Krishna

"If only people freed themselves from their beliefs in all kinds of Ormuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths, and their incarnation as Krishnas and Christs, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various vedas, Bibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings and infinitely small atoms and molecules,..."

"Second day of [Diwali] is called Naraka Chaturdashi or Chhoti Diwali. Narakasur, after defeating Lord Indra, snatched the magnificent earrings of Mother Goddess Aditi and took sixteen thousand daughters of gods and saints to his harem. Lord Krishna killed the demon, brought all women and earrings of Aditi. Lord Krishna came home early in the morning with demon blood on his forehead. Women massaged scented oil on Krishna and washed away dirt from his body. So we take oil massage and bathe before sunrise this day."

"You must worship the Self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna."

"Always resign yourselves to the Lord Shri Krishna. Always remember that we are but puppets in the Lord's hands. Remain pure always. Please be careful not to become impure even in thought, as also in speech and action; always try to do good to others as far as in you lies."

"Krishna also relates that it was he, in a former incarnation, who communicated the indestructible yoga to an ancient illuminato, Vivasvat, who gave it to Manu, the great legislator. He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, the father of India's solar warrior dynasty. Passing thus from one to another, the royal yoga was guarded by the rishis until the coming of the materialistic ages. Then, due to priestly secrecy and man's indifference, the sacred knowledge gradually became inaccessible."

"In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, 'Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.' If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic 'book' religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history's religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All paths lead to me'"

"While it is the Bhagavata Purana that occupies itself most particularly with the incarnation of Krishna, the Krishna story also occurs in significant detail in other Puranas, particularly the Vishnu Purana, Padma Purana, and the later Brahma Vaivarta Purana, and it is in this genre of literature the stories and legends that developed around his incarnation find their fullest expression."

"Whatever one makes of a few slight references to Krishna in texts that are probably older than the Mahabharata, and of the many efforts to imagine him prior to his literary debut in the epic, the Mahabharata is the first text to portray him as both divine and human, and to conceive of his humanity and divinity in a forceful and complex scale."

"It is also, I believe, a revelation that Karna and the Kauravas consider the option of killing Krishna. Could Karna—and this never-failing spear—really have done that? We are left to ponder the death of God. And what did Karna think of this option?"

"The places and monuments related with Krishna and his life is being encroached, plundered and destroyed systematically, willfully and with all disregard to the cultural and historical heritage. One can well imagine what would have happened during foreign rules and invasions."

"In chapter 7, Krishna reveals that the unquenchably active Nature is actually Krishna's own lower nature (prakriti). What Nature does, therefore, completely conforms to Krishna's will, even to the point that the Gita seems ultimately to teach that all one can do is be Krishna's instrument for Krishna’s activities. At times it appears that Arjuna himself has little say in his actions and will be compelled to do Krishna’s will no matter what Arjuna decides."

"Krishna also reveals that there is an eternal, unchanging, loving relationship between the individual soul and Krishna encompassed by the term bhakti, devotion. **In: p.80"

"In the Bhagavad Gita, devotion to Krishna develops slowly out of the surrounding battle scene. Though that development never quite reaches the depths of attachment of later Krishna bhakti, the text provides an image of Krishna who is both the Lord of the Universe and one who incarnates in this world again and again to set things right and protect the dharma."

"They knew that Yadavas could establish Krishna Raj again and hence it had become necessary to drive wedge, a divide between Krishna and Yadavas. What would be better way than that of making Krishna a god (from god he became God during Bhakti movement)"

"Bless me [Narada to Krishna] that my remembrance [of them] will remain, so that I can travel about meditating [on them]. Thereafter, Narada entered another residence of Krishna's wives, O dear king, desiring to witness the yogamaya of the Lord of the lords of yoga...There he [saw] Krishna again, this time playing with dice with his beloved and with Uddhava..."

"After seeing this exhibition [at many places] of [Maya|yogamaya by Krishna, who was following human ways, Narada said to Hrishikesh Krishna smilingly: “We know that your yogamaya is hard to perceive, even for magicians. But it will manifest, O Soul of the lords of yoga, by service to your lotus feet”....“Give me you leave, O God. I will wonder about the worlds, which are overflowing with your glories, singing about your lilas which purify the earth.”"

"Even the establishment of the system of Char Dham (Four Pilgrimage) related to Krishna's life— Gokul, Dwaraka, Puri and Badrinath— by Sankarachrya seems to be brilliant strategy to keep Krishna in a historical and mythical mode. Hindu or Vedic religion without Krishna or Krishna as God will be nothing but mere rituals and superstition."

