Historical Krishna Part 6

So there is no reason to discard the special feats of Sri Krishna, although we need to be cautious about the possibility of loss of information over time and some exaggeration by ardent devotees and admirers which is quite natural. Gopas migrated to Vrindavan and thought that they were safe but Kamsa was not sitting idle. He had spies everywhere and he had friends who would attempt the assassination of Krishna and Balarama. One of them was Pralamba, who carried Balarama away, to be eventually overpowered and killed by him. Bankim thinks that the incident of Dhenuka involved actual wild asses who were very dangerous and reigned over the palm groves. Dhirendra Nath Pal seems to agree that Krishna possibly got rid of dangerous animals in the Vrindavan and made it safe for the habitat of the Gopas. The logic seems incorrect because mere slaughter of dangerous animals would not have earned Krishna the reputation that he earned. Kings usualy went in Mrigaya or hunting expedition and killed many dangerous animals to ensure safety to the villagers living near the forest. And Gopas themselves were powerful enough to kill wild animals for their safety, they would not have needed the superhuman strength of Krishna and Balarama for doing so. However in Mahabharata Sishupala makes a statement that is worth pondering. Possibly when Bhisma narrated the incident to him he said that what glory was there in killing a bull and a horse, both completely ignorant of the rules of the fighting! He was evidently mentioning about the slaughter of Arishta the bull and Keshi the demon in the form of horse in Bhagavatam. So the incidents of killing atleast two dangerous animals are corroborated in Mabhabharata. What is curious is, why did he termed them as ignorant of the rules of fighting? So were they human beings, possibly tribal folks who had perhaps the strength of a bull or agility of a horse and hence were called as bull or a horse? Who would give names to a wild bull or a wild horse? Only domesticated animals get names. This conclusion is more likely than the assumption that Krishna got rid of a dangerous bull or a wild horse. Krishna also slaughtered a dangerous bird – Vakasura, a demon in the disguise of a heron. Did Sishupala refer to this heron as the bird that was killed by Krishna? Why would an innocent heron be a demon, unless either it was a prehistoric pterodactyl kind of a creature that would live on human flesh? So again this was a man who would perhaps live on fish like Heron but would not mind killing a child if hired by the king to do so. And this person must be of extra ordinary strength to be deputed to such a task by none other than the king himself. Similarly Dhenuka and his clan were custodians of the palm grove and were dangerous tribal folks of great strength who would terrorize everybody coming nearby and hence were punished by Balarama and Krishna for their transgressions.

There are some other demons in Bhagavatam who are not found anywhere else, viz. Bhaumasura, one that flew and hid some children in a cave only to be rescued by Krishna, Vatsasura, the demon in the disguise of a calf, and Aghasura or the large python that swallowed children by disguising itself as a mountain cave. These stories may have followed the similar pattern or there may indeed have been some wild and dangerous animals in Vrindavan killed by Krishna. We would never know, but that does not diminish him in stature. He worked selflessly for protecting others, even in his childhood. The so called demons were killed either as a form of self-defense or for the need to protect the other cowherd boys and inhabitants of Vrindavan.

Another incident that is worth relating is the suppression of the Kaliya, the Naga. Nagas, as already discussed were a tribe who were highly civilized, but some of them lived in the forests and near waterbodies. Kaliya, according to the story migrated from an island in the ocean for the fear of Gaduda who was a natural enemy of the Nagas and Sarpas. As already mentioned Gaduda was the Suparna king who had a natural dislike for the Nagas and Sarpas because of the treatment meted out to his mother Vinata by Kadru, the cowife of sage Kasyapa and mother of the Naga tribe. Kaliya was a vicious Naga chieftain and was inimical to the gopas and other tribes. He poisoned a portion of Yamuna that formed a lake so that no other people can come there and claim his territory. Nagas and Sarpas were experts in poison and their applications. Krishna humiliated Kaliya by his superhuman power and forced him to leave Vrindavan, though Bhagavatam has woven a beautiful story around Kaliya’s repentance and his wives’ devotion for Krishna. The other important event was the saving the lives of Gopas from a forest conflagration. As the story goes he just took the fire in the cusp of his hands and drank it, but it is likely to be a poetic exaggeration. According to Patanjali Yoga Sutra, Yogis have control over the five elements including the fire, so either he just used his special power to extinguish the fire or found a way to cut off the oxygen supply. Thereby the fire died a natural death so that it seemed to the simple village folks that he breathed it in. Either way it was a miraculous escape for the hapless Gopas and Krishna made it possible, so he saved them from near death.