Forgot your password?
Birth Of Lord Krishna
Siddhi B. Ranjitkar
Today is the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Bhadra (Aug-Sept) in the Nepal Samvat, on this day Lord Krishna has come to live in a human form to finish off the evils that have plagued the world of that time. Hindu Nepalis are celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna visiting the shrines of Lord Krishna across Nepal and making offerings to the lord. On this day, Nepalis make offerings to child Krishna popularly known as ‘Balkrishna’.
King Kansa of Mathura has imprisoned Devaki and Basudev after an ascetic predicted that the eighth son of the couple would kill him. Kansa initially laughed off the prophecy of the ascetic but after a bit of thinking, Kansa wanted to kill Devaki and destroyed the source of the threat to his life. Devaki pleaded with her brother Kansa to save her life but Kansa might take any child she would give birth. Then, Kansa put Devaki and her husband Basudev in the cell behind seven gates. Kansa ordered the guards to padlock the seven gates so that the couple had a little chance of escaping from the cell.
Devaki gave birth to one child after another. Following her deal with his brother, she gave one child after another to Kansa. Even though the eighth-male child born of Devaki was the threat to Kansa he did not take a chance of letting anyone of the offspring of Devaki and Basudev to live. No matter whether the child was male or female, Kansa took it and killed one after another up to the seventh child.
At the birth of eighth child, the divine spirit came to the couple in the cell and told Basudev, “Take the child just born to Dvarika and swap it with the girl child just born there.” Basudev said, “How can I do this? We are in the cell behind seven gates that are firmly locked and guarded by so many guards.” The spirit said, “You don’t need to worry about it. You just take the child keep it in a wicker basket and take it to Gokul and swap it with the girl child there and come back.”
Basudev simply followed the order of the divine spirit. He took the child and put it in a wicker basket and held it on his head and moved on. The doors were opened automatically and closed behind him. The guards slept soundly. Basudev headed for Gokul. On the way, he needed to cross the Yamuna River. Due to the heavy rains, the Yamuna was flooded. Basudev simply waded through the river even though the water had come up to his neck.
As Basudev entered Gokul nothing had stopped him from reaching the palace of Ashovda. When Basudev reached there she had just given birth to a child. She had not known even the sex of the child. Basudev swapped the child he had carried with the child just born there. The mother did not know what had happened.
Basudev returned with the girl child to his cell. As he moved on the doors were opened one by one, and closed behind him as he entered. The guards went on sleeping soundly. Finally, he placed the girl child next to Devaki.
Basudev lost the memory of what he had done what the divine spirit had told him and even the birth of the male child in the cell. Thus, the divine spirit had erased the events from the memory of Basudev.
When Devaki woke up, a girl child was next to her. She was expecting a male child as prophesized by the ascetic but to her surprise she found a girl child. As required by the deal she had reached with her brother Kansa, she asked her husband Basudev to inform the guards about the birth of a child. The guards were anticipating the birth of a male child but Basudev had informed a girl child had been born to Devaki. The guards wanted to make sure that in fact it was a female child, and went to check it. To their surprise, too, they found it was in fact a girl.
The guards went to the palace and informed Kansa that Devaki had given birth to a girl instead of a boy. Surprised Kansa asked the guards, “Is it really a girl child?” The guards replied, “Yes, Maharaj”. Kansa took a long breath and said, “Certainly, it is not a boy the ascetic predicted. Anyway, I don’t want to take a chance of letting the child to live.”
Kansa went with his councilors to the prison cell and demanded the girl child from Devaki. She said, “Brother, the child is a girl not a boy; only the boy would be a threat to your life. So, let the child be with me. I have already given you my seven children and you did let live none of them. I want to have this girl for my life.”
Without listening to the pleading of his sister Devaki, Kansa simply snatched the girl from the lap of Devaki. Then, he held the two legs of the child together and circled it above his head with the intention of slamming it into the wall of the prison to kill her mercilessly in front of her parents.
