KRISHNA: THE BEAUTIFUL LEGEND OF GOD graduated from Columbia University in 1997, where EDWIN BRYANT he taught Sanskrit and Hindi. He was the lecturer in Hinduism at Harvard University for three years, and is presently assistant professor in Hinduism at Rutgers University, New Jersey. His publications include The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: the Indo-Aryan Invasion Debate (2002); The Hare Krishna Movement: The Post- Charismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant (2004); The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History (forthcoming); and Sources in the Krishna Tradition (forthcoming). He is presently working on a book, Quest for the Historical Krishna, and a translation of the Yoga Sutras. Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Book X With Chapters 1, 6 and 29–31 from Book XI Translated with an Introduction and Notes by EDWIN F. BRYANT PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England www.penguin.com This translation first published 2003 2 Copyright © Edwin F. Bryant, 2003 All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser EISBN: 978–0–141–91337–7 To my daughter Mohinī Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Note on Translation and Method Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God ŚRĪMAD BHĀGAVATA PURĀṆA BOOK X PART ONE PART TWO BOOK XI, Chapters 1, 6 and 29–31 Notes Glossary of Sanskrit Terms and Names Pronunciation Guide List of Primary Sources Mentioned in the Text Bibliography Acknowledgements To Bhaktivedānta Swāmi, whose devotional rendition of the text was the first to present the Kṛṣṇa story and the path of Kṛṣṇa bhakti around the world on a popular level, and in whose works I first encountered the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa and the story of Kṛṣṇa. To the Bhaktivedānta Book Trust edition’s padapāṭha, word-for-word breakdown, which was particularly useful to me for this work. To the American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council/National Endowment of the Humanities International and Area Fellowship for a 2000–2001 research grant which allowed me to complete this translation. To my father and sister for their unending support and help in ways too numerous to mention. To Mia, for all her support, patience and encouragement, and to her and Matthew Ekstrand, for being always willing to help in matters pertaining to computer problems despite my irritability at such times. To Diana Eck for the wonderful opportunity. To Paul Sherbow, for his Sanskrit editing, and to Janet Tyrrell for transforming a clumsy literal translation into something a good deal more readable. To Satyanārāyaṇa Dāsa of the Jīva Institute in Vṛndāvana for his comments on the introduction and other help. To Ekkehard Lorenz for statistical analysis and other comments. To Michael Moss, who took an independent study with me to learn Sanskrit; together we read some verses from the text. And finally to all the bhāgavatas who have preserved, transmitted and elaborated upon the beautiful story of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa across the ages. Introduction THE BHĀGAVATA AS TEXT Kṛṣṇa (usually anglicized as Krishna) is perhaps best known in the west as the speaker of the Bhagavad Gītā, the Song of God, which is a text located within the narrative of the Mahābhārata Epic. Considered by Hindus to be the incarnation of God, Kṛṣṇa inaugurated the present yuga, or world age, by his departure from this world shortly after the great Mahābhārata war. Although Kṛṣṇa’s role in the Epic as statesman and friend of the five Pāṇḍavas is pivotal, he is not the protagonist of the story – the Epic gives little information pertaining to other aspects of his life. It is the tenth book of the Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa, ‘The Beautiful Legend of God’, generally referred to as the ‘Bhāgavata Purāṇa’ (or just the ‘Bhāgavata’), that has been the principal textual source dedicated to the actual narrative of his incarnation and activities, at least over the last 1,000 years or so.1 Moreover, it is not Kṛṣṇa’s statesmanship in the Mahābhārata that has produced the best loved stories about this deity, nor is it his influential teachings in the Bhagavad Gītā: it is his līlās – play, pastimes or frolics – during his infancy, childhood and adolescence in the forests of Vṛndāvana, popularly known as Vraj,2 among the men and women cowherds, that have been particularly relished by Hindus throughout the Indian subcontinent over the centuries. In Vraj, Kṛṣṇa sported with his friends, played pranks on his neighbours, and dallied amorously with the young cowherd girls. This very personal depiction of God is the primary subject matter of the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The stories of Kṛṣṇa in Vraj have been, and, arguably, remain one of the two most influential textual sources of religious narrative in the Hindu religious landscape, along with the stories of Rāma from the Epic Rāmāyaṇa, if we are to judge on the basis of the themes that have surfaced in Hindu drama, poetry, dance, painting, song, literature, sculpture, iconography and temple worship over the last millennium and more. The popularity of the Kṛṣṇa of Vraj has certainly eclipsed the popularity of the Kṛṣṇa of the massive 100,000-verse Mahābhārata Epic, despite its Bhagavad Gītā. Hawley (1979: 202–3), for example, found that of 800 panels depicting Kṛṣṇa to have survived from the period prior to 1500 CE, only three refer with any clarity to the Bhagavad Gītā: We are given to understand that for two millennia the Gītā has been India’s most influential scripture, yet… it is remarkable how indifferent sculptors were to this part of Krishna’s adult life… instead sculptors focus on the events of his youth. The Krishna we see is the cowherdboy who was so fond of butter as a child, [and who] became such an attractive lover as a youth… sculpture may at least in some respects be a more accurate index of what people’s religious commitments were all along. T. A. Gopinath Rao (1986) has listed the nine major iconographical forms under which Kṛṣṇa has been worshipped in India, and seven of these relate to his childhood pastimes in Vraj; the remaining two are Kṛṣṇa and his consort Rukmiṇī, the goddess of fortune, and Kṛṣṇa as Pārthasārathi, the charioteer of Arjuna. This latter image is the only representation of Kṛṣṇa in the role of teacher and speaker of the Bhagavad Gītā (Kṛṣṇa had agreed to drive Arjuna’s chariot and delivered the Bhagavad Gītā to him on the Mahābhārata battlefield immediately prior to the war). Thus, it is the Kṛṣṇa of Vraj that has most particularly influenced the devotional life of India, and it is the story of this Kṛṣṇa that is the subject of the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The Historical Context of the Bhāgavata The Bhāgavata Purāṇa forms part of a corpus of texts known as the Purāṇas. The word Purāṇa, in Sanskrit, signifies ‘that which took