Krishna's Lineage

by Simon Brodbeck

  26 However puffed up you may be with female indignation, it’s no sin for a woman to be unfaithful. Human women were never noted for curbing their fancies, 27 but because of their lapses and infidelities numerous women are famous for having given birth to boundlessly bold sons who looked like gods. 28 Whatever you might wish to say while you’re tossing your hair about, as far as the world is concerned you’re a pure and honest woman who is extremely dutiful towards her husband.

  29 Since you asked me whose son I was,* lustful woman, you’ll have a son: a destroyer of his enemies, named Kamsa.

  30 The queen became enraged again. Quivering, she poured scorn upon his gift, saying to the Dānava whose words were so offensive:

  31 Shame on your behaviour! You insult all women, you total brute. There are women who behave basely, and there are also women devoted to their husbands. 32 The ones known as faithful wives are led by Arundhatī, and all three worlds surely depend on them. Defiler of families, 33 the son you’ve given me is bound to ruin my virtue, so I won’t have much love for him. And listen to this: it’s said that 34 an eternal man will be born in my husband’s family, and he’ll kill you, you wretch, as well as the son you’ve given me.

  35 After being told this, Drumila went off into the sky. And that same day, my poor mother came back to town.

  36 So I’m the son who was sown in Ugrasena’s field,† elephant warden. Neglected by my mother and father, I was raised by my own fiery energy. 37 I’m despised by both of them, and most especially by my relatives, and after I’ve killed the two cowherds, I’m going to kill them too. 38 So go, elephant keeper, don’t delay. Get up on your elephant with your elephant-hook, your darts, and your javelins, and be steadfast at the assembly gate.

  74. The Killing of Kuvalayāpı̄da

  1 Vaishampāyana said:

  When that day was over and the second day of the festival came, the huge arena was packed with townsfolk who wanted to watch the games. 2 The stands had octagonal pillars with pictures on, and boxes with doors that bolted, and windows in the shape of circles and half-moons, and all the surfaces were decorated. 3–4 The boxes in the stands were well constructed, forward facing, nicely set apart from each other, and all well decorated for the games. Decked out with garlands and wreaths of flowers, they glittered like autumn rainclouds, and beneath them the playing area looked like the restless ocean beneath banks of clouds.

  5 The stands for the trade guilds and corporations looked like mountains. They were crowded with banners that featured the attributes of each trade.

  6 The boxes for the palace women sparkled nearby, bright with gold and filled with flashing jewels. 7 They were encrusted with masses of jewels. They had overhanging rooves, and when their curtains moved they looked like mountains flapping their wings in the sky. 8 Coloured flickers of light flashed out from the coloured gemstones there, accompanied by the sounds of swishing chowries and tinkling ornaments.

  9 The courtesans had separate stands, which were as grand as aerial palaces. They were adorned with lovely carpets and textiles, and with the most desirable courtesans. 10 They had superb seats, and sofas woven with gold, and colourful cloths scattered around with illustrations of plants and bunches of flowers on them. 11 There were golden goblets for drinking from, and fancy booths for drinking in, and to accompany the drinks there were sorrels and bowls full of tart fruits.

  12 There were many other stands too, built from quantities of timber. The mass of stands looked splendid, arrayed there for all to see. 13 And there were some upper boxes that afforded a view through a fine gauze. The women’s viewing galleries looked like bar-headed geese flying through the sky.

  14–15 Kamsa’s box looked even more glorious than those did. Facing forward and beautifully constructed with pillars that looked like golden feathers, it was decorated with colourful bunting and garlands of flowers. It had all the same qualities as his palace, and was as magnificent as the peak of Mount Meru.

  16 When it was packed with all kinds of people, the sturdy stadium resounded with crowd noise and looked like the restless ocean. At that point 17 the king gave the order for the elephant Kuvalayāpīda to stand at the gate of the arena, and then he entered the royal box. 18 Wearing two white garments, and with a white chowry and a white crown, he looked like the moon behind a white cloud, 19 and when they saw the peerless figure of that wise man sitting comfortably upon his throne, the townsfolk gave cheers of victory.

