Krishna is considered the eighth avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism and is seen as the Supreme God in some traditions. The document summarizes Krishna's life story as told in major Hindu texts like the Mahabharata and Bhagavad Purana. It describes Krishna's divine birth in Mathura to escape the tyrant king Kamsa, his childhood in Vrindavan where he performed miracles and played with local herders, and his role in the Kurukshetra war advising Arjuna before defeating his evil uncle Kamsa as a young man.

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Krishna playing his bansuriArtwork © courtesy of
The BhaktivedantaBook Trust
Krishna (ककककक
in Devanagari, kṛṣṇa in IAST ), according to
various Hindu traditions, is the
eighth avatar of Vishnu. In theBhagavad
Gita (e.g., 10.15 and 15.19), he is seen as the
Supreme Person and the highest God. Thus,
according to traditions such as Gaudiya
Vaishnavism, he is the origin of all other
incarnations.
Krishna and the stories associated with him
appear across the spectrum of Hindu

2. philosophical and theological traditions. Though
they sometimes differ in details reflecting the
concerns of a particular tradition, some core
features are shared by all. These include
a divine incarnation, a pastoral childhood and
youth, and life as a heroic warrior and teacher.
The immense popularity of Krishna in India also
meant that various non-Hindu religions that
originated in India had their own versions of him.
The name 'Krishna'
Main article: List of titles and names of
Krishna
The term Krishna in Sanskrit has the literal
meaning of "black" or "dark one", and this
refers to his complexion. In murtis (statues)
and pictorial representations, he is often
shown as dark skinned. For
instance, Jagannatha, Krishna as Lord of the
World, at Puri is shown with his brother and
sister, the latter two being shown with a
distinctly lighter complexion. The name is
sometimes said to mean bluish black, rather
than simply black, and sometimes his
complexion is described to be "that of a storm
cloud".
Other meanings of the name are given. The

3. Gaudiya tradition tends to explain the name
as meaning “all-attractive”. This is justified by
an interpretion of a verse in the Mahabharata,
as given in theChaitanya Charitamrita [1]
(other translations of this verse give differing
meanings). Commentators on the Vishnu
sahasranama offer explanations on similar
lines. According to Adi Sankara's
commentary, however, Krishna is the 57th
name of Vishnu and also means the
"Existence of knowledge and Bliss."
Krishna is also known by numerous other
names and titles. For a full list, see List of
titles and names of Krishna.
Yashoda bathing the child Krishna. (Western
Indian illustrated Bhagavata Purana
Manuscript)
The earliest text to explicitly focus on
descriptions of Krishna as a personality is
the Mahabharata, though there are many
references to His Names in the most ancient
of Indian texts such as the RigVeda and other
Vedas. Within the text he is described as an
incarnation of Vishnu and is one of the most

4. important characters of the epic. The
eighteen chapters of the sixth book (Bhishma
Parva) that constitute the Bhagavad
Gita contain the advice of Krishna to Arjuna,
on the battlefield. Krishna is already an adult
in the epic, even though there are allusions to
his earlier exploits. The Harivamsa, an
appendix to this epic that was added to it
later, contains the earliest detailed version of
Krishna's childhood and youth.
Virtually every one of the later Puranas tells
Krishna's full life-story or some highlights from
it. While the Mahabharata and
the Harivamsa are considered sacred by the
Hindus, the two Puranas (theBhagavata
Purana and the Vishnu Purana) that contain
the most elaborate telling of Krishna’s story
and teachings are the most theologically
venerated. Roughly one quarter of
the Bhagavata Purana(mostly in the tenth
book) is spent extolling
his life and philosophy.
This summary is based on details from
the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa,
the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu

5. Purana. The scenes from the narrative are set
in north India, mostly in the present states
of UttarPradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Delhi and G
ujarat. The quotations at the start and end of
the summary set the theological framework in
which the story is viewed.
Krishna and his mother YasodaArtwork ©
courtesy of The BhaktivedantaBook Trust
The incarnation
These texts explain the reason for the
incarnation. In the words of
the Mahabharata (Adi Parva,
Adivansavatarana section):
The Asuras...began to be born in kingly
lines...repeatedly defeated in war

6. by Devas...and deprived also of sovereignty
and heaven, they began to be incarnated on
the earth...by their strength they began to
oppress...all creatures...Terrifying and killing
all creatures, they traversed the earth in
bands of hundreds and thousands. Devoid of
truth and virtue, proud of their strength, and
intoxicated with (the wine of) insolence, they
even insulted the great Rishis ... And then the
earth, oppressed with weight and afflicted
with fear, sought the protection ofBrahma...He
then commanded all the gods saying - To
ease the Earth of her burden, go ye and have
your births in her according to your respective
parts and seek ye strife (with the Asuras
already born there)...And all the gods with
Indra, on hearing these words accepted them.
And they all having resolved to come down
on earth in their respected parts, then went to
Narayana (Vishnu), the slayer of all foes, at
Vaikunth...,the sovereign of all the gods...
Him, Indra the most exalted of persons,
addressed, saying - Be incarnate. And Hari
(Vishnu) replied - Let it be.
The Puranas, such as the Bhagavata
Purana give a similar basic account, although

