Till now, we have seen about Rama from different perspectives – that of his family to friends and enemies, as told in the Ramayana. The next progressive Avatar of Vishnu is Krishna.
Many of us have this understanding that if the Itihaasa Ramayana was for Rama, then obviously the other Itihaasa which is the Mahabaratha is for Krishna. While Mahabaratha features Krishna, contrary to what many think it is not the life story of Krishna. Krishna is just a part of Mahabaratha. if an avatar of Vishnu is just a part of the story, then can you imagine the magnitude of that story called Mahabaratha?
Anyway, if Mahabaratha does not chronicle Krishna, then what does?
Bhagavatha Purana or Srimad Bhagavatham does.
Before we get into the Bhagavatham, let us understand what does the term Purana means. The Puranas, along with the Vedas and Itihaasas form the massive religious bedrock of the ancient Indian tradition. They go back in time to perhaps more than five millennia. The bulk of them is said to have been compiled from an existing ancient tradition by Vyasa whose birth is dated by one perceptive scholar at 3374 BC. The Puranas present the activities of gods, super-men, and humans in a human setting, to illustrate vividly, how the purpose of life is to help the human to rise to the level of the super-human and the divine, and prevent them from descending to the level of the sub-human. The setting is human, and the question is whether it is realistic or real, though of course, there is a larger philosophical question whether this really matters, or what reality is. Yet there is, in the narratives of the Itihasas and Puranas a vast measure of internal, consistent detail, in respect of human dynasties that simply clamors to be recognized as real.
As readers, we can ascertain the genealogies of Rishis and Kings including Krishna and Yudhishtira, since Yudhishtira was a peer who lived at the same time as Krishna. Let us look at these genealogies in more detail when we progressively elaborate on the Puranas in general and Srimad Bhagavatham in particular in the coming posts.
mythological squirrel 