"...Buddha, though quite different from Krishna, tried to change the socio-cultural scape of India through his scientific religion, even though he and Buddhism were forcibly exiled from this country."

"Krishna, after exterminating the King of Mathura, did not take the power in to his hands but restored the old system of Vritya or Mandal (circle system) and ruling with the consensus in the consultation with the Samati or Sabha (council)."

"Moreover Krishna was very fond of the downtrodden and oppressed people such as his friends of childhood or his peers or sixteen thousand hapless women whom society could not accept even if they had been liberated by Krishna from the bondage of demon king of Pragjotishpur (Modern Assam) Narakasur. It was Krishna who adopted them, giving his name and telling them, they were his queens as he had given them all the Mangalsutra or matrimonial thread."

"The influence of Krishna philosophy and his different temporal and non-temporal theories on the Buddhism could be deciphered from gleaning the various Buddhist texts, which seems to be the extension, supplantation, and elaboration of the [Krishna philosophy]…"

"...at the time when Gita was happening, Krishna had attained the title of Vasudev as he was addressed as such by Bhisma Pitamah many times and others as well. Moreover, he had already destroyed Kans, w:JarasandhaJarasandh, and the other Prati-Vasudev at the beginning of war, and was going to destroy the remaining Prati-Vasudev in the ensuing war."

"Moreover, Krishna was such a potent force that he had established a new benchmark in the form of Vasudev. What might have been very upsetting and rather threatening for the traditional social and political elites of the ancient India that he had provided virtual guidelines for becoming Vasudev through various acts and machinations. And his life itself was such a broader canvas of Vasudevhood that one could easily imbibe them becoming the Vasudev."

"What might have shocked the highly regimented and stratified society of 1000-900 BC was the Vedic fold and rituals, and mixing with Shudras or 'Dasa' initiated and formalized by Krishna. It was the very daring act of entering the marriage alliance with ‘Shudra’ or the tribal girl (Jambavati) and that too by such popular figure as Krishna who despite not being declared king or heir apparent like his elder brother, Balarama, used to enjoy more power and respect than a King."

"Apart from Krishna, another Yadav, Ghor Angaris who was the second guru of Krishna after Guru Sandipan, enacted another revolutionary feat: He himself performed his last rites embracing the Jainism after leaving the Vedic religion."

"...been appropriated by priestly class and composers of Upanishads without giving credit to Krishna. Moreover, the date of their composition has been stretched to the mythical time preceding the Gita and Krishna."

"...there were many kingdoms such as Avanti, Chedi, Hastinapur, and others where Yadavas or Krishna's relatives were the reigning kings, they did not provide any help to the Mathura."

"It appeared Krishna's act of enforcing the Raj Dharma had angered all the kings of Aryavrata and that was why they did not come to his help. However, Krishna being not an ordinary person, had anticipated the non-cooperative attitude of his [kings of Aryavrata]…"

"It appears to be more of a case of pre-planned conspiracy to obliterate Krishna – a force that had transformed the socio-political scape of ancient India, a visionary, social and political revolutionary, master par excellence in diplomacy and expert in warfare. While the stakes have succeeded in achieving first goal, as Krishna has become not only God but also God of gods, Yadavas survived their joint political-social-cultural-military onslaught."

"In the 4th century BC, Chanakya refers to the story of Krishna's birth, while Megasthenes mentions that the Sourasenoi (Surasenas or Yadavas) hero-worshipped Herakles (Krishna). Their two great cities were Methora (Mathura) and Kleisobora (Krishnapura?) on the navigable river Yobares (Yamuna)....Herkales (Krishna) sent his daughter Pandala to rule over the kingdom of Mathura (Madura)"

"Worship of Krishna as Swayam Bhagvan, or the “Supreme Being”, known as Krishna, arose in the Middle Ages in the context of the Bhakti movement. From the 10th century AD, Krishna became a favourite subject in performing arts and regional traditions of devotion developed for forms of Krishna such as Venkateshvara in Andhra Pradesh, Jagannatha in Orissa, Vithoba in Maharashtra and Srinathji in Rajasthan."

"The Sanskrit word ‘krshna’ is primarily an adjective meaning “black”, “dark”, or “dark-blue”. Sometimes it is also translated as “all attractive”. In the Lalitavistara Sutra, Krishna is the chief of the black demons, the enemies of the Buddha."

"The principal scriptures discussing Krishna's story are the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana. Worship of a deity or hero called Krishna, in the form of Vasudeva, Bala Krishna or Gopal, can be traced to the 4th century BC."

