Lesson 7: Krishna
Though Krishna plays a major role in the Mahabharata, he is not the central hero of the Mahabharata the way Rama is of the Ramayana. Krishna’s role in Mahabharata constitutes a fraction of the mythological tales based on him. This lesson covers his birth, childhood and ascension to heaven. Of special interest is his relationship with Radha.
Introduction
Though Krishna plays a major role in the Mahabharata, he is not the central hero of the Mahabharata the way Rama is of the Ramayana. Krishna’s role in Mahabharata constitutes a fraction of the mythological tales based on him. The Bhagwat Purana is the most popular source of the events in Krishna’s life and we shall discuss some of them in this section. Another source is Harivansam.
Kanhaiyalal Munshi has in the twentieth century written about the life of Krishna with a unique perspective that I find very interesting. I shall adopt his viewpoint while discussing a few episodes from Krishna’s life. Mr. Munshi was the founder of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan one of the leading institutes of long standing devoted to learning. He was also a member of the Constituent assembly of India, which drafted the Constitution of India and later a member of India’s first Government.
We shall use ‘Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God’ and ‘Hindu Myths’ as texts. The former is a translation of Chapter 10 of the Bhagwat Purana that deals with the life of Krishna. In addition there is a wealth of material on Hindu mythology on the Internet. We will make full use of this.
