Krishna - The Man!

Krishna the Man

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krihna Krishna Hare Hare!!!!! Yes - Krishna - the sweetest manifestation of the Supreme Being!he is regarded as the Purna-Avarata of God. He was perfect in every respect. Sri Krishna has always been ‘divinised’, i.e., looked upon as God. But such an outlook/attitude however misses the greatness of Krishna as ‘the man’. It does not allow us to look at his activities in the capacity of a human being par excellence! – and thus lay before us the potentialities of ordinary human beings and the heights that mortals can attain if they just led a balanced life with awareness!!!!!!!! Only if we look at Krishna as a normal human being – a figure of history – can we give full credit to his capabilities and teachings in the times that he lived ….. only then can we appreciate as to why he was admired and respected by his contemporaries. This respect and devotion over a period of time transformed Krishna into a divinity, rather than the other way round (a divinity deciding to take birth as a human being and performing miracles for the upliftment of man and society in those days)!!!!!!!

Sri Krishna’s life-on-earth was all-comprehensive. If one studies the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Mahabharata one will understand what a multifaceted diamond Sri Krishna was. He was a wonderful child, resplendent youth, dearest friend, mighty warrior, wise administrator, sweet comrade, master of diplomacy, protector of the meek, death of the wicked, preserver of Dharma, clever strategist, humble servant, obedient pupil, dutiful son, loving husband and Supreme Guru. He was very clever, original and ingenious. Even in the case of restoration of Dharma He displayed super-divine cleverness.

Today we celebrate Krishna's birthday. Where was he born? In a prison. What were his possessions? Nothing. Born in a prison, he was taken to the house of Nanda, and then he went to Mathura. He owned nothing. But he became the greatest figure in the world! Even before he was born – plans had already been made to kill him. Throughout his entire life he was constantly hounded by his enemies – to end his life – yet he led – as though a charmed life – time and again proving too slippery for his enemies!

Poetry divides human emotions into nine classes. Bhagwadas in his book Krishna – A Study in the theory of Avataras states beautifully – “The Bhagvata loves to show that Krishna, as a theme for poetry, exhausted all these in himself. The occasion is the then very young (~ 11years of age) Krishna’s entry into the arena of the tournament which had been planned by

Kamsa in a last effort to murder him, but at which he himself was slain by tusk torn from the elephant Kuvalayapida, which had been stationed at the gateway to kill Krishna, but which had been killed by him. “To the gladiators pitted against him, he appeared ‘Fierce and Furious’ as the thunderbolt of heaven; to the masculine spectators, as a ‘Wonderful’ specimen of perfect manhood; to the women, as the ‘Beautifull Eros’ incarnate; to the cowherds, as playmate full of ‘Laughter and Fun’; to the bad and ferocious but valorous kings assembled there as ‘Heroic’ chastiser of the wicked; to his parents, also present there, as a precious child, an object of ‘Compassion’; to Kamsa, as the ‘The Terrible’ Lord of Death himself; to the shallow-minded, as ‘Disgustingly’ stained with the stains of battle; to the yogis, as the embodiment of the ‘Peace’ of the Universal Self the eternal object of single-minded ‘Devotion’; and as their idolized personal deity, the focus of their whole-hearted ‘affection’ to his kinsfolk of the Vrshni clan.”

****** The above description epitomizes the ‘Navrasa’ embodied in the Personality of Krishna that invoked different emotions in different people – friends and foes and all.

He was a man who recognized the importance of not only “Niti” but rather “political-Niti”. He was a diplomat – a statesman in a class of his own – who did politicking shrewdly, with practical ideals without sacrificing ethics. His tremendously deep understanding of human psychology (nature) helped him while playing politics. He was not just a political strategist – but he was also well-versed in the use of weapons and missiles (shastra and astra). His understanding of human nature helped him to foresee others’ reactions/ actions and thus prepare for emergencies well in advance. Thus his enemies could never catch him napping or ill-prepared in any situation – rather they would normally be taken by surprise by Krishna! His clan – the Yadavas were always well-armed and always fine-tuned for war physically and mentally. His kingdom of Dwarka was chosen as it was difficult to attack it due to its geographical location- yet its warriors and armies were always in a state of war-preparedness - Krishna’s ideology being that if you are strong, that itself is the greatest deterrent for the enemy to even think waging a war. He never went out to conquer territories like his contemporaries – but believed in defending his own frontiers. He never did anything for his personal benefits – but did things or took decisions keeping an eye on the larger picture of the political scenario of the sub-continent and thus helped forge alliances of major forces on the political front so that no one power became totalitarian and subjugated the weaker. He took calculated risks – well thought out and with alternate plans in place!

With his faculty of critical thinking and innovative spirit, Krishna could not only comprehend the situation with all its positive and negative aspects and intricate implications, but could also envisage ways of overcoming it and saving the concerned from passive submissions to it. He also understood the social evils and superstitions existing in the society of that day and was dedicated to eradicating them by educating the people in this regard! In the episode of the Govardhana mountain, he pointed out to the people that rain is a natural phenomenon which does not require mediation of Indra! Krishna asked the Gopas to learn to cultivate modes of constructively utilizing the mountain, the very base and source of life and through it to develop an attitude of reciprocity with nature – rather than that of animosity! (The mountains cause precipitation to occur – as water-bearing clouds start ascending the mountains, the temperatures within the clouds decreases – so they cannot hold the water within and thus precipitate. Thus one side of the mountain gets good rains, but the other side being in the shadow of the mountain gets less rainfall). This shows that Krishna had knowledge of this mechanism of rainfall and the role of the mountain in precipitation - and thus he wanted, or rather insisted that his people should put in self-confident efforts to be self-reliant and improve their lot rather than being passively dependent on or submitting to forces of Nature and Fate – which can at the most be appeased and propitiated – but never totally overcome and commanded! This approach of Krishna regarding living and being in harmony with Nature and using one’s understanding of Nature in becoming self-reliant, rather than living at the mercies of the vagaries of Nature shows that he was a personality who believed in being action-oriented and self-reliant …. These two being the pillars of His teachings in the Bhagvad Gita!!!!!!!!

Krishna was very much concerned about the environment and its conservation - and the story of his vanquishing the terrible Kalia Nag who was causing havoc in the waters of the Yamuna maybe an allegoric story to showcase this point. It is possible that due the activities of human beings, the Yamuna was getting polluted and its waters were getting poisonous (as if a snake’s poison had got mixed in it) for consumption of plants, animals and human beings. Krishna may have carried out a major plan to clean the waters of the Yamuna single-handedly and single-mindedly and thus the story of this great feat! It is also possible that Kalia was a Naga tribal chief living in the forests near the Yamuna – and Krishna defeated him and brought about peace between the Naga tribals and his own village people. If constant enemity was there between his people and the Naga tribals, it would only cause casuality of life but the constant skirmishes would have caused deterioration of forests and its flora and fauna – because it was common practice in those days to

set fire to settlements of the opposing side to cause harm to them and make them either surrender or migrate elsewhere!