Historical Krishna - Part 7

The most important mysterious incident is however the lifting of the Govardhan hill in order to save Vrindavan residents from a possible deluge owing to incessant rainfall. The story goes like this – The residents of Vrindavan used to worship Indra for having rains at regular intervals when needed, Indra being the god of the rains. This included an elaborate sacrifice aimed at propitiating Indra. Krishna stopped this practice by influencing his people to worship Govardhan hills instead of a costly sacrifice to propitiate Indra because he felt that Govardhan and surrounding areas confer more benefits to a primarily agrarian community such as the Gopas as the hilly region provides the grasslands and forests with streams that help in nourishing the cattle and livestock. People accordingly stopped the sacrifice in honor of Indra and started a custom of Govardhan Puja. This angered Indra so much that he deluged Vrindavan for 7 days and nights. But Krishna protected the Gopas using Govardhan hill as the umbrella and thus they were all saved and Indra was also humbled, gave up his pride and sought apology for his wrong doings. This event is significant in many ways. It marked a transition from Vedic customs to Puranic rituals – replacement of Indra and forces of nature as the all power Godhead to worshiping the real living God manifested as mother earth that fed all creatures dependent on her – a tradition that continues with the numerous harvest festivals celebrated by all cultures in different countries esp. during the beginning of summer solstice. It also ensured that common people move away from Vedic customs with a view to get rewards to a better and nobler way of worshiping as a form of thanksgiving without expecting any reward or return. In Gita Sri Krishna reinforced this teaching with assertion that worships done without any rewards in view, for the sake of worshiping, as an offering or tribute, directly reach the Supreme God Head and is a surer way to break free of all bondage of work, while sacrifices with selfish interests like the Indra Puja lead to bondage. He just put this principle to practical use with the simple Gopas and other rural folks to enable them to prosper spiritually.

Now if we want to discuss about the possibility of this incident we come up against a strong argument from rationalistic point of view. Obviously lifting a hill like an umbrella is no mean feat and any normal people of present age would disbelieve it. If important and critical events become incredible, Krishna’s existence in history becomes questionable. However we have already asserted that we have sufficient grounds to believe in his historicity.  If we turn to what Sishupala said in Mahabharata, we would see that he did not deny this incident but on the whole he made it light saying that there was no credit in lifting an ant hill like Govardhan. While Govardhan may not be a formidable mountain if it’s present shape is any indication, it is also not an ant hill. It is not steep, about 100 feet in height but is wide enough to provide a resting place for an entire village if there is by any means a way to go under it. Dhirendra Nath Paul thought that Krishna must have found some cave. But that would seem unlikely as it would then never be remembered as a great feat of Krishna. It is essential therefore to recognize that Krishna did something that people thought was remarkable and yet those simple rustic folks did not think it great enough to believe him as an incarnation of God. They were just thankful that he did a remarkable deed and protected them from a deluge. Also Mahabharata indicates that indeed there was some remarkable incident that was worth mentioning in the point of view of Bhisma, which was ridiculed by Sishupala. But uplifting a hill, that too holding it for 7 days and nights! Seems improbable, even though we have acknowledged that Krishna was Yogeshwara and he did many other remarkable things and he had super human powers. So what really happened? One can only conjecture but here is one possibility. Lifting of Govardhan may not mean lifting of the entire hill. Rather than debunking the incident as a fiction we can provide an alternative explanation. We have already acknowledged that Krishna had divine power, he was the incarnation of supreme God Head. But even the divine incarnations do not display magical powers too often. The great teachers whose feats are recorded in history have mostly eschewed the path of miracle mongering, although they could not help showing some power for the benefit of the ignoramus. Buddha was strongly against displaying such powers and he censored one of his men for doing so. Ramakrishna equated powers to the excreta of an old prostitute and fervently prayed to the divine mother not to give them to him. There are no recorded evidence of Sri Chaitanya ever displaying powers except to the few of his inner circles. Even Sankara rarely exhibited supernatural powers. So it is unlikely that Krishna will do such a thing. Throughout his life Krishna stayed away from displaying such powers except under desperate situations when somebody else, esp. his near and dear ones like Pandavas, was in grave danger. So such a gross feat like lifting of a hill to display his superhuman power does not gel well with the character of Krishna. Bankim Chandra had used such a measure in his Krishna Charitra. If any incident is not in agreement with the general character of a person we need to understand that such an incident was imposed. It did not actually happen. One example will be Rama’s killing of Shambuka in Uttara Ramayana. This incident was so obviously in dissonance with the general character of Rama that there is no difficulty in trashing this incident as one fabricated and inserted by one or more extremely fundamentalist and casteist Brahmin(s) in a much later period. Valmiki who depicted Rama as the truth incarnate or justice incarnate would never make such a mistake. Coming back to Krishna, he possibly did indeed lift the hill (ant hill according to Sishupala) but in a different sense. What could have happened is this – because of incessant rains the soil around Govardhan had become soft and eroded and boulders and rocks were loosened from the surface. This is akin to the landslides that we see happening in the mountains in the rainy season, but on a smaller scale. Such landslide may have created huge cave like holes near the surface and with superhuman effort some portion of the hill, esp. large boulders could be lifted to have a space for many people with portion of the rocks and boulders protecting them from the rains. The superhuman power in lifting those rocks and boulders to make space would be equivalent to the power required in lifting the hill as a whole and that’s what it must had seemed to the Gopas. So as depicted in popular imagination Krishna did not lift the hill on the whole and support it using his baby finger. Logically he could not have done it as a) He was just a boy of seven or eight years and hence he could not reach upto  a height of 100 ft to hold the hill in the way pictures depict him b) Even if we consider that he grew in size to lift the hill it would not have saved the villages folks from rains in a practical sense as the water coming from the side would have submerged them as they would still be puny in comparision. So while Krishna did not lead them to a cave as Dhirendra Paul suggested, he might simply have created a huge space for them by lifting large masses of boulders taking the help of powerful Gopas. But because it was his ingenuity and his idea and primarily his endeavor using his own superhuman strength and hence he got all the credit. Such a conjecture does not diminish the stature of Krishna at all. On the other hand it enhances it because a) despite being the supreme god head he desisted from miracle mongering b) he still exhibited super human power not for any selfish purpose but to save villagers and cattle from imminent destruction c) We can now relate to the incident in more practical sense which helps us in again establishing the credence of historical Krishna by carefully removing the mythological veil from him.

