Krishna

Mathura, the cowherds and Dwaraka

Krishna was born in Mathura to Vasudeva and Devaki of the Vrishni clan, while Devaki's brother Kamsa held the throne and was killing her children. His childhood is told in full in the Harivamsa, the epic's supplement: he was carried across the Yamuna to the cowherd chief Nanda and his wife Yashoda, grew up among the herders of Vraja, and returned as a young man to kill Kamsa. When Jarasandha of Magadha attacked Mathura again and again, Krishna moved his people west to the sea-city of Dwaraka, where he married Rukmini of Vidarbha, the mother of his son Pradyumna, and later Satyabhama and others.

Friend of the Pandavas

He first meets his cousins at Draupadi's swayamvara in Panchala, and from then on is Arjuna's companion. He helped Arjuna carry off his sister Subhadra, burned the Khandava forest with him for Agni, and received his discus there. He arranged the wrestling match in which Bhima killed Jarasandha, and at Yudhishthira's imperial sacrifice cut off the head of Shishupala of Chedi when the king's insults passed the hundred he had promised to pardon.

He was away fighting Shalva of Saubha when the dice were thrown, and told Yudhishthira afterwards that he would have stopped the game. Later tellings credit him with the endless robe that saved Draupadi in the hall; the critical text records that marvel without naming its source.

Envoy, charioteer, strategist

When Arjuna and Duryodhana both came to Dwaraka for help, Krishna offered his Narayani army to one and himself, unarmed, to the other. Arjuna chose Krishna. As the Pandavas' envoy to Hastinapura he asked for as little as five villages, and showed the court his universal form when Duryodhana plotted to seize him.

At Kurukshetra, when Arjuna dropped his bow before his grandsire and teacher, Krishna's answer was the Bhagavad Gita. Twice he ran at Bhishma on foot, ready to break his own vow, until Arjuna held him back. He also advised the stratagems that ended the great Kaurava commanders: the lie that told Drona his son was dead, the arrow at Karna while his wheel was stuck, the blow to Duryodhana's thigh. After the war he revived Parikshit, killed in the womb by Ashwatthama's weapon, and cursed Ashwatthama to wander.

Gandhari's curse and Prabhasa

Gandhari, standing among her dead sons, cursed him for letting the slaughter happen: his own clan would destroy itself. He accepted the curse. Thirty-six years later the Yadavas, drunk on the shore at Prabhasa, killed one another with reeds that turned into iron clubs, the fruit of a sages' curse on his son Samba. Krishna lay down in the forest in meditation, and a hunter named Jara, taking his foot for a deer, shot him through the sole. Arjuna came to lead the survivors away, and the sea took Dwaraka.

God and statesman

The Mahabharata holds Krishna in two lights at once. He is the supreme deity whose Gita gives the epic its philosophical centre, and he is a politician who wins a war partly by tricks. The dying Duryodhana accuses him of exactly that, and Krishna replies that the Kaurava champions could never have been killed in a fair fight. Whether dharma can be protected by bending its rules is the question his conduct leaves open, and readers still divide between those who see providence in it and those who see only strategy.