Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva. The author makes no attempt to reconcile the fatalism implied in the old theory of karma-saṃsāra with his new doctrine of special and general grace: he allows the two principles to stand side by side, and leaves for future generations of theologians the delicate task of harmonising them. (2) Three roads to salvation are recognised in principle, the intellectual gnosis of the old Upanishads and the Sāṃkhya, the "way of works" or performance of necessary social duties in a spirit of perfect surrender to God, and the "way of devotion," continuous loving worship and contemplation of God. In practice the first method is ignored as being too severe for average men; the second and third are recommended, as being suitable for all classes. (3) The way of salvation is thus thrown open directly to men and women of all castes and conditions. The Bhagavad-gītā fully approves of the orthodox division of society into castes; but by its doctrine that the performance of caste-duties in a spirit of sacrifice leads to salvation it makes caste an avenue to salvation, not a barrier. (4) The Bhagavad-gītā has nothing to say for the animal-sacrifices of the Brahmans. It recognises only offerings of flowers, fruits, and the like. The doctrine of ahiṃsā, "thou shalt do no hurt," was making much headway at the time, and the wholesale animal-sacrifices of the Brahmans roused general disgust, of which the Buddhists and Jains took[82] advantage for the propagation of their teachings.
I have previously spoken of the solitary passage in the Chhāndōgya Upanishad in which Kṛishṇa's name is mentioned, as receiving the teachings of Ghōra Āṅgirasa, and it will now be fitting to see how far these teachings are reflected in the Bhagavad-gītā. Ghōra compares the functions of life to the ceremonies of the dīkshā (see above, p.68): and this is at bottom the same idea as the doctrine of karma-yōga preached again and again in the Bhagavad-gītā. "Whatever be thy work, thine eating, thy sacrifice, thy gift, thy mortification, make of it an offering to me," says Kṛishṇa (IX. 27); all life should be regarded as a sacrifice freely offered. Then Ghōra continues: "In the hour of death one should take refuge in these three thoughts: 'Thou art the Indestructible, Thou art the Unfailing, Thou art instinct with Spirit.' On this there are these two verses of the Ṛig-vēda:
Thus upward from the primal seed From out the darkness all around We, looking on the higher light, Yea, looking on the higher heaven, Have come to Sūrya, god midst gods, To him that is the highest light, the highest light." In the Bhagavad-gītā (IV. 1 ff.) Kṛishṇa announces that he preached his doctrine to Vivasvān the Sun-god, who passed it on to his son the patriarch Manu; elsewhere in the Mahābhārata (XII. cccv. 19) the Sātvata teaching is said to have been announced by the Sun. Ghōra in his list of moral virtues enumerates "mortification, charity, uprightness, harmlessness, truthfulness"; exactly the same attributes, with a few more, are said in the Bhagavad-gītā to characterise the man who is born to the gods' estate (XVI. 1-3). Ghōra's exhortation to think of the nature of the Supreme in the hour of death is balanced by Kṛishṇa's words: "He who at his last hour, when he casts off the body, goes hence remembering me, goes assuredly into my being" (VIII. 5; cf. 10). These parallels are indeed not very close; but collectively they are significant, and when we bear in mind that the author of the Bhagavad-gītā is eager to associate his doctrine with those of the Upanishads, and thus to make it a new and catholic Upanishad for all classes, we are led to conclude that its fundamental ideas, sanctification of works (karma-yōga), worship of a Supreme God of Grace (bhakti) by all classes, and rejection of animal sacrifices (ahiṃsā) arose among the orthodox Kshatriyas, who found means to persuade their Brahmanic preceptors to bring it into connection with their Upanishads and embellish it with appropriate texts from those sources. Very likely Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, if not the first inventor of these doctrines, was their most vigorous propagator.
