Historical Krishna - Part 14 - The Householder and Human Being

When Avataras or special manifestations come to the world to embrace a worldly life they have to behave exactly like ordinary human beings. Otherwise every body will know them and their mission will not be successful. They would play a role knowingly and thus like the best actors they would act so convincingly that it would be difficult to distinguish them from ordinary men. However, their powers will still manifest through their selfless actions and love for humanity and they will reveal their identity to a select few through whom they will leave a message for the mankind. As human beings they too will be subjected to suffering and will have passions like happiness. Rama was grief stricken by the loss of Sita. Krishna too had his moments of weakness. When he left Vrindavana there is no account of how he felt for the loved ones he were leaving behind, knowing fully that he wont be returning to them, that these simple village girls and boys loved him with their everything and he too reciprocated that love. But he had a larger divine purpose. That is another characteristics  of the avatara or divine incarnation - they can get back to their real nature whenever they will. In Sri Ramakrishna's language the prince can roam around freely in his palace by going to the topmost floor and coming down to the ground at his will, but ordinary guys cannot do so.
In some cases Krishna confided to Arjuna, his closest friend about his feelings - like he was pained by the constant infighting within his clan, he was not happy with his brother siding with Duryadhana, he was not happy with his wives constantly bickering with each other  and so on. He had his fair share of miseries in life, just like any householder. In Gita Krishna says that, "without knowing the greatest manifestations, the avataras, people think them to be mere mortals and behave as such with them." "Out of compassion I reveal Myself to chosen devotees" and so on.

AA lot has been said about Krishna's marriage. Some of the Krishna chroniclers are quite defensive about it. Like Paul disbelieves that Krishna had eight wives  or for that matter there was anybody called Satyabhama. He completely dismisses the tale of sixteen thousand wives (girls who were freed from Naraka's harem and whom Krishna married to save their honour) as figment of imagination. Paul and others may have good reasons to dismiss the many marriages of Krishna. The Christian scholars and missionaries noting some resemblance between Krishna and Christ, esp. the stories around birth and similarities between Herod and Kamsa killing children and also noting the similarities in name, put forward the theories that Krishna was a figment of imagination and that perhaps Hindus copied the character from Christ and his stories. They completely ignored that the opposite is also possible. Some of them went to the extent of proposing that there was no path of love in Hinduism, the entire Bhakti movement was copied from Christianity's concept of divine love for the son of man. Some of them stooped to such level as depicting Krishna as an "Incarnation of Lust" for his many marriages and the Raas Leela episode. This frontal attack on the foremost of the Hindu incarnation was a gross attempt to destroy the self respect of Hindus and their many modes of worship of their wonder God, and weaken the strong grasp of Vaishnavism on India's culture. To some extent they succeeded. So Bankimchandra had to take up his pen and write Krishna Charitra to defend Krishna and Hinduism against German scholars like Weber and English missionary scholars like William Hasty. It is to be noted that Hindus never faced this problem from Islam. Islam had no problem in accepting Krishna as a Hindu prophet. In fact his many marriages and his warfares resonated well with their conception of a prophet's duty. Their objections were around worshipping Krishna as a divine incarnation and in images through rituals. In fact Sufism had made them understand the importance of path of devotion to a personal God. So Krishna never had to face such mud slinging from Islamic scholars as he had to from Western scholars and missionaries. Thus Krishna worship and the Gaudiya and other forms of Vaishnavism developed without much opposition during the Islamic period and helped stop converting India to Islam.

Coming back to Krishna, he definitely had more than one wives. His relation with Gopikas was one of divine love much beyond body consciousness, not incestuous love or carnal desire as portrayed by missionaries and Christian scholars. He married Rukmini to protect her from marrying Shishupala. He married Satybhama being compassionate to a repentant Satrajit. This is related to the story of Syamantak gem which seemed to be true in essence. Satyabhama also appears in vanaparva and her dialogue with Draupadi is of some interest to women of all ages. It seems he married Jambavati, the daughter of Jambuvana, a tribal chieftain who held the totem of bear and who was very ancient (assuming it was the same person who fought for Rama as per Ramayana). He had eight wives who wanted to marry him and only him. He just obliged them. Regarding Naraka's harem, whether they were sixteen or sixteen thousand it didn't matter. The fact was he married them to save their dignity, to restore them a place of honour in the society as queens and princesses. Again he was disinterested or detached throughout. He had many sons, prominent being Shambo and Pradyumna. His prominent grandson was Anirudha and his great grandson who was installed in Indraprastha asking by the Pandavas, was Vajra. He spent much of his time away from Dwaravati. However he didn't neglect his wives or relations. He revered his parents Vasudeva and Devaki, always thinking of the ordeals they had undergone under Kamsa and trying to make their life comfortable in their old age. He was devoted to the Pandavas, esp. to Arjuna. He did not feel least bothered when his clan destroyed themselves through infighting. So he was a personification of his own teaching of intense detachment among all actions. The worldly affairs flowed around him but he was not the least tainted by them. It is indeed true that he had grief, anger and moments of delusion like ordinary mortals, he had likes and dislikes, but he was above and beyond these pairs of opposites as they never could leave any mark.