Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.200

c8.200

Barth considers Kṛishṇa to be a solar deity. “Like those of many solar deities his first appearances were beset with perils and obstructions of every kind. On the very night of his birth his parents had to remove him to a distance beyond the reach of his uncle king Kaṃsa who sought his life. In the Veda the sun in the form of Mārtāṇḍa is the eighth son born of Aditi, and his mother casts him off just as Devakī who is at times represented as an incarnation of Aditi removes Kṛishṇa. Conveyed to the opposite shore of the Yamunā and put under the care of the shepherd Nanda and his wife Yaṣodā he was brought up as their son in the woods of Brindāban with his brother Balarāma. Arrived at adolescence the two brothers put to death Kaṃsa, and Kṛishṇa became king of the Yādavas. He took a determined side in the great struggle of the sons of Pāṇḍu against those of Dhṛitarāshṭra which forms the subject of the *Mahābhārata*. In the interval he had transferred the seat of his dominions to the fabulous city of Dwārakā, the city of gates, the gates of the West. It was here that he was overtaken himself and his race by the final catastrophe.''