Now what are the teachings of the Nārāyaṇīya? It appears to contain two accounts. In the first we have the story of king Vasu Uparichara, who is said to have worshipped the Supreme God Hari (Vishṇu) in devotion without any animal-sacrifices, in accordance with doctrines ascribed to the Āraṇyakas, i.e. the later sections of the Brāhmaṇas, including the older Upanishads. This fully agrees with the standpoint of the Bhagavad-gītā. The second account gives the story of a visit paid by the divine saint Nārada to a mysterious "White Island," Śvēta-dvīpa, inhabited by holy worshippers of God who are, strangely enough, described as having heads shaped like umbrellas and feet like lotus-leaves and as making a sound like that of thunder-clouds [ It is obvious that this island lies in a latitude somewhere between that of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, and that the professors who have endeavoured to locate it on the map of Asia have wasted their time.]; they are radiant like the moon, have no physical senses, eat nothing, and concentrate their whole soul on rapturous adoration of the spirit of God, which shines there in dazzling brightness to the eye of perfect faith. Nārāyaṇa there reveals himself to Nārada, and sets forth to him the doctrine of Vāsudēva. According to this, Nārāyaṇa has four forms, called mūrtis or vyūhas. The first of these is Vāsudēva, who is the highest soul and creator and inwardly [85]controls all individual souls.
From him arose Saṃkarshaṇa, who corresponds to the individual soul; from Saṃkarshaṇa issued Pradyumna, to whom corresponds the organ of mind, and from Pradyumna came forth Aniruddha, representing the element of self-consciousness. Observe in passing that these are all names of heroes of legend: Saṃkarshaṇa is Vāsudēva's brother Bala-rāma, Pradyumna was the son and Aniruddha the grandson of Vāsudēva. Nārāyaṇa then goes on to speak of the creation of all things from himself and their dissolution into himself, and of his incarnations in the form of the Boar who lifted up on his tusk the earth when submerged under the ocean, Narasiṃha the Man-lion who destroyed the tyrant Hiraṇya-kaśipu, the Dwarf who overthrew Balī, Rāma Bhārgava who destroyed the Kshatriyas, Rāma Dāśarathi, of whom we shall have something to say later. Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva the slayer of Kaṃsa of Mathurā, the Tortoise, the Fish, and Kalkī.
Then follow some further details, among them a statement that this doctrine was revealed to Arjuna at the beginning of the Great War—a clear reference to the Bhagavad-gītā—that at the beginning of every age it was promulgated by Nārāyaṇa, that it requires activity in pious works, that at the commencement of the present age it passed from him to Brahmā, from him to Vivasvān the Sun-god, from him to the patriarch Manu, etc., that it does not allow the sacrifice of animals, and that for salvation the co-operative grace of Nārāyaṇa is necessary. Most of this doctrine is already in the Bhagavad-gītā; what is not found in the latter is the account of the mysterious White Island, the theory of vyūhas or emanations, which represents Vāsudēva as issuing from Nārāyaṇa and so forth, and the details of Nārāyaṇa's incarnations. It is therefore a distinct textbook of the Sātvata or Pāñcharātra church, not much later than the Bhagavad-gītā. According to it, the Supreme Being is Nārāyaṇa, the Almighty God who reveals himself as highest teacher and saintly sage, whose legendary performance of a five-days' sacrifice (above, p. 76) has gained for his doctrine the title of Pāñcharātra. Next in order of divinity is Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, whose tribal name of Sātvata has furnished the other name of this church; then follow in due order Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, all of his family; and with Vāsudēva is closely associated the epic hero Arjuna, a prototype for this mortal pair being discovered in the legendary Nara and Nārāyaṇa.
Comparing then the Bhagavad-gītā with the Nārāyaṇīya, we see that in all essentials they agree, but in two points they differ. Both preach a doctrine of activity in pious works, pravṛitti, in conscious opposition to the inactivity of the Aupanishadas and Sāṃkhyas; but the Nārāyaṇīya does not dwell much on this topic, and limits activity to strictly religious duties, while the Bhagavad-gītā develops the idea so as to include everything, thus sketching out a bold system for the sanctification of all sides of life, which enables it to open the door of salvation directly to all classes of mankind. Secondly, the Bhagavad-gītā says nothing about the theory of emanations or vyūhas in connection with Vāsudēva; probably its author knew the legends of Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, but he apparently did not know or at least did not accept the view that these persons were related as successive emanations from Vāsudēva. We must therefore look round for sidelights which may clear up the obscurities in the history of this church.
