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Flight to Egypt Flight from Tyrants Flight to exchange babies Killing of Babies
Divine Forms
The Shepherd and the Cowherd
In the Gnostic gospels there are mythical stories about Jesus which are very much parallel to the Krishna myths which is also quoted by the Krishnites to support their thesis. But these were written well after 300 AD. If we look close we will see that Buddha also had very close similarity in many of the above factors.
Washing the feet
Are these similarities really too numerous and exact? . Here is what Hare Krishna Prabhupada has to say:
From the above dissertation of the leaders of Hinduism we can see that there is a large number of rough parallelism between the life of Christ and that of Krishna. In recent years additional parallelism have been brought out indicating that Krishna himself was crucified on a tree and also that he will come back to take his believers with him. There is still an ongoing process of assimilation of Christ in the Krishna myth. Krishna has abosrbed many other personalites into himself and the process is still continuing. This evidently fits the multiple avatar hypothesis. They were all the same person so why not? Krishna Crucified
Acharya is probably right in that these pictures are indeed truly Indian. But these are of recent origin and cannot be earlier than 60 AD. The question is how did these came to be in India and well inside the Hindu sacred relics? This latter teaching was a surprise for me because I have never heard it in my life before and because it does not fit with the theology of avatar nor reincarnation. At any rate the Krishna cult certainly identifies Krishna with Christ. There is no doubt that there is an attempt to copy.
Even the similarity of crucifix of Jesus with the death of Krishna is a far cry. Krishna was killed by arrows and his dead body was hung on a tree by the murderer. (I could not find the tree part in any purana so far.) The death of Krishna is said to be a direct consequence of his Karma and of the curse of a woman. “Gandhari understood that the whole battle of Kurusehtra was the will of Krishna and because she lost all of her sons in that battle she cursed Krishna to die by the arrow of a hunter. During a chaotic Yadava tribal feud in Dvaraka, Krishna's son Pradyumna and brother Balarama were killed. The sorrowful Krishna wandered in the forest outside the city . Krishna sat behind a bush and kept his hand above his head like horns. A hunter who was passing by saw this and thought that it was a deer in the bush and fired an arrow in that direction. The arrow killed Krishna.”
“In the most famous brawl known to Indian Mythology, a seashore party turned into an acrimonious dispute over past actions and soon weapons were being brought into the debate for that keen edge. The Yadavas were the only major warrior group left after the catastrophe of the Mahabharatha war but they went to their fate, heedless to the remonstrance of Balarama and egged on by the curious silence of Krishna. Balarama gave up his ghost in disgust and Krishna withdrew to a copse near the shore and waited for the drama to play itself out. His constant headgear of peacock feather plumes stuck out over the edge of the concealing shrub he was sitting behind, and a hunter let fly a fatal arrow mistaking it for a prize catch of a peacock. The arrow stuck him in the heel, like Achilles his only vulnerable spot, and the end had come. His last act of compassion was to reassure the aghast hunter that he had committed no sin. He was one hundred and sixteen years old, the mandatory fullness of years as specified in the Vedas. The hunter's name was Jara. It means Old Age.” http://www.indiayogi.com/content What they did in life is not important - Preaching is the essence? Krishna claimed many things, but never demonstrated them. Here is the heaviest stumbling block – the resurrection factor. “While the circumstances of Jesus' disappearance are by no means clear, they are indeed for us less important, even irrelevant.” As Srila Prabhupada pointed out: "preaching is the essence." The whole cosmos is under decay and there is no way out of it in the Krishnite culture, even Krisha himself is subject to birth and death – the only difference is that Krishna knew his past births and poor us do not. Life, Objective realities, evidence or truthfulness is not the important factor to Hinduism. Only the preaching is the essence. If one can build fantasy - that is enough. Redemption through faith
sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam
saranam vraja "Abandon all varieties of dharma and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all.” While the binding of Karma cannot be broken – even by Krishna – how he can do this without the violation of cosmic justice is still inexplicable But that is exactly the Bhakthi margam. This is certainly counter to the basic Hindu tenants of Karma and blind cosmic justice. One legitimately asks the following question: “If we hold that the supreme Lord is bound by karma
then how can we explain His ability to absolve us from our sins and grant us mOksham?
Further, if He himslef is bound by karma, how would He get out of the cycle of birth-death-rebirth?”