A similar situation is encountered in Ramayana where Hanuman was said to have brought the entire Gandhamadan Mountain on his back in order to save Lakshmana. Even if we blindly accept the story as true the practical objection to such an assertion would be Gandhamadan was a huge mountain and there would not have been sufficient space in the battlefield to keep it. So it is more likely that Hanuman, with due respect to his power and strength which undoubtedly was superhuman, brought a portion of Gandhamadan and not the entire mountain, esp. that portion that contained the herbs that would rejuvenate Lakshmana. But in popular culture and myth he was portrayed to carry the entire mountain on his back which helped in generating reverence and awe among the common masses, albeit for good reasons. But whether he carried an entire mountain or a portion of it does not reduce his greatness even a bit. In the case of Jesus Christ for instance the events like turning water into wine or multiplying loaves of bread or bringing back Lazarus from dead or exorcising demons and spirits to heal people and lepers and blind men are not essential to establishing his greatness, but rather the incident with the Samaritan woman is. Similarly whether Krishna lifted the entire Govardhan is nonessential to establish his greatness. The fact that he discontinued a Vedic ritual and mobilized the masses to adopt a new kind of religious practice which is more meaningful and purposeful, that he led them to safety and ensured by whatever means that they were not affected by the vagaries of the natural forces, those are instrumental in proving his greatness. Lifting a hill as a feat is absolutely non-essential, what is essential is that he saved human lives from the destructive forces of nature. As to whether king of God Indra was humbled, my personal belief is that the story was woven to prove the superiority of Pauranic Vishnu over Vedic Gods like Indra, Mitra, Varuna by the later Vaishnavas. In an allegorical sense yes, he conquered Indra who stood for the king of all senses (senses are depicted as gods in Upanishads), i.e. mind. Also the very fact that he led human beings to triumph over natural forces leads us to believe that he set the tone for the new age whereby humans will no longer be under the control of nature but rather will try to conquer and overcome nature, both external and internal.