"The earliest text that explicitly provides detailed descriptions of Krishna as a personality is the epic Mahabharata which depicts Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu. Krishna is central to many of the main stories of the epic. The eighteen chapters of the sixth book (Bhishma Parva) of the epic that constitutes the Bhagavad Gita contain the advice of Krishna to the warrior-hero Arjuna, on the battlefield."

"Krishna is already an adult in the epic [Mahabharta], although there are allusions to his earlier exploits. The Harivamsa, a later appendix to this epic, contains the earliest detailed version of Krishna's childhood and youth."

"Panini, the ancient grammarian (probably belonged to 5th century or sixth century BC) mentions a character called Vasudeva son of Vasudeva, and also mentions Kaurava and Arjuna which testifies to Vasudeva Krishna, Arjuna and Kauravas being contemporaries. Megasthenes (350-290 BC), a Greek ethnographer and an ambassador of Seleucus I to the court of Chandragupta Maurya mentioned about Herakles in his famous work Indica. Many scholars have suggested that the deity identified as Herakles was Krishna"

"There is no unanimity among the theologians and religious figures as what is the position of Krishna. It shows he is being interpreted as per the whims and fancies of the person and sects concerned. This also proves the historicity of Krishna."

"Garbe believes Krishna to have lived about two hundred years before Buddha, to have been son of Vasudeva, to have founded a monotheistic and ethical religion, and to have been eventually deified and identified with the god Vasudeva, he founded. In the Mahabharata we have all traditions about Krishna that survived until then, non-Aryan hero, a spiritual teacher, a tribal god."

"In the Buddhist texts the term 'kala' has been used for denote the villainous men or of wicked tendency, while in the Jain texts the term 'Krishna or Vasudev' has been used for referring to the great personality, called as the 'Slaka Purush'."

"It is clear that Krishna's historicity and legacies have been highjacked to the non-temporal level at the best and mythical level at the worst. If seen from objective point of view, there should not be any doubt about the historicity of Krishna and Mahabharata period"

"Krishna and post-Krishna era underlines the rather high period of Indian socio-political scape when ruling elites or Kshatriya was like philosopher king. The Gana-Sangh system or rather republican credo that Krishna had displayed in his stately conduct or the democratic principles of debate, discussion, and unanimity or a sort of consensus characterizing Yadavas and Krishna’s conduct testifies this."

"Krishna: Political Philosophy If Plato is called the father of politics and Machiavelli as that of modern politics, then Krishna could be undoubtedly designated as the father of politics of all the time. It is another matter that he has been relegated to the mystical realm, making him the God Himself."

"...republican credo of Yadavas were refined and institutionalized by Krishna, and for upholding it, he did not spare his own relatives such as Kans, Shishupal and others. Moreover, for the sake of republican credo of electing the capable King irrespective of whether he is elder, Krishna took part in the great war of Mahabharata on the side of Pandavas, who were the sons of younger brother, Pandu of Hastinapur."

"It is no surprise that Chankya or Kautilya cast off his political theory based on the organizational pattern, appropriating not only the nomenclature but also various aspects of Krishna real politicking and diplomacy. Of course, without acknowledging Krishna and his contribution to the humanity. Even Buddha, whose three-fourth tenets of Buddhism is based on Krishna’s Samkhya, Karma Yoga, Gyana Yoga and Gita has not named Krishna in his acknowledgments, though he has done so indirectly by conceding the ancient traditions, thinkers and philosophers."

"...Nanda the foster parents of Krishna and his uncle who was the brother of Krishna's father has been referred as Mandaladhish (Head of Mandal) of Gokul Mandal. Therefore, the Mandal was administrative unit and the kingdom was organized into different Mandal whose head was responsible for the administration, tax collection and other matters."

"Sri Krishna stole the hearts of the Gopis unconditionally. The Gopis stole His Ecstasy unreservedly."

"Man’s growing divinity cries for the human perfection in Sri Krishna the man. In Sri Krishna’s humanity lies man’s promise of becoming divine."

"Sweetness and grace inexpressible, bond unbreakable, sacrifice unfathomable — this indeed is Radha, the Mother-Heart of Sri Krishna."

"Arjuna is the ascending human soul. Krishna is the descending divine Soul. Finally they meet. The human sou says to the divine Soul: “I need you.”The divine Soul says to the human soul: *I need you, too. I need you for my self-manifestation. You need me for your self-realisation.” Arjuna says: “O, Krishna, you are mine, absolutely mine.” Krishna says: “O, Arjuna, no mine, no thine. We are the Oneness complete, within, without.”"

"God is proud of His Divinity in Sri Krishna. Man is proud of his humanity in Sri Krishna."