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/apr95/0006.html
Life of Krishna and Jesus Even though there is an outward resemblance in certain events in the life of Krishna and Christ, the resemblance is far fetched and that ends there. (Such similarities can be traced between many other personalities like Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Bahulla, Mani etc.) The life styles of the two were totally different. Krishna's opulence against Jesus’ Servant hood is obvious. The so-called teachings of Krishna are found only in the Bhagawat Gita and not anywhere else, not even in his life. His life was totally at divergence with the teachings of Gita. At least the Saivites question the authorship of Gita in this respect. Gita itself is not positive about it. Instead of Krishna uvacha (Krishna Said) it speaks of Bhagavan uvacha (The Lord Said) At any rate the placement of the Gita in the context of War is highly misplaced. Instead of teaching nonviolence and peace it condones killing on the ground that death is not the end. If we try to transfer the learning into the modern society, evidently it will be a disaster. Even though Krishna is presented as a proponent of love, he himself was a killer. He killed his own uncle Kamsa as well as several other demon kings. Unless we interpret all these stories as spiritual symbolism we have a situation of historical absurdity. At least in Gita he actively advocated and encouraged Arjuna into killing his own brethren. (And he did follow the advise.) Were these real people or were they only spiritual allegories? Thus if Krishna is a real historical person he is far remote in character and behavior from the merciful and kind Jesus. Their response to evil were totally different. Jesus’ response was totally non-violent and his remedies were not directed to the evil doer but were directed to the eradication of the cause of evil.
“The venerable scholars
and philosophers like Dr. S.
Radhakrishnan (Bhagavath Gita page 28)
Swamy Vivekananda (The complete work
of Swamy Vivekananda vol.1 page 438)
Mahatma Gandhi (Gita- My mother. page
38) Vinoba Bhave (Talk on the Gita
page 11) have emphatically confirmed
that it is very difficult to see
Sreekrishna, the hero of Mahabharatha
as the ethereal and saintly
Sreekrishna of Gita.”
Krishna was a playboy involved in indiscriminate sex. Krishna’s mistress was Radha the wife of Ayana. Unless we are prepared to explain these stories in allegorical terms we cannot justify his life style. Then was Krishna himself an allegory or a historical reality?
“Even a cursory reading
of the textual material available on
Krishna's life leaves one in no doubt
that he sported with and made love to
the gopis.” “Bhagavata, written around
the tenth century AD, reflects the
cumulative legacy of several
centuries”
“Radha … She was the
wife of Ayana and the daughter of the
cowherd Vrishabhanu and his wife,
Kamalavati. Radha was the mistress of
Krishna during that period of his life
when he lived among the cowherds of
Vrindavan” As is clear we cannot take Krishna’s life except as a myth or as an allegory evolving through many centuaries from characters of many historical persons. I would not like to expand on this. But these are myths to be explained away in some manner.
Does Krishna parallel King Solomon in this respect.? 1Ki 11:3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. This was typical of the Kings of that period. Adultery, violation of women etc were common among the Kings. t's shown in the Bhagavata Purana (the primary history of Krishna's pastimes) that Krishna did indeed have 16,108 wives , with separate households for each of them. Narada Muni is said to have visited them in Dvaraka and saw that Krishna was simultaneously with each of his wives, and gawked in amazement when he saw this sight. Furthermore, Krishna had children with each of his wives, so they weren't just wives in name only”. http://www.hindunet.org/alt_hindu/1995_Jan_2/msg00043.html
http://www.hinduism.co.za/krishna'.htm
See the gopi stories in:
http://free.freespeech.org/india100/krishna.htm
O'Flaherty, Wendy D. The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology. Pub.: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04098-8. For a full story of the life of Krishna:
Krsna - His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
http://www.krsnabook.com/contents.html
If Gita was Krishna’s teaching, was he simply justifying his life, as Nicolaitans who taught that what happens in body does not matter at all? I am sure you will be arrested if you try to emulate a life similar to Krishna in any country. There will be a hue and cry of moral anger. However the claims of the Bhagavan of Gita and the claims of Godhead and the way of salvation through faith are very much that of Christ. Evidently there is a mixing of characters in here.
The question is simply this - which was the copy and what areas? What was the socio-political reason for such mixing up? Was it a carbon copy of one person or a mix up of a collection people? How did this come about?
Swamy Vivekananda
asks:"First, was Bhagavat Gita
part of Mahabharatham and was the
author of Gita really Veda Vyasa?"
“A great many people
do not believe that he ever existed.
Some believe that [the worship of
Krishna grew out of] the old sun
worship. There seem to have been
several Krishnas; one was mentioned
in the Upanishads, another was a
king, another a general. All have
lumped into one Krishna.”. CW,
Vol.1: Krishna, p.438. We know for sure that the scriptures that speak of Krishna came into existence well after 600 AD. A local astrologer tells me that the astronomical data for the date of birth of Krishna would place his birth in 600 AD.
