Studies in the Epics and Puranas c12.76

c12.76

As the *Mahābhārata* and some earlier texts do not refer to Kṛṣṇa's life in Gokula, some scholars are inclined to omit these incidents from Kṛṣṇa's life, taking them to be later additions. Dhruva reads a mixture of poetic fancy and historical facts in the Purāṇic and *Mahābhārata* stories of Kṛṣṇa; and he seeks symbolical and philosophical explanations for most of the exploits of Kṛṣṇa in childhood.⁴⁹ There is, no doubt, some amount of truth in these observations. Some of the later stories are palpably apparent as unhistorical on the face of them, such as the approach of Earth to the gods and the promise of God to be born in Gokula, the prophecy of gods, exaggerated accounts of some of the miraculous feats of child Kṛṣṇa, etc. which were evidently added after the deification of Kṛṣṇa was complete. The accounts in the later Purāṇas constitute important landmarks for the development of the Kṛṣṇa myth and the evolution of the Vaiṣṇava religion, though they cannot be relied on as sources of information for the historical life of Kṛṣṇa.