  20 After that, the mighty wrestlers came into the stadium with their baggy clothes flapping, and one after another, three of them put on their belts. 21 Then, as the musical instruments were playing and the crowd was roaring and clapping, Vasudeva’s two sons arrived at the stadium gate, full of excitement. 22 As the fair-faced pair were rushing hurriedly in, they were prevented by the musth elephant, which was being driven forcefully forward. 23 The musth elephant was in a bad mood and was curling up its trunk, and when it was driven forward it tried to kill Bala and Keshava.

  24 While Krishna was being menaced by the elephant, he laughed and scoffed at evil Kamsa’s hostility towards him, saying: 25 This man Kamsa must be in a hurry to reach the house of Yama Vaivasvata if he’s trying to defeat me with this elephant!

  26 Then, when the elephant, growling like a thick cloud, came up close to him, mighty Govinda suddenly jumped up and clapped his hands. 27 After the bearer of fortune had made that noise by clapping and shouting in front of the elephant, it struck him on the chest with its trunk. 28 Krishna dodged between its tusks, and then he dodged between its legs. He vexed the elephant as if he were the wind vexing a raincloud. 29 Stepping out of the way of the tusker’s trunk and tusk-tips and coming out between its feet, Krishna baffled the elephant, 30 and as it was being whirled around on its own legs, incapable of striking Krishna, the huge, bewildered elephant roared. 31 Then it fell on two knees, pushed its tusks into the earth, and oozed temporin in its fury, looking like a cloud does after the hot season has passed.

  32 After he’d toyed with the elephant as if it were a child, Krishna, his hatred for Kamsa in his heart, decided to kill it. 33 Positioning himself in front of the elephant, he put his foot next to one of the globes on its head, pulled out a tusk with both arms, and then attacked with it. 34 Being pounded by its own tusk was like being pounded by a thunderbolt, and as this continued the unhappy elephant soiled and wet itself, and screamed. 35 The elephant was in mental anguish, its body battered by Krishna. Lots of blood poured out from its temples in gushes. 36 Halāyudha pulled its tail out with a jerk, like Vinatā’s son Garuda pulling a half-hidden snake out from a mountain ridge. 37 And after Krishna had smashed up the elephant using only its own tusk, he then used a single blow to smash up the redoubtable elephant-driver.

  38 The prize tusker without its tusk let out a great howl of pain and fell down, together with its driver, like a mountain split open by a thunderbolt. 39 As the prize tusker howled, lotus-eyed Krishna killed it, and then, together with his elder brother, he made his way into the enclosure, which looked like the restless ocean.

  75. The Killing of Chānūra

  1 Vaishampāyana said:

  Ugrasena’s son saw lotus-eyed Krishna entering at speed, with his clothes flapping in the wind and his elder brother in front of him. 2 Devakī’s bold son had been scratched by the elephant’s tusks, but he had handsome arms, with armbands painted on them for fun, in blood and temporin. 3 He was prancing like a lion, rumbling like a stormcloud, and making the earth tremble with the sound of his hands slapping his arms. 4 Ugrasena’s son saw Krishna brandishing the tusker’s tusk as a weapon and stared at him in fury, his face a mask of torment.

  5 Holding the elephant’s tusk with his arm, Keshava looked like a single-peaked mountain beneath the half-disc of the moon. 6 As Govinda leaped around, the whole arena looked like an ocean that was being filled up by the noise from the crowds of people.

  7 Chānūra had of course already been commanded, by Kamsa himself, to fight against Krishna with all his might. 8
So, like a cloud brimming with water, Chānūra came forward to fight, his eyes reddening with rage. 9 Then, after the crowd had been brought to attention and the people were quiet and still, the Yādavas who had gathered there made the following announcement:

  10 This kind of duel was instituted long ago: a duel in the arena, with umpires, using bare arms and no weapons.* It’s a test of strength and skill, and not for the faint-hearted. 11 Combatants may always use water to stem their fatigue, as the timekeepers allow, and the received custom of wrestlers is always to use cowdung as well. 12 The end of the round may be called by the umpires whether a combatant is on his feet, on the ground, or in any other position.

  13 Be he young, middle-aged, or old, be he feeble or mighty, when a man stands up in the arena he must be judged on the basis of his time in the ring. 14 The performance of a bare-arm duel is based on strength and skill in combat, but a combatant must stop fighting immediately if he realises there’s been any kind of injury.

  15 The fight proposed in the arena is between Krishna and an Andhra wrestler.† But Krishna is young, and the Andhra is huge. Shouldn’t we think about whether to allow it?

