When they came - 2

Elsewhere when we look around the world we find similar parallels. Every 500 or 600 years, when a part of the world is submerged under great darkness, there came great men with message of deliverance. In the West when the Roman civilization was at its nadir, when barbarsim, beastliness and debauchery reigned supreme, when ritualism and oppression haunted the Western faiths, both Jewsih and pagan, there appeared a great man with the message of selfless love, compassion who laid the foundation of future European civilization based on what later came to be known as Christian principles. Similarly about 600 years later there appeared another great man who was a karmayogin, who united much of the barabaric cruel and viscious Arabic tribes into a cohesive force on the principles of universal bortherhood and replaced the terrible prevailing practices of the different tribes with a comprehensive rule of law, of worshipping one true god in place of stones and woods so that they could be bound together under one discipline. The prophet's message spread far and wide and Islam was established as a great religion esp. in the central asia whose tribes could not be harnessed by Buddhism's message of love and harmony, nor could be influenced by the distinctly European Christianity.

Therefore we find these great historical events to be an echo of the declaration in the Bhagavat Gita - Whenever "dharma", which stands for virtue, order, harmony and everything positive and constructive, is on the wane, whenever decline sets in, whenever it gives way to adharma or evil, I project myself, to protect my devotees and to reestablish order and harmony. Lord Krishna appeared at a great juncture, that of end Dwapar and beginning of Kali yuga, when India was confronted with its destiny. The events that followed shaped the history of India. Sri Krishna was a person whom very few can comprehend and fewer can write about. Not even great scholars and men of wisdom can fathom his greatness. His greatest manifestation is during the Kurukshetra war when he gave his discourses on Gita to a battle wary Arjuna, urging him to fight, explaining at length the principles of doing one's duty without attachment, without desire for fruits of actions, elaborating on the different "yogas" or paths of union with the supreme being. Much of the teachings in Gita are found in Upanishads, however whereas in Upanishads they are explained often in cryptic languages as direct experience of great seers and sages and hence beyond the comprehension of common men, in Gita all of them are explained lucidly.

Question is, what was the purpose of the incarnation of Lord Krishna?  It is very difficult for a common man to try to understand the reason for his advent because unlike the times of Buddha, Christ, the prophet, or Sri Chaitanya, there is no recorded history of Krishna's time and therefore we'll have to rely a great deal on Mahabharata to understand the purpose of his coming.