Krishna-Part-II

There are many facets of Krishan's personality that attract me. I think Krishna lived his life in the present without worrying about the future, he didn't reject or get attached to anything. He lived his life as it presented itself, accepted whatever came his way, and didn’t try to run away from anything, let it be love, mischief, embarrassment, war, politics, wickedness, criticism, or even death. He enjoyed his life to the fullest and remained calm and cheerful during most of the epic, even during the war. 

Krishna not only preaches the theory of Karma in Mahabharat but he is also an ideal example of it. He accepted the consequences of all his actions without any complaint. War was not the result of his actions; he was not responsible for starting the war. But still, at the end of the war, Gandhari (Duryodhan's mother) blamed him for not doing enough to prevent the war and killing her 100 sons. Without getting into arguments, he listened to her patiently. She cursed him that his family would also meet the same fate and everyone would get killed like her sons. He accepted her curse without any complaint as he knew that some of his actions during the war were responsible for her pain and suffering. He is the perfect example of the theory of Karma, everyone including him has to face the consequences of their actions (good or bad). No one should escape the result of their actions. One can see the shades of all traits found in human nature in Krishna's personality, he is all-inclusive, and maybe that's why the Mahabharat gives him the status of god.  The Kuru army was much stronger than the Pandav army and Krisha had to use tricks, magic, and deceit on Pandava's behalf to defeat them. Mahabharat teaches us many lessons like, just being on the right side doesn't guarantee victory we have to earn it, we should not underestimate our enemy at any stage, evil is not always weak and every action will produce its results, sooner or later.

In the epic, he is seen as a reliable friend, lover, clever politician, cunning and ruthless war strategist, intelligent foreign policymaker, spiritual guru, peacemaker, etc. He is the one powerful character in the story who can dictate the course of events using his charm, intelligence, and if necessary, force. He was the one who protected Pandavas whenever they were in danger and needed his help, but failed to protect his own family from destruction. He is the person who fights with the king of Gods, Indra, to save the villagers of Vrindavan from Indra's wrath by lifting Govardhan mountain and this is the same Krishna who is accidentally killed by a hunter in the forest. He did not die a heroic death of the warriors; he died like any other creature in the forest.  

I think he is the one among all Gods to whom humans can relate very easily and this might be the reason for his popularity. We all see parts of Krishna (and many other characters from Mahabharat) in us at different stages of our lives. That is why I like this story as we can easily relate to it. It's impossible to understand Mahabharat completely without understanding all aspects of Krishna's personality; he is the heart and soul of this epic. It would have been easy for the authors of Mahabharat to make Krishna a perfect and ideal God, who always upholds dharma and uses his unlimited powers to achieve his goals, but they didn't. They preferred to give us a character that is very much like all of us, with many limitations. They showed us how dharma is subtle and many times it's difficult to differentiate right from wrong. As I wrote in one of my previous posts, we all face situations in real life like Arjun's dilemma at the beginning of the war and many times wish to have someone like Krishna to advise us.

I don’t think two or even ten posts are enough to describe Krishna's character completely. I may keep coming back to him in my future posts whenever it's necessary but for right now I will stop here and would like readers to study and understand all aspects of his character, maybe it will help us to live our lives in a better way.

Thanks for the reading and please share your thoughts.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)