Krishna

see also: Etymology of Krishna

Krishna - Kṛṣṇa , कृष्ण - (sinks, Bleu - Noir in Sanskrit), also called Yadav , is an important divinity of the Hindouisme. In the majority of the Hindu traditions, it is itself a God and it is also the eighth misadventure (incarnation) of Vishnu. For the members of the Vaishnava Chaitanya, it represents the supreme divinity at the origin of all the others, the universal instructor. It is the most venerated divinity of India and it is in the beginning many sects bhâkta dedicated to its worship.

The first mention of Krishna is in the Rig-Veda (VIII, 3-4) like the name of wise, but also as the name of a Asura, a vedic anthem telling the defeat of 50.000 krishna and their family by the god Indra, probably the memory of a war between the first Indo-Europeans and of the indigenous populations , Drâvida or Munda, for the control of the gangetic plain, populations whose complexion dark would be at the origin of the name of Krishna. Peace between these belligerents would then have been sealed by an exchange, the adoption by the aboriginals of the Indo-European divinities and the integration of the character symbolic system aboriginal of Krishna in the Indo-European Pantheon.

One then finds it like wire of Devakî and scholar in a text former to the final drafting of the Mahâbhârata , the Chhândogya Upanishad , then, from there, it reaches the statute of divinity in texts like the Harivamsha , a late addition in Mahâbhârata which tells the childhood of the god in the herdsmen, or as the Gita-Govinda which tells the adventures of its love life with the Gopi . The Bhâgavata-purâna which tells the life of God, during his terrestrial incarnation (in a way parallel with the Mahâbhârata), is considered for much as a crowned book. Some believed to highlight, in Mahâbhârata, of the astronomical references dating from

The position of Krishna in the hindouism is complex: it offers the face of a god to the multiple aspects and appears under many names, in multiple stories, among various cultures and in various Indian traditions; sometimes those are contradicted.

Principal aspects

Its principal aspects:

Krishna-child. The episodes of its childhood in the forest of Vrindavan are a central theme of the speeches dévotionels in India and conceal great mysteries esoteric.
Krishna-shepherd: the god of the shepherds. He is different in that with his brother Balarâma, god of the farmers, who is called sometimes Haladhar, the lord with the Charrue (or picks). One finds here the mystical opposition between the sedentary farmer and the wandering stockbreeder, also presents in the Bible with the duality Abel/Caïn, as well as the difference between the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament and the symbols of the ground (bread and wine), in New Testament.
Krishna centers devotion (in love one, the seducer, the player of Flûte). He is frequently shown playing of the flute, tempting the Gopi S (guardians of herds) of Vrindavan.
According to Gaudiya vaishnava (Vaishnava of the Bengal resulting from the filiation of Chaitanya) Krishna is “avatari” or the source of all the misadventures. Vishnu even is to him one of its multiple emanations. He teaches the Dharma and the Yoga with Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gîtâ.

A certain number of local traditions and regional divinities could be included in the stories and the person of Krishna.

But to obtain explanations detailed on its nature transcendantale, its entertainments, his/her companions eternal and the way which borrow the wise ones to carry out it, the reference books are the Bhagavad-gita , the Srimad Bhagavatam , the bhaktirasamrita sindhu , the Chaitanya charitamrita .

Life of Krishna

Krishna child and teenager

According to the tradition, Krishna is born with Mathurâ, of a black hair of Vishnou, wire of prince Vasudeva and Devakî. Kamsa, a Râja of the line of Bhoja, cruel and immoral, reign on Mathurâ after having reversed his/her father, Ugrasena. Kamsa is also the brother of Devakî and it is in love with his sister who must marry prince Vasudeva. Whereas it drives the tank which leads Devakî to her new husband, it hears a celestial voice which predicts to him that the eighth child of its sister will cause his fall. Insane from rage, it draws Devakî by the hair out of the tank and when Vasudeva sees that, it promises to him to give his children to him to be born. The couple holds its promise for his/her the first six children, but the seventh, Balarâma, are entrusted in secrecy to Rohinî, one of the women of Vasudeva. When he learns that he was misled, Kamsa imprisons the couple. Devakî puts soon at the world a new child, Krishna, and thanks to a miracle which deadens the soldiers of Kamsa, Vasudeva succeeds in escaping for a time, goes to the village of Gokula and entrusts Krishna to another of its wives, Yashoda which exchanges it to him against one of his/her daughters, Yoga Mâyâr. In the morning, Kamsa learns the birth from a new child, seizes and kills Yoga Mâyâ who transforms himself into celestial creature and the prediction recalls him. Kamsa - as Hérode - fact of killing all the newborns, but Krishna escapes to him. It sends then several demons to him to fight it, but without success.