7. sometimes with slight variations in details. SB
10.1.22
Birth
According to recent calculations, Lord
Krishna's birth date has been approximately
calculated to be 3228 B.C.E.[[2]]. Lord
Krishna was of the royal family of Mathura,
and was the eighth son born to the
princess Devaki, and her husband Vasudeva.
Mathura was the capital of the closely linked
clans of Vrishni, Andhaka, and Bhoja. They
are generally known as Yadavs after
their eponymous ancestorYadu, and
sometimes as Surasenas after another famed
ancestor. Vasudeva and Devaki belonged to
these clans. The king Kamsa, Devaki's
brother, had ascended the throne by
imprisoning his father, King Ugrasena. Afraid
of a prophecy that predicted his death at the
hands of Devaki's eighth son, he had the
couple cast into prison where he planned to
kill all of Devaki's children at birth. After killing
the first six children, and Devaki's apparent
miscarriage of the seventh, Krishna took birth.
As his life was in danger he was smuggled
out to be raised by his foster
parents Yasoda and Nanda in Gokula,
Mahavana. Two of his siblings also

8. survived, Balarama (Devaki's seventh child,
transferred to the womb of Rohini,
Vasudeva's first wife)
and Subhadra (daughter of Vasudeva and
Devaki born much later than Balarama and
Krishna).
The prison believed by worshippers to mark
Krishna's birth is now known
as Krishnajanmabhoomi, where a temple is
raised in his honour.
Boyhood and youth
Nanda was the head of a community of cow-
herders and moved to Vrindavana. The
stories of his childhood and youth here
include that of his life with, and his protection
of, the local people. Kamsa learnt about the
child's escape and kept sending various
demons to put an end to him. The demons
were defeated at the hands of Krishna and
his brother Balarama. Some of the most
popular exploits of Krishna centre around
these adventures and his play with
the gopis of the village, including Radha,
which later became known as the Rasa lila.

9. Krishna revealing his universal form
to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita Artwork ©
courtesy of The BhaktivedantaBook Trust
Krishna as a young man returned to Mathura,
and overthrew and killed his uncle Kamsa. It
was due to Kamsa's attempts at preventing
the prophecy that led to it coming true, hence
it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Krishna re-installed Kamsa's father,
Ugrasena, as the king of the Yadavas. He
himself became a leading prince at the court.
In this period he became a friend of Arjuna
and the other Pandava princes of
the Kuru kingdom, who were his cousins, on

10. the other side of the Yamuna. Later, he takes
his Yadava subjects to the city of Dwaraka (in
modernGujarat).
daughter of King Bhishmaka ofVidarbha. In
total,
includingSatyabhama and Jambavati.
The Kurukshetra war
Main article: Kurukshetra war
Krishna was cousin to both sides in the war
between thePandavas and Kauravas. He
asked the sides to choose between his
army and himself. The Kauravas picked
the army and he sided with the Pandavas.
He agreed to be the charioteer for Arjuna
in the great battle. TheBhagavad Gita is
the advice given to Arjuna by Krishna
before the start of the battle.
Later life
Following the war Krishna lived at Dwaraka
for thirty-sixyears. Then at a festival, a
fight broke out between the Yadavas who
exterminated each other. The clan now
mostly destroyed, his elder
brotherBalarama too gave up his body
using Yoga. It is described that Ananta
Shesha emerged from Balarama's mouth

11. as he disappeared. Krishna retired into the
forest and sat under a tree in meditation. A
hunter mistook his partly visible foot for a
deer and shot an arrow wounding him
mortally.
The Mahabharata (Mausala Parva)
says: (The hunter) ...Regarding himself an
offender, and filled with fear, he touched
the feet of Keshava. The high-souled one
comforted him and then ascended
upwards, filling the entire sky with
splendour. ...the illustrious Narayana of
fierce energy, the Creator and Destroyerof
all, that preceptor of Yoga, filling Heaven
with his splendour, reached his own
inconceivable region.

12. Krishna (left) with Radha
Bhaktivedanta Manor, Watford, England
The first possible recorded instance of a
Krishna who may be identified with the
deity can be found in the Chandogya
Upanishad (ca. 900 BCE).
The teacher Ghora Angirasa discusses the
nature of the soul with Krishna, the son of
Devaki. However, this teacher is never
mentioned in connection with Krishna in
later works nor does any ancient or
medieval author quote this instance of
Krishna, the deity. The exact words that
Ghora speaks are treated by some as
praise of Krishna and most others as a
praise of the Atman, whose knowledge
being imparted to Krishna. The doctrine
taught by Ghora matches with
the Bhagavad-gita and the name of the
mother is the same as in later Krishna
traditions.
Panini, ca. 5th century BCE, in
his Ashtadhyayi explains the word
"Vāsudevaka" as a Bhakta (devotee) of
Vāsudeva. This, along with the mention of

13. Arjuna in the same context, indicates that
the Vāsudeva here is Krishna.
In the 4th century BCE, Megasthenes the
Greek ambassador to the court
of Chandragupta Maurya says that the
Sourasenoi (Surasenas), who lived in the
region of Mathura worshipped Herakles.
This Herakles is usually identified with
Krishna due to the regions mentioned by
Megasthenes as well as similarities
between some of the herioc acts of the
two. Megasthenes also mentions that his
daughter Pandaia ruled in south India. The
south indeed had the kingdom of
the Pandyas with the capital at Madhura
(Madurai), the name similar to if not the
same as Krishna's Mathura.