Krishna - The Dark Lord of Dwaraka

Prologue

In Hindu mythology it is believed that there are four great yugas - Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga and the Kali Yuga. In the Satya Yuga, people generally lived very happily and in harmony with each other and with nature and all the realms were open to all the people. As the other yugas came, people get more and more corrupt and the other realms other than the Earth was closed down to people because people focused more and more only in materialistic pleasures.

It is also believed that the present is the Kali Yuga which is considered to be the Dark Age of sin.

The third yuga - the Dwapara Yuga was the age when Lord Vishnu, the Lord of Preservation, incarnated on earth as Lord Krishna.

Lord Krishna was the catalyst of the events in the epic of Mahabharatha. The Mahabharatha tells the story of the Pandavas who fought against their cousins - the Kauravas, to decide on who would be the ruler of the kingdom of Hastinapur.

But the war which was fought between them was not just for a piece of land. Throughout, the Pandavas had been wronged many times by the Kauravas and finally the war was forced on them.

The story of the Mahabharatha begins with Pandu and Dhirdarashtra who were the princes of the kingdom of Hastinapur. Though Dhirdarashtra was elder to Pandu, because Dhirdarashtra was born blind, Pandu was crowned as the king of Hastinapur.

Pandu was a brilliant king and ruled the kingdom very well. But King Pandu had one vice - the vice of hunting. It was during one such hunting session that Pandu killed a great sage who was disguised as a deer in the forest. The sage was with his wife who was also disguised as a deer, when Pandu had killed him. So the sage cursed Pandu, to die the minute that Pandu touched his wife.

Unhappy over the curse, Pandu gave up his kingdom and retired to the forests with his two wives - Kunti and Madri. As the kingdom of Hastinapur was again without a king, the blind man - Dhirdarashtra was made the king of Hastinapur.

Dhirdarashtra ruled Hastinapur with his wife Gandhari. As a mark of respect to her blind husband, Gandhari blindfolded herself. She did not wish to see anything that her husband could not see.

In the forests, Pandu was a broken man and it was not because he had to give up his throne. It was because Pandu realized the sad truth that he was destined to be childless. Pandu bore his punishment stoically, but he was offered a way out by his first wife - Kunti.

When Kunti was young, she had been taught a divine mantra which had the power to invoke any Deva. The mantra which Kunti knew was so powerful that once the mantra was uttered, the Deva who was invoked was obliged to grant the woman who had summoned the Deva, with a child possessing all the characteristics of that particular Deva.

Using this mantra, Kunti was able to fulfill the ambitions of the childless Pandu.

Kunti first invoked Yama Deva, the Lord of Justice and Death, who granted her a child named Yudhishtara. Then Kunti invoked Vayu Deva, the Lord of the Wind by whom Kunti had a powerful son called Bheema. Finally, she invoked the Lord of the Devas - Indra himself, who granted her a third son called Arjuna. Thereafter, Kunti was able to help her co-wife - Madri, by invoking the twin Ashwin Devas who were the Lords of Medicine.

With that, Madri became the mother of twins - Nakula and Sahadeva.

Pandu acknowledged his paternity over the five boys - Yudhishtara, Bheema, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva and the five of them were called as the Pandavas.

Back in Hastinapur, Gandhari, with the blessings of Lord Shiva and the help of Sage Veda Vyasa became the mother of a hundred Kauravas, the first of whom was Duryodhana.

But Destiny was not done playing with Hastinapur.

Duryodhana was born to Gandhari after Yudhishtara was born to Kunti. So Yudhishtara being the eldest, had a right to the throne of Hastinapur.

But Duryodhana hated the Pandavas and he hated them with a mad unexplained passion. Duryodhana wanted to rule Hastinapur and he wanted it all. And in his insanity and jealousy, Duryodhana did something unforgivable. He insulted Draupadi, the common wife of the Pandavas and Duryodhana insulted Draupadi in the open court in front of all the people in the assembly.

After that the relationship between the Pandavas and the Kauravas deteriorated so badly that the war between the two sides was more or less inevitable.

Krishna, as the envoy of the Pandavas, brilliantly pleaded with Duryodhana to give up his ways and give the Pandavas at least five villages to avert the war.

But then somethings could just not be avoided. Duryodhana was haughty and arrogant and did not even bother listening to the wise words of Krishna.

And so the infamous eighteen day Mahabharatha war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas was fought. Though the Pandavas started with a smaller army, by the end of the fourteenth day of the war, it was becoming obvious that the Pandavas were going to win. And it was all because of the strategies of Krishna.

The Mahabharatha is also a great propounder of the principle of "Karma" - that every person would enjoy the fruits of their own workings. And it is also believed that as people reincarnate through various ages, their Karma follows them through the ages.

And the birth and life of Krishna, the Dark Lord of Dwaraka was also because of the Karma of many people, who had reincarnated at various times. In fact, the story of Krishna, in the Dwapara Yuga starts with the karma of the wives of Sage Kashyap in the Satya Yuga.