His/her brother having found it and joined, it produces, helped of this one, of many miracles to counter the evil spells directed against him and Balarâma by Kamsa. Finally, Krishna decides to put an end to the embarrassments which Kamsa causes him, reverses it and restores on its throne king Ugrasena. Installed now with Mathurâ, Krishna and Balarâma must defend the city against the attacks of powerful the râja Jarâsandha of the Magadha, a relative of Kamsa. After eighteen undecided battles, one will need the intervention of Bhîma, the hero of Mahâbhârata to cut down Jarâsandha.

However, the Krishna young person continues his work of cowherds with Vrindâvana. Its frequentation of the Gôpi , the vachères of the village, young girls or women married, is the subject many stories. One of most famous, illustrated many times by miniature , is the episode where, finding the gôpi bathing naked in a pond, it steals their clothing to them and takes refuge at the top of a tree, condescending to return their business to them only when they come to ask him the foot of the tree. It, is also often accompanied by Râdhâ, his wife preferred with Rukminî, in the center of a round danced by the gôpi , round which it accompanies by its Flûte Banshrî and which is called Râsa-mandala and which is always practiced today in India in its honor, particularly with the Manipur where its worship is very active.

The reports/ratios of Krishna and the gôpi , of the women whom it is supposed to have satisfied all, symbolize the divine Principe to which the individual hearts seek to be linked to obtain the release.

Krishna is also opposed to the gods Indo-European, older, which tends to confirm its origin indigenous. Young man, it persuades his father-in-law and the other cowherds of Vrindâvana more not to venerate the god Indra, god of the rain and the harvests, but in place and place, to make Puja with the Govardhana hill and the cows. The god, irritated not to be requested more, started a flood but Krishna raises the hill and known as with the inhabitants of the village to take refuge under it where he will be with the shelter and where all their needs will be satisfied. Including/understanding its defeat, Indra being prosternant in front of Krishna, beseeches that one forgives him his pride and his anger. It pays however homage to Agni, the god vedic of sacrificial fire, and the Chakra, a weapon terrible flamer obtains some.

has, in the episode with Indra, the report of the replacement of the veneration of a divinity [[Veda|vedic] old, demonstrator pride and anger, by those new and in conformity with the Bhakti, and thus compassionnelles, Krishna and the crowned cow.]

Adult Krishna

Krishna leaves then banks of the Yamunâ and settles with its people with Dvârakâ with the Goujerat. There it meets and marries Rukminî. Later, it takes part in the sides of Arjuna and the Pândava to the great battle of Kurukshetra evoked in the Mahâbhârata (in which the Bhagavad-gîtâ describes the teaching of Krishna), then his sister Subhadrâ Arjuna wife.

The gods inform it one day that it must give up Dvârakâ with all its inhabitants if not its line will die out. Whereas they stop on the way on the shore, the men enivrent themselves and of the confrontations burst. Krishna and its Balarâma brother try to bring back the calm one without success. They enter the forest then and enter in meditation to seek a solution when it is struck by the arrow of an indigenous hunter named Jâras - Vieil age - which takes it for a deer. Reached in the heel, the only vulnerable part of its anatomy, it dies and its body, lost, remains without burial.

The bones of Krishna are found and collected later by excessively pious people and Vishvakarma, the sculptor of the gods, at the request of Indra or of Vishnu, a statue reliquary works to him, but disturbed in its task, leaves its work with the state of outline what explains the always rudimentary aspect of this representation of Krishna in the form of Jagannâtha, the “Lord of the Universe”.

will note the strange similarity of the end of Krishna with that of the Greek hero [[Achilles].]

Names of Krishna

One gives quantity of names to Krishna, among those one finds Dâmodara - Belly in the shape of cord, Venugopâla , Maître of the cows to the flute, Devakîputra , Fils of Devakî, Jagannâtha , Maître of the world, Yashodakrishna , " Hari" , Pârthasharâthi , Shârngin , Dvârakâvasin , Govinda , " Gopala" , Mâdhava , Ishvara , the Lord, Nrsimhadeva , Jagannatha …,

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