  16 Cheers of approval were heard in the crowd. Then Govinda leaped up and said this:

  17 I’m young, and the Andhra is huge. He looks like a mountain. But I’ll be glad to fight against him and his strong arms. 18 Nothing that I’m going to do will overstep the rules of the fight, and nor will I damage the reputation of bare-arm fighters. 19 The conventions developed in the arena will be followed: the custom of the cowdung, the custom of the water, and the mixing of the paste.

  20 When the fight begins, the rule is that success in the arena is certain to follow the combatant who shows discipline, resilience, courage, agility, respect, and strength. 21 If this man is intending to fight a bare-arm fight with real hostility, then some punishment is certainly necessary here, and I shall bring pleasure to the world by meting it out. 22 This man is called by the name of Chānūra, and he was trained among the Kārūshas. But a bare-arm fighter is to be appraised for his deeds as well as his body, 23 and this man has killed many battle-crazed wrestlers, violating the wrestlers’ tradition with his desire for glory in the arena.

  24 Success by weapons is for warriors, who fight with weapons on the battlefield, but success in the arena is for wrestlers, and depends on overpowering the opposing wrestler. 25 The victor on the battlefield attains everlasting fame, and the man killed with weapons in battle attains the vault of heaven. 26 Indeed, in battle there’s success for both parties, the killed as well as the killer, and hence that pilgrimage of death is rightly praised by the great. 27 But the tradition of the wrestler is solely a matter of strength and skill. What heaven is there for someone killed in the arena, and what basis is there for the victor’s delight? 28 So if some wrestlers have been killed for the sake of glory, it’s because of the personal failings of the self-satisfied king. And if the killer of those wrestlers is now killed, it’s that king that’s killed him.

  29 This conversation had scarcely ended when there was a violent and vicious fight between those two. It was like a fight between two elephants in the forest. 30 It featured various moves and countermoves, strangleholds using the arms, collisions, repulsions, tortures, throwdowns, 31 flying fists, shoulder-twists, elbows coming down like thunderbolts, body-presses, 32 scratches from pointed fingernails, cruel kicks, knees that sounded like boulders, and heads being ground together.

  33 Despite the absence of weapons, the fight that took place in the presence of the festival crowd was a terrible one, because of the strength and spirit of those champions and the brilliance of their bare arms. 34 The whole crowd got excited and let out yells and shrieks, and some of the people in the stands gave shouts of praise.

  35 Kamsa’s face was covered in sweat, his eyes fixed upon Krishna, and now he silenced the musical instruments with his left hand.

  36 When the musical instruments—mridangas and so forth—were suppressed, the musical instruments of the gods sounded together in the sky, and kept on sounding. 37 While lotus-eyed Hrishīkesha was fighting, the sounds of musical instruments rang out all around, of their own accord. 38 The invisible gods and the sylphs, looking forward to Krishna’s victory, had travelled there in aerial chariots that changed form at will. 39 And the seven seers in the sky all said: Chānūra is a Dānava with the body of a wrestler, Krishna. Defeat him.

  40 The son of Devakī planned to kill Kamsa, and so he only amused himself with Chānūra for long enough to deplete Chānūra’s strength. 41 Then the jewel-bearing earth trembled, and the stands wobbled from side to side, and the prize gemstone fell out of Kamsa’s crown. 42 Chānūra’s life had run its course. Krishna bent him over with both arms and kneed him in the chest, and then he bashed him on the head with his fist. 43 Accompanied by tears and blood, his eyes and their fittings popped out and dangled above his belt like a pair of golden bells, 44 and after Chānūra’s eyes had popped out he fell to the ground in the middle of the arena, his faculties gone, his life at an end. 45 Blocked by Chānūra’s lifeless body, the main path through the arena looked as if it was blocked by a mountain.

  76. The Killing of Kamsa

  1 Vaishampāyana said:

  After Chānūra so proud of his strength had been killed, Rohinī ’s son took on Mushtika in the arena, and Krishna moved on to Tosalaka. 2 During the first bout those two wrestlers had filled up with rage, and now, obedient to the will of time, they approached Rāma and Krishna.

  3 Tosalaka was like a mountain peak, but mighty Krishna held him off, baffled him a hundred times, and ground him into the surface of the earth. 4 Krishna, the mightier man, overpowered and tormented him, until masses of blood came from his mouth and he welcomed his death.