Kansa lost his grip of the child and the child went on flying in the sky. The child was not an ordinary child. She also was the divine spirit. From the sky she said, “Kansa, you cannot kill me but a boy has born in Dvarika to kill you. You cannot escape your death, no matter what you would do.”
Kansa was upset very much. He could not think of anything. One of the councilors stood in the royal assembly and said, “Maharaj, one thing we could do is to kill all the children up to the two years of age born in Dvarika.” Kansa came to his senses and said, “oh! yes, we can send someone of the evil spirits and complete the task.”
The evil spirit killed almost all the children of the age up to two years but the evil spirit missed Krishna. Thereafter, Kansa sent one evil spirit after another to kill Krishna but Kansa did not succeed to take the life of Krishna rather all the evil spirits that had gone in the mission to kill Krishna lost their existences.
Finally, Kansa invited Krishna to an extra ordinary wrestling show. Ashovda did not want to send her son Krishna to Mathura to watch the wrestling show but Krishna insisted on going to. The wrestling show was only the cover-up for attempting on the life of Krishna but both Krishna and his senior brother Balaram went to Mathura.
Obviously, Kansa was very pleased to see Krishna and his brother and announced that he was holding the wrestling show for the entertainment of Krishna and Balaram. So, Kansa declared the show opened. After a few matches, Kansa asked both Krishna and Balaram to participate in the wrestling match.
In view of the young age of Krishna, some courtiers opposed Krishna fighting with the so powerful wrestlers of that time but Kansa ignored them and asked Krishna and his senior brother Balaram to fight with the wrestlers. Both Krishna and Balaram took on one wrestler after another and killed them all.
Finally, Kansa himself came out to the arena and fought with Krishna to take the life of Krishna but Kansa lost not only the game to Krishna but also his life, too. Thus, Kansa himself made the prophecy of the ascetic come true.
Thereafter, Krishna released his parents: Devaki and Basudev from the prison cell and went to the next cell where Kansa had imprisoned his father, and released him, too and returned his kingdom lost to Kansa.
Lord Krishna is everywhere. Some scriptures have it that Lord Krishna has 1,600 concubines. One day one of Lord Krishna’s friends said, “Krishna, you have so many concubines but I have none.” Krishna said, “Take anyone of them from wherever I am not with.” So, the friend goes from one room to another checking whether Krishna is there or not but the friend could not find any room without Krishna. It proves that Lord Krishna is omnipresent.
Krishna played a crucial role in the battle between Pandavas and Kauravas. Pandavas stood for truth and sincerity whereas Kauravas for cheats and liars. So, Krishna became instrumental to finish off the evils sheltered in the Kauravas, and received the spell of destruction of his dynasty from Gandhari: mother of Kaurava brothers.
As Krishna was born a human being, he was bound to die. One day, he was enjoying the pristine wild lives in a forest. He was lying on his back facing to the sky. He crossed his leg and was swinging his right toe unintentionally. At that time, his life was in the toe. A hunter from a distant seeing the movement of the toe and taking it for the ear of a deer shot an arrow at the toe and hit it instantly killing Krishna. Thus, Krishna also died at the hand of a hunter.
But the hunter was the incarnation of Angat: son of Ravan. After defeating Ravan and killing him, Ram wanted to bestow on Angat a boon. So, Ram said to Angat, “I want to meet your desire if you have any.” Angat said, “I want to take the life of the person that has killed my father.” Ram said, “Be it so.” Ram incarnated as Krishna and Angat as a hunter. So, killing of Krishna by a hunter was not an accidental one but planned in their previous lives.
Today, thousands of devotees visit Patan to make offerings to Lord Krishna in the famous stone temple called ‘Krishna Mandir’: one of the masterpieces of the Nepalese builders. Hundreds of devotees visit the shrines to Krishna elsewhere across Nepal celebrating the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna.
August 21, 2011