(Hence I have seen vehement denunciation of the horoscopic determination of Janmashatami on the basis that no body could have known his birthday, because he was born in a prison.) It certainly could not have been earlier than 150 AD. There are no historical records of such a King anywhere and there is no evidence of such a person. Major Vedas do not speak of these Gods at all. Archeologically the evidence is that if Krishna ever lived it was later than 300 AD. The search for similar planetary position before the Christian Era will have to go very very long back. Because of the cyclic nature of the planetary motion, we can certainly find several dates that will fit the given positions. One only have to estimate the LCM of the orbital periods of the Navagraha. This cycle is indeed around 3000 to 3500 years. Thus in the “Determination of the Date of Mahabharatha War”, Srinivasa Raghavan calculate the birth of Krishna as 27th July, 3112 BC. Using the position of planets mentioned in Mahabharat, dates have been calculated for the great war. The great Aryabhatta calculated 3100 BC. Dr. Patnaik calculated October 16, 3138 BC. while Dr. P.V. Vartak proves this date to be October 16, 5561 B. C. (http://www.geocities.com/narenp/history/info/when.htm). The Date for the Advent of Krishna by Egyptology Calculation is given as May 7th, 1213 B.C (http://www.greatpyramid.net/Date_for_Krishna/date_for_krishna.htm )
With all these evidences what is the logical conclusion? Most objective conjecture would be that Krishna as presented today is a result of mythologizing of conjunction of several historical persons, both Political and Spiritual including several Tribal King from the Vedic Period to recent times along with Christ and Buddha, and mixing up the Aryan Persian Gnostic and Semitic Kabalistic spirituality. Those of us who had the taste of living under a King know that they like to be pampered as God. Every king in the ancient world did it, and India was no exception. Krishna is a growth from very ancient times to very recent times. I am even told by an American Hare Krishna guru a few years ago at the Republic Day celebrations in California that Krishna is going to come back to take his devotees to heaven. I have never heard of it before. It will become scripture in the next edition. Under this situation how do we interpret Krishna in terms of Christ?
” Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, and Christos is the Greek version of the word Krsna. When an Indian person calls on Krsna, he often says "Krsta." Krsna is a Sanskrit word meaning the object of attraction." So when we address God as "Christ," "Krsta," or "Krsna," we indicate the same all-attractive Supreme Personality of Godhead. When Jesus said, "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," that name of God was Krsta or Krsna. "Christ" is simply another way of saying "Krsta," and "Krsta" is another way of pronouncing Krsna.” The only change we need to make in Srila Prabhupada as quoted above is the last word “Krishna is another way of pronouncing Christ” The question is how did the Indian religions come to know of this “Krishna”? Some proponents have proved theexistence of Krishna worshippers in Pre-Christian period through the reference to indica where Megasthenes refers to Heracles who is then identified as Krishna!! But anyone with a keen sense can see through such a devious route of identification as in the case person quoted below: Krishna and Megathenes
Heliodorus Megasthenes the Greek historian was ambassador (306–298 BC) at the Indian court of Sandrakottos or Chandragupta, where he gathered materials for Indica, from which Arrian, Strabo, and others borrowed. “Megasthenes wrote of Krishna under the pseudonym of Heracles” The assertion about Megasthenes "The Greek ambassador definitely states that Krsna was regarded as an incarnation of Visnu" is evidently baseless. All that Megasthenes is reported to have said is "This Herakles is held in especial honour by Sourasenoi, an Indian tribe who possess two large cities Mathora and Cleisobora and through whose country flows a navigable river called Iobares." “Megasthenes never talked about Krishna. Anyone who has basic knowledge of Krishna and who has bothered to read the extant portions of the Indica will not even by a wide stretch of imagination, equate Heracles to Krishna. I wonder who this Sarvajna was who came up with this ridiculous idea. Let us see what Megasthenes said about Heracles. Heracles was a Indian hero king who was getting old at 40. He was worried about finding a suitable match for his daughter. He searched high and low, and found no one. So finally he married her himself! Now I have never heard of such a story attributed to Krishna in any literature. One wonders if Megasthenes did come to India at all. To my knowledge there is no Indian God who married his own daughter, although it is possible that there may have been a Greek God who did so. This being the situation, to connect Heracles and Krishna is absurd.”
What are we up against in academic research? Finding Yudhisthira unwilling to tell a lie, Krishna overcame his reluctance by a long exhor | |||||||||||
