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Bhagavata
Purana’s Eternal Krishna
ACHARYA
SHRIVATSA GOSWAMI
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=3704838
KRISHNA
Dvaipayan Vyas was the great scholar and saint who had compiled the Vedic hymns,
recorded the aphorisms on philosophy and metaphysics known as Vedanta Sutra, and
finished the great epic of victory called the Mahabharata.
One day, the wandering sage Narad happened to meet Vyas and was not happy to see
him looking forlorn. He asked, ‘‘Why are you looking so lost, even after
your great achievements?’’
‘‘A great achievement — that is precisely what I am looking for’’,
replied Vyas, ‘‘I am not satisfied yet’’. Narad advised him to sing the
stories of Krishna, and Vyas began writing the Bhagavata Purana. In the Vishnu
Purana, the Harivamsa Purana, and above all, the Mahabharata, the stories of
Krishna had been sung by Vyas in considerable detail. Why, then, was Vyas
dissatisfied? The answer lies in the Bhagavata Purana itself, where the
essential Krishna is the one who dwells eternally in Vraja, the land of the
cowherds around Mathura. The Mahabharata is concerned with Krishna outside Vraja,
but Krishna as the embodiment of bliss manifests essentially in the lilas, plays
and pastimes of Vraja.
Krishna’s literary manifestation, rooted in Vyas’s work, gives us his
innumerable manifestations: In rituals and dramas, in paintings and songs, in
frescoes and dances, and many other media.
The Bhagavata Purana and other works tell us stories of how the divine is always
trying to break away from its divine fetters. When you are pervasive and
omnipresent, how can you have the freedom to play? Being omnipresent, you are
constantly watched by those who adore you, worship you and serve you. You need a
disguise. The Lord tried several disguises in different animal forms, but those
forms restricted his play, his lila, because with them it was not possible to
relate to the other important partner of the game, humanity. He tried the trick
of disguising himself as the half-animal and half-human Narasimha, but instead
of getting the best of both worlds he got the worst: The animal kingdom and
human reality were both alienated. Then it came to him; ‘‘If I wish to play
fully with my creation, and humanity is in the centre of that creation, I have
to relate to it as human’’. He tried various human incarnations, but in each
of them he assumed the form of some special person: King, ascetic, or scholar.
In these forms, a complete relationship with common humanity was not possible.
Krishna realised this and resolved that if he wanted to play, and to play fully,
he needed a good playground and good playmates. In the best game, the players
lose any other identity, and act only as players in the game. Playing can be of
two kinds, one within the rules and one without. When you start playing you have
to follow the rules and the format, but when you grow as a player you play
spontaneously, and the rules evolve as you play along. Krishna, when he came on
a ‘playing vacation’ to Vraja, played both ways. The game of the Lord in the
recreational weekend of this incarnation was to keep order in the arena called
creation. Krishna came to Vraja, which was not a formal playground but a
perfectly wild setting for an unwatched, carefree vacation. But since Krishna is
also the supreme Godhead, he could not shirk his responsibilities. As he told
his friend Arjun, he had to look after the welfare of his beloved devotees, and
remove all the troubles and obstacles that get in the way of a good life for
humanity. Even while vacationing in Vraja, he had to keep up his job of
house-keeping. So Krishna as supreme Godhead took care of all the ‘worldly’
difficulties, the ones that create the problems in the world, and he did it
playfully.
Krishna selected his playground and playmates very carefully. He was born in the
royal family of Mathura, because he had promised Vasudev and Devaki that he
would become their son, but as soon as this promise was fulfilled he acted on
his priorities. He had not come down to be a king once again, so within moments
of his appearance he started working on his agenda. The gods and the devotees
— his parents Vasudev and Devaki — spoiled his vacation by worshipping him
as God. So he moved from the formal world of grandeur and worship to the
informal setting of play and love. When Vasudev carried Krishna through a storm,
out of the palace and across the river to the home of the cowherd Nandababa,
whatever speck of the dust of grandeur Krishna carried on his feet was washed
away by the overflowing stream of love called Yamuna.
He had taken a vow that in this incarnation his only activities would be to love
and play — activities where grandeur is a barrier
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