Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect c8.250

c8.250

The slaying of Kaṁsa by Kṛiṣṇa was the subject of dramatic and pictorial representations in the time of Patañjali and the story was also narrated by word of mouth. According to Dr. Keith’s interpretation of the Mahābhāshya passage quoted above, the granthikas or narrators while relating the fortunes of their subjects divided themselves into two parts; those representing the followers of Kaṁsa had their faces blackened, kālamukhāḥ, those of Kṛiṣṇa had their faces red, raktamukhāḥ, and they expressed the feelings of both sides throughout the struggle from Kṛiṣṇa’s birth to the death of Kaṁsa. “The mention of the colour of the two parties,” says Keith, “is most significant; red man slays black man; the spirit of spring and summer prevails over the spirit of the dark winter. The parallel is too striking to be mistaken. We are entitled to say that in India, as in Greece, this primitve dramatic ritual slaying of winter is the source whence the drama is derived.”’