Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Minor Religious Systems v2.c12.57.2

v2.c12.57.2

In the Gaṇa connected with P. IV, 1, 99 Kṛṣṇa and Raṇa are represented to form the Gotra names Kārṣṇāyana and Rāṇāyana, these mere Brāhmaṇa Gotras falling under the group of Vāsiṣṭhas. The former is the Gotra alluded to by the commentator on the verses in the Jātakas noticed above. But he apparently does not confine it to the Brāhmaṇa class. Then the name Kṛṣṇa as the son of Devakī occurs in the Chāndogya-Upaniṣad (III, 17). He was the pupil of Ghora, who was an Āṅgirasa. If Kṛṣṇa was also an Āṅgirasa, which is not improbable, it must be inferred that there was a tradition about Kṛṣṇa as a sage from the time of the Ṛgvedic hymns to the time of the Chāndogya-Upaniṣad, and about a Gotra of the name of Kārṣṇāyana, which literally means collection of Kṛṣṇas, of which the original Kṛṣṇa was the founder. This tradition gave rise to the identification of the sage Kṛṣṇa with Vāsudeva, when he was raised to the rank of the supreme deity. Just as the name Janamejaya, the son of Parikṣit, which occurs in the AB., was in subsequent times used as the name of the person to whom the Mahābhārata was narrated and a genealogy was given to him from Arjuna, the Pāṇḍava, so it is possible that Vāsudeva was identified with the sage Kṛṣṇa and a genealogy given to him in the Vṛṣṇi race through Śūra and Vasudeva.