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Krishna was a cousin of the Pandavas, one of the two parties in the Kurukshetra war of the Mahabharat. Once battle seemed inevitable, Krishna offered both sides the opportunity to choose between having either his army or simply 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, chief of the Kauravas, chose Krishna's army. At the time of the great battle, Krishna acted as Arjuna's charioteer, since it was a position that did not require the wielding of weapons.
Upon arriving at the battlefield, and seeing that the enemies he would soon fight against were people close to him prior to the battle, Arjuna becomes doubtful about fighting. Krishna then advises him about the battle, with the conversation soon extending into a discourse which was later compiled as the Bhagavad Gita.[47] |
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The Sanskrit word kṛṣṇa has the literal meaning of "black", "dark" or "dark-blue"[5] and is used as a name to describe someone with dark skin. Krishna is often depicted in murtis (images) as black, and is generally shown in paintings with a blue skin. |
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Traditional belief based on scriptural details and astrological calculations gives the date of Krishna's birth, known as Janmashtami,[29] as either 18 or 21 July 3228 BCE.[30] Krishna belonged to the royal family of Mathura, and was the eighth son born to the princess Devaki, and her husband Vasudeva. Mathura was the capital of the Yadavas (also called the Surasenas), to which Krishna's parents Vasudeva and Devaki belonged to. The king Kamsa, Devaki's cousin,[31] 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, he had locked the couple into a prison cell. After killing the first six children, and Devaki's apparent miscarriage of the seventh, being transferred to Rohini as Balarama, Krishna took birth. |
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Nanda was the head of a community of cow-herders, and he settled in Vrindavana. The stories of Krishna's childhood and youth tell of 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 is said to have killed the demons like Putana, sent by Kamsa for Krishna's life. He tamed the serpent Kaliya, 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 Kaliya. Krishna is believed to have lifted the Govardhana hill and defeated Indra—the kings of the devas and rain—to protect native people of Vrindavana from prosecution by Indra and prevent the devastation of the pasture land of Govardhan.[36][37] In the view of some, the spiritual movement started by Krishna had something in it which went against the orthodox forms of worship of the Vedic gods such as Indra.[38]
The stories of his play with the gopis (milkmaids) of Vrindavana 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.[39] |
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