Naturaleza Jurídica del delito precedente

Just as Draupadi’s hand was given in marriage to the five Pandavas, a stranger walked into Kunti’s house. He was a dark and extremely handsome man with bright charming eyes and a disarming smile. He was dressed in a bright yellow dhoti. He had a garland of fragrant forest flowers round his neck and a peacock feather stuck out from the topknot on his head.

Falling at Kunti’s feet, the stranger said in a soft melodious voice that touched everyone’s heart, ‘I am Krishna, son of your brother, Vasudeva. Your father, Surasena, who gave you in adoption to

Kuntibhoja, is my grandfather. The blood of Yadu and the Nagas flow in both our veins. Your sons are my cousins.’

Krishna was born during turbulent times in Mathura, the city of Kunti’s birth. Shortly after Surasena had given Kunti away in adoption, Surasena’s nephew, a youth called Kansa, son of Ugrasena, audaciously disbanded the Yadava ruling council and declared himself dictator of Mathura with the support of his father-in-law, Jarasandha, the powerful king of Magadha. All those who protested were either killed or imprisoned.

Kansa’s younger sister, Devaki, had married Kunti’s elder brother, Vasudeva. On the wedding day, oracles foretold that the eighth child born of this union would be the killer of Kansa. A terrified Kansa wanted to kill his sister then and there, but was persuaded to let her live on condition that Vasudeva would present to him their eighth child as soon as it was born.

When Devaki bore her first child, Kansa became nervous. What if the child Vasudeva finally presented to him was not his eighth? So he decided to kill all of Devaki’s children as soon as they were born. He stormed into her chambers, grabbed her firstborn by the ankles and smashed its head against the stony floor.

Devaki was beside herself. She did not want to bear any more children knowing what fate awaited them but Vasudeva persuaded her to change her mind. ‘The sacrifice of seven children is necessary so that the eighth one can save Mathura from the excesses of Kansa.’

And so it came to pass, Devaki kept producing children and Kansa kept killing them as soon as they were born.

Thus were killed six children of Devaki and Vasudeva. The Rishis revealed, ‘Your children suffer the pain of dying at birth because in their past life they angered sages with their misbehaviour. And you suffer the pain of watching them die at birth because in your past you angered sages by stealing cows for your yagna. All suffering has its roots in karma. But fear not, the seventh and eighth child will bring you joy. The seventh will be the herald of God. The eighth will be God himself.’

Sure enough, things changed when Devaki conceived the seventh child. A goddess called Yogamaya magically transported the unborn child into the womb of Vasudeva’s other wife, Rohini, who lived with her brother, Nanda, in the village of cowherds, Gokul, across the river Yamuna. The child thus conceived in one womb and delivered by another was Balarama, fair as the moon, strong as a herd of elephants. Kansa was told that fear had caused Devaki to miscarry and lose her seventh child.

Balarama was an incarnation of Adi-Ananta-Sesha, the serpent with a thousand hoods in whose coils rested Vishnu, God who sustains the rhythms of the cosmos. Some said he was Vishnu himself, born when God plucked a white hair from his chest and placed it in Devaki’s womb.

God also plucked a dark hair from his chest and placed it in Devaki’s womb. Thus was conceived her eighth child.

He slipped out of his mother’s womb nine months later on a dark and stormy night, the eighth night of the waning moon, when the wind blew out all the lights in Mathura. He was as dark as the darkest night and as charming as the sun is to a lotus flower.

Yogamaya caused the whole city to sleep and advised Vasudeva to place the child in a basket and take it out of the city, across the river, to Gokul. Ignoring the piteous pleas of Devaki, Vasudeva did as he was told.

At Gokul, in the cattle sheds, he found Yashoda, Nanda’s wife, sleeping with a newborn girl beside her. Instructed by Yogamaya, Vasudeva exchanged the babies and returned to Mathura with

Yashoda’s daughter.

The next day, Kansa strode into Devaki’s chamber, and after a moment of surprise on finding a girl in her arms, picked up the eighth child of Devaki intent on dashing her head to the ground. But