  5 Sankarshana was very strong, and a great wrestler. After fighting the Andhra wrestler for a very long time and running rings around him, 6 the brilliant hero hit him on the head with a single fist. It made a sound like a thunderbolt, and Mushtika looked like a great mountain that had been hit by a thunderbolt: 7 his brain flew out, his eyes popped out of his face, and he fell down there face upwards, making a huge crash.

  8 After killing Tosalaka and the Andhra, Krishna and Sankarshana both cavorted in the middle of the arena, their eyes red with rage. 9 Now that Mushtika the great Andhra wrestler had fallen, the show ring that had looked so fearsome was bereft of wrestlers.

  10 All the cowherds—cowherd Nanda and so on—were there in the audience, their every limb twitching with anxiety. 11 Devakī gazed at Krishna, trembling and weeping tears of joy from her eyes, milk welling up in her breasts. 12 Vasudeva’s eyes too were clouded with tears at the sight of Krishna, and his love made him throw off his old age and become young again. 13 And all the most desirable courtesans drank in Krishna’s lotus face with the bees of their eyes, which usually move on after a moment has elapsed.

  14 As for Kamsa’s face, the sweat that trickled down the gap between his furrowed brows was the extract of his rage, prompted by what he’d seen from Krishna. 15 Inside him his heart blazed with a private fire: it was fanned by his sighs of rage, and its smoke was his campaign against Keshava. 16 Kamsa’s face with its quivering lips and furrowed forehead looked in its fury like the sun when it stretches out its redness, 17 and the beads of sweat coming out of his rage-reddened face were like ranks of rays coming out of the risen sun.

  18 Enraged, he commanded his many trusty attendants:

  Drive those two forest-dwelling cowherds away from the assembled crowd! 19 I don’t want to see those two—they’re unnatural and unpleasant. No cowherds may stay in my kingdom. 20 Cowherd Nanda is an idiot who takes pleasure in my misfortunes: restrain him in iron chains and shackle his feet. 21 Vasudeva is a villain who’s always deceiving me: kill him quickly this very day, in a manner that’s unseemly for an old man. 22 And these vulgar cowherds obsessed with Dāmodara: seize their cattle and whatever wealth they have.

  23 While Kamsa was sternly speaking these orders, Kri
shna had been watching him with carefully concentrated eyes. Krishna’s power was in his truth, 24 and he’d seen his relatives distressed and Devakī beside herself, and when his father and cowherd Nanda were insulted, Keshava became angry. 25 As forceful as a maned lion in the fullness of its powers, the irrepressible strong-armed man decided to step up and destroy Kamsa.

  26 Without hesitating, Krishna leaped out of the middle of the arena and landed next to Kamsa’s throne, like a bolt of lightning sent from one cloud to another by the wind. 27 Not all of the townsfolk saw him jump out from the middle of the arena, but they all saw him standing on his own beside Kamsa. 28 As for Kamsa, he was struggling, overpowered by the law of time, and when Govinda appeared there he seemed to him to be a sovereign being appearing out of the sky.

  29 In full view of the crowded arena, Krishna extended his iron bar of an arm and grabbed Kamsa by the hair. 30 As Krishna’s hand grabbed Kamsa, his diamond-studded gold crown fell off his head. 31 With the hand pulling his hair Kamsa was unable to move, and he became dazed and distressed. 32 Held fast by the hair, Kamsa gasped as if he could hardly breathe, and he couldn’t see Krishna’s face. 33 His ears dropped their earrings, the necklace on his chest broke, his arms dangled, his limbs shed their ornaments, 34 and his upper garment was pulled off, as Krishna suddenly and brilliantly removed Kamsa from his throne and shook him about, writhing.

  35 After grabbing him powerfully by the hair and giving him some well-earned pain, Keshava strode out of the stand and dragged Kamsa around in the great arena. 36 As Krishna dragged the glorious king of the Bhojas around the show ring, his body ploughed a trench. 37 Krishna played with Kamsa in the show ring, pulled him to pieces, and dumped his lifeless body nearby.

  38 His body lay broken on the ground. It had been accustomed to pleasure, but now it was soiled with dirt in an undignified fashion. 39 His face had no shine to it, like a lotus with no petals: it was brown, caved in, without a crown, its eyes asleep.