A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s8.12

v1.c9.s8.12

The second great section of the Harivaṁśa, entitled Viṣṇuparvan,³ deals almost exclusively with Kṛṣṇa, the god Viṣṇu become mortal. All the stories of the birth and childhood, the heroic deeds and love adventures of the human, often all-too-human, cowherd-god, are related here at great length; they are also related in greater or less detail in some of the Purāṇas, and have made the name *Kṛṣṇa* one of the most familiar to every Hindu. While the best and wisest among the Viṣṇu-worshippers honour Kṛṣṇa above all as the herald of the pious doctrines of the Bhagavadgītā, it is the Kṛṣṇa of the *legends*, as they are related in the Harivaṁśa and in the Purāṇas, who is now honoured and worshipped as a lofty god, and now exalted as an ideal of the most perfect manhood, by the millions of Hindus of all classes throughout India till the present day. It is this god of the legends, and not the Kṛṣṇa of the Mahābhārata, the cunning friend of the Pāṇḍavas, of whom the Greek Megasthenes already talked as the “Indian Hercules.” In order to give at least an idea of these Kṛṣṇa legends which are important alike in the history of literature and the history of religion, the contents of the second section of the Harivaṃśa shall here be briefly sketched.