Our first sidelight glimmers in the famous grammar of Pāṇini, who probably lived in the fifth century b.c., or perhaps early in the fourth century. Pāṇini informs us (IV. iii. 98) that from the names of Vāsudēva and Arjuna the derivative nouns Vāsudēvaka and Arjunaka are formed to denote persons who worship respectively Vāsudēva and Arjuna. Plainly then in the fifth century Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva and Arjuna were worshipped by some, probably in the same connection as is shown in the Mahābhārata. Perhaps Vāsudēva had not yet been raised to the rank of the Almighty; it is more likely that he was still[88] a deified hero and teacher, and Arjuna his noblest disciple. But both of them were receiving divine honours; they had been men, and were now gods, with bands of adorers.
Our next evidence is an inscription found not long ago on the base of a stone column at Besnagar near Bhilsa, in the south of Gwalior State,[24][ See Rapson, Ancient India, p. 156 ff., Cambridge Hist. India, i, pp. 521, 558, 625, H. Ray Chaudhuri, Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 59, and Ramaprasad Chanda, Archæology and Vaishnava Tradition in Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India, No. 5, p. 151 ff., etc.] and must have been engraved soon after 200 b.c. It reads as follows: "This Garuḍa-column of Vāsudēva the god of gods was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of the Lord [bhāgavata], the son of Diya [Greek Dion] and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as ambassador of the Greeks from the Great King Aṃtalikita [Greek Antialcidas] to King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra the Saviour, who was flourishing in the fourteenth year of his reign"; and below this are two lines in some kind of verse, which announce that "three immortal steps ... when practised lead to heaven—self-control, charity, and diligence." Here, then, in the centre of a thriving kingdom probably forming part of the Śuṅga empire, Vāsudēva is worshipped not as a minor hero or teacher, but as the god of gods, dēva-dēva; and he is worshipped by the Greek Heliodorus, visiting the place as an ambassador from Antialcidas, a Hellenic king of the lineage of Eucratides, who was reigning in the North-West of India. Doubtless the act of Heliodorus was a diplomatic courtesy, in order to please King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra. But observe the nature of his act. He caused to be erected a Garuḍa-column, that is, a pillar engraved with the figure of Garuḍa, the sacred bird of Vishṇu; and he added a verse about "three immortal steps" (trini amutapadāni), as leading to heaven, which sounds suspiciously like an attempt to moralise the old mythical feature of the three Steps of Vishṇu. Plainly Vāsudēva had now risen in this part of the country from being the teacher of a church of Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa to the rank of its chief god, with which he had become fully identified.
Another inscription, a few years later in date, has been found in Besnagar. It is a mere fragment, but it supplements the other; for it states that a certain bhāgavata, or "worshipper of the Lord," named Gōtama-puta (Gautama-putra in Sanskrit) erected a Garuḍa-column for the Lord's temple in the twelfth year from the coronation of King Bhāgavata. This king is perhaps the same as the person of that name who appears in some genealogical lists as the last but one of the Śuṅga Kings. [ See R. Chanda, ut supra, p. 152 f.]
Next in date is an inscription on a stone slab found at Ghasundi, about four miles north-east of Nagari, in Udaipur State. It was engraved about 150 b.c., and records that a certain bhāgavata, or "worshipper of the Lord," named Gājāyana, son of Pārāśarī, caused to be erected in the Nārāyaṇa-vāṭa, or park of Nārāyaṇa, a stone chapel for the worship of the Lords Saṃkarshaṇa and Vāsudēva. [ It is noteworthy that Saṃkarshaṇa is here mentioned first, as is also the case in the Nanaghat inscription of about 100 B.C., which mentions them as descendants of the Moon in a list of various deities. This order may possibly be due to the fact that in ancient legend Saṃkarshaṇa, or Bala-bhadra, is the elder brother of Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, and it does not entitle us to draw the inference that he ever received equal honour with Vāsudēva. Special devotees of Saṃkarshaṇa are mentioned in the Kauṭilīya, the famous treatise on polity ascribed to Chāṇakya, the minister of Chandra-gupta Maurya, who came to the throne about 320 B.C. (Engl. transl. 1st edn., p. 485). I suspect that in its present form the Kauṭilīya is considerably later than 320 B.C.; but in any case the existence of special votaries of Saṃkarshaṇa is no proof that he ever ranked as equal to Vāsudēva, just as the presence of special worshippers of Arjuna is no proof that Arjuna was ever considered a peer of Vāsudēva. On the Ghasundi inscription see R. Chanda, ut supra, p. 163 ff., etc.; for the Nanaghat inscription, ibidem and Memoirs of the Arch. Survey of India, No. 1, with H. Raychaudhuri's Materials, etc., p. 68 ff.] Here their worship is associated with that of Nārāyaṇa.
