Studies in the Epics and Puranas c12.70

c12.70

The problem of the deification of Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa, the Yādava prince and preacher of the Bhagavadgītā, deserves to be briefly considered. It appears that the deification of Kṛṣṇa began not long after his age and even during his lifetime, some regarded him as superhuman; and regarding the period required for the process of deification we have to take into account the circumstances prevailing in the past. Buddha was raised to divinity in his own lifetime. Vāsudeva was not merely a Kṣatriya hero, but raised to divinity by the time of Pāṇini; subsequent references definitely show that long before the fourth century B.C., Kṛṣṇa was worshipped as the records of Megasthenes would have us believe. The Greek ambassador definitely states that Kṛṣṇa was regarded as an incarnation of Viṣṇu. The earliest inscriptional and sculptural data indicating the ascription of divinity to Kṛṣṇa date about second century B.C. The doctrine of avatāra shows a developed stage in the Bhagavadgītā. It may be seen that a doctrine of avatāra was the necessary corollary to the identification of Kṛṣṇa-Vāsudeva with the Supreme. Kṛṣṇa, in human form, was the Vṛṣṇi prince of Dvārakā and the charioteer of Arjuna at Kurukṣetra; if he were, at the same time, the highest god, the paradox could only be explained by the theory of *avatāra*.