Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.205

c8.205

Other scholars find in Kṛishṇa “a development from one of those vegetation deities that seem to have been so widely worshipped and to have obtained so strong a hold of men’s devotion in all countries of the world. Such were the Semitic Adonis, the Egyptian Osiris and the Greek Dionysos. They mention his connection with cattle as Govinda, the vegetation spirit being usually supposed to incarnate itself in such animals, his near relationship with Balarāma, who is supposed to be a god of harvest, his name Dāmodara, i.e., the god ‘with a cord round his belly,’ a description which is supposed to be derived from wheatsheaf, and most significant of all, the evidence of the *Mahābhāshya* of Patanjali that he appeared in a ‘vegetation masque’ contending with Kaṃsa for the possession of the Sun.”¹ Dr. Keith, an ardent advocate of this theory, remarks,² “It is clear that from this original divine character of Kṛishṇa as the spirit of the reviving vegetation we can derive his whole character both as a child and as a hero, for the vegetation spirit has both sides in the Greek Dionysos who is in this aspect parallel to Kṛishṇa, and the legend of Kaṃsa is a mythological invention based on the ritual of (a) the childgod, and (b) the slaying of a rival—the old spirit of vegetation or some similar conception by the new spirit.”