Passing over an inscription at Mathurā which records the building of a part of a sanctuary to the Lord Vāsudēva about 15 b.c. by the great Satrap Sōḍāsa,[27] [R. Chanda, ut supra, p. 169 f.]we note that the grammarian Patañjali, who wrote his commentary the Mahābhāshya upon Pāṇini's grammar about 150 b.c., has something to say about Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, whom he recognises as a divine being (on IV. iii. 98). He quotes some verses referring to him. The first (on II. ii. 23) is to the following effect: "May the might of Kṛishṇa accompanied by Saṃkarshaṇa increase!" Another (on VI. iii. 6) speaks of "Janārdana with himself as fourth," that is to say, Kṛishṇa with three companions: the three may be Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, or they may not. Another verse (on II. ii. 34) speaks of musical instruments being played at meetings in the temples of Rāma and Kēśava. Rāma is Bala-rāma or Bala-bhadra, who is the same as Saṃkarshaṇa, and Kēśava is a title of Kṛishṇa, which was applied also to Vishṇu or Nārāyaṇa according to the Bōdhāyana-dharma-sūtra, which may be assigned to the second century b.c. The Ovavāī, or Aupapātika-sūtra, a Jain scripture which may perhaps belong to the same period, mentions (§ 76) Kaṇha-parivvāyā, wandering friars who worshipped Kṛishṇa. Thus literature as well as inscriptions shows that Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva and his brother Saṃkarshaṇa were in many places worshipped as saints of a church of Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa about 150 b.c., and that in some parts Vāsudēva was recognised as the Almighty himself about 200 b.c.
In another passage (on III. i, 26) Patañjali describes dramatic and mimetic performances representing the killing of Kaṃsa by Vāsudēva. Altogether his references show that the legend and worship of Vāsudēva bulked largely in the popular mind at this time in India north of the Vindhya mountains. Vāsudēva was adored as the great teacher and hero-king, in whom the gods Vishṇu and Nārāyaṇa were incarnated; and he was associated with two great cycles of legend, the one that related his birth at Mathurā, his victory over the tyrant Kaṃsa, his establishment of the colony at Dvārakā, and his adventures until his death and translation to heaven, and the other telling of his share in the Great War as ally of the five Pāṇḍava brethren. Both cycles represented him as supported by princely heroes.
The Mathurā-Dvārakā legend gave him his brother Bala-bhadra or Saṃkarshaṇa, his son Pradyumna, and his grandson Aniruddha, whom theologians about the beginning of the Christian era fitted into their philosophical schemes by representing them as successive emanations from him; and the Mahābhārata furnished him with the Pāṇḍavas, whose heroic tale soon created for them a worship everywhere. As we have seen, there were adorers of Arjuna already in the fifth century b.c.; and in the first century b.c. there seems to be evidence for a worship of all the five together with Vāsudēva, for an inscription has been found at Mora which apparently mentions a son of the great Satrap Rājuvula, probably the well-known Satrap Sōḍāsa, and an image of the "Lord Vṛishṇi," probably Vāsudēva, and of the "Five Warriors." [ R. Chandra, ut supra, p. 165 f.] Already the poets of the Mahābhārata have taken the first step towards the deification of the Pāṇḍavas by finding divine fathers for each of them, making Yudhishṭhira the son of Dharma or Yama, the god of the nether world, Arjuna son of Indra, Bhīma son of Vāyu the Wind-god, and Nakula and Sahadēva offspring of the Aśvins. Hundreds of caverns throughout India are declared by popular legend to have been their dwellings during their wanderings; and a noble monument to their memory has been raised by one of the great Pallava kings of Conjevaram who in the seventh century a.d. carved out of the solid rock on the seashore at Mamallapuram the fine chapels that bear their names. Doubtless all these heroes from both cycles were once worshipped in the usual manner, with offerings of food, incense, lights, flowers, etc., and singing of hymns on their exploits—chiefly in connection with Vāsudēva; but all this worship is now utterly forgotten, except where echoes of it linger in popular legend.
