Studies in the Epics and Puranas c12.34

c12.34

Without considering the question of the identity or otherwise of the Vedic Kṛṣṇa, the epic Kṛṣṇa, the Puranic Kṛṣṇa, etc. (which will be dealt with later on) it may be stated that the Vedic Kṛṣṇa is a human being and that the earliest portions of the epic and the Purāṇas show the human character of Kṛṣṇa. Buddhist and Jain records also testify to his being a human hero. It is only in the late legends coloured with mythology that Kṛṣṇa is treated as a divine being, and the conclusions that Kṛṣṇa was not a human hero but a solar deity or a vegetation deity, etc., are based on late legends as the result of looking at the story from the wrong end.¹⁹