Our survey of the religion of Vāsudēva has brought us down to a date which cannot indeed be exactly fixed, but which may be placed approximately in the second century of our era. [94]This religion, as we have seen, arose and grew great in the fertile soil of the spiritual needs and experiences of India. It began by moulding a personal God out of ancient figures of myth and legend, and it surrounded him with a hierarchy of godly heroes. Though its doctrines were often philosophically incongruous and incoherent, its foundation was a true religious feeling; it gave scope to the mystic raptures of the ascetic and the simple righteousness of the laic; and it claimed for its heroes, Vāsudēva and his kindred and his friends the Pāṇḍava brethren, a grave and dignified hero-worship. In short, it is a serious Indian religion with an epic setting.
And now suddenly and most unexpectedly an utterly new spirit begins to breathe in it. To the old teachings and legends are added new ones of a wholly different cast. The old epic spirit of grave and manly chivalry and godly wisdom is overshadowed by a new passion—adoration of tender babyhood and wanton childhood, amorous ecstasies, a hectic fire of erotic romance.
Of this new spirit ther e is no trace in the epic, except in one or two late interpolations. But the Hari-vaṃśa, which was added as an appendix to the Mahābhārata not very long before the fourth century a.d., is already instinct with it. It adds to the epic story of Kṛishṇa a fluent verse account of his miraculous preservation from Kaṃsa at his birth, his childhood among the herdsmen and herdswomen of Vraja (the Doab near Mathurā) with its marvellous freaks and wonderful exploits, his amorous sports with the herdswomen, in fact all the sensuous emotionalism on which the later church of Kṛishṇa has ever since battened. About the same time appeared the Vishṇu-purāṇa, which includes most of the same matter as the Hari-vaṃśa; and some centuries later, probably about the tenth century, there was written a still more remarkable book, the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, of which a great part is taken up with the romance of Kṛishṇa's babyhood and childhood, and especially his amorous sports.
In the Bhāgavata the later worship of Kṛishṇa found its classic expression. In the Hari-vaṃśa and Vishṇu-purāṇa religious emotion is still held under a certain restraint; but in the Bhāgavata it has broken loose and runs riot. It is a romance of ecstatic love for Kṛishṇa, who is no longer, as in the Vishṇu-purāṇa, the incarnation of a portion of the Supreme Vishṇu, but very God become man, wholly and utterly divine in his humanity. It dwells in a rapture of tenderness upon the God-babe, and upon the wanton play of the lovely child who is delightful in his naughtiness and marvellous in his occasional displays of superhuman power; it figures him as an ideal of boyish beauty, decked with jewels and crested with peacock's feathers, wandering through the flowering forests of Vraja, dancing and playing on his flute melodies that fill the souls of all that hear them with an irresistible passion of love and delight; it revels in tales of how the precocious boy made wanton sport with the herdswomen of Vraja, and how the magic of his fluting drew them to the dance in which they were united to him in a rapture of love. The book thrills with amorous, sensuous ecstasy; the thought of Kṛishṇa stirs the worshipper to a passion of love in which tears gush forth in the midst of laughter, the speech halts, and often the senses fail and leave him in long trances. Erotic emotionalism can go no further.
Where did this new spirit come from? Some have laboured to prove that it had its source in Christianity; others have argued that it was Christianity that was the debtor to India in this respect. Both theories are in the main impossible. This cult of the child Kṛishṇa arose in India, and, with the possible exception of a few obscure tales, it never spread outside the circle of Indian religion. But how and where did it arise? That is a question hard to answer; there is no direct evidence, and we can only balance probabilities. Now what are the probabilities?
The worship of Kṛishṇa as a babe, a boy, and a young man among the herdsfolk of Vraja seems to have no relation with the older form of the religion as set forth in the epic textbooks. It is a new element, imported from without. The most natural conclusion then is that it came from the people who are described in it, some tribe that pastured their herds in the woodlands near Mathurā. Perhaps these herdsfolk were Ābhīras, ancestors of the modern Āhīr tribes.
If so, it would be natural that their cult should attract attention; for sometimes Ābhīras counted for something in society, and we even find a short-lived dynasty of Ābhīra kings reigning in Nasik in the third century a.d. [ Rapson, Catal. of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty, etc., pp. xliv, lxii, lxix, cxxxiii-cxxxvi, clxii; Indian Antiq., xlvii, p. 85, etc.] Be this as it may, it seems very likely that some pastoral tribe had a cult of a divine child blue or black of hue, and perhaps actually called by them Kṛishṇa or Kaṇha, "Black-man" (observe that henceforth Kṛishṇa is regularly represented with a blue skin), a cult in which gross rustic fantasy had free play; that it came in some circles to be linked on to the epic cycle of Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva; and that some Bhāgavatas, seeing in it latent possibilities, gave it polished literary expression and thereby established it as a part of the Vāsudēva legend. It quickly seized upon the popular imagination and spread like wild-fire over India. For it satisfied many needs. The tenderness of the father and still more of the mother for the little babe, their delight in the sports of childhood, the amorist's pleasure in erotic adventure, and, not by any means least, the joy in the romantic scenery of the haunted woodlands—all these instincts found full play in it, and were sanctified by religion.
Avatar of Sri Krishn
The Infinite Tree Of Life
GS Tripathi, Krishna Avatar And The Infinite Tree Of Life, August 12, 2020: The Times of India
Krishna declares in the Bhagwad Gita: “Whenever and wherever there is decline of righteousness and increase in unrighteousness, I recreate myself from time to time to save the righteous, destroy the unrighteous and preserve dharma.” While the Gita reveals Krishna’s philosophy, Srimad Bhagavatam describes the story of Krishna as an avatar. Both are believed to be written by Maharshi Vyasadeva.
According to Bhagavatam, Krishna is committed to truthfulness. The processes of creation, preservation and annihilation are transient truths; he is beyond these relative truths for he is the Absolute Truth. The five elements – earth, water, air, fire and sky – are manifestations of his truthfulness. He is the only meaningful truth of the visible and invisible universe, comprising matter and energy. The pleasantness of voice and equality of vision are also parts of his truth. Thus he is the incarnation of truth and it is inseparable from him.
The holy text further expounds that the body is a tree. It has two fruits – happiness and misery; three roots – satva, rajas and tamas; four juices – right action, right livelihood, desire and liberation. Its gross aspects can be understood via five sense organs – eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. It has six stages – birth, growth, strength, change, decay and death. It has seven layers of bark – skin, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow and semen.
It has eight branches – the aforesaid five elements, mind, intelligence and ego. It has nine hollows – two pairs of eyes, ears and nostrils; mouth, genitals and the rectum. It has ten leaves, which are the ten airs – pana, apana, vyana, udana, samana, naga, kurma, kukkala, devadatta and dhananjaya. There are two birds perched on this tree – soul and the Super-soul. Krishna is the cause of this tree, its creation, preservation and annihilation.
In the Gita, Krishna refers to a banyan tree whose roots are up and stems are down. It is imperishable and the refuge of the world. Its leaves are the Vedas. One who understands this is called a vedantist. This banyan tree has to be cut by the weapon of renunciation so that one can understand its origin.
The first version forms a part of prayer by the gods to Krishna in the womb, while the latter version is what Krishna spoke to Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Both versions, however, refer to an imperishable Reality and the Absolute Truth – Krishna. Krishna is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. These three attributes refer to infinite space, time and energy. Since he spans infinite dimensions, he is inconceivable. He is smaller than the smallest and larger than the largest. He is the support of everything. Some try to perceive him by action, some by knowledge and others by devotion.
Despite all these complex philosophies, Krishna remains in everybody’s heart as charm personified. He charmed Radhika with his flute, as Murali Manohar. He spreads the message that there is beauty all around – beauty of thought and imagination, knowledge and wisdom, and of devotion.
When the Mahabharata war concluded, Gandhari, grieving for the death of her sons, cursed Krishna that he would see his clan’s destruction and he himself would be killed by a mere hunter. Although he was Supreme, he accepted the curse from the anguished mother. He is the bestower of supreme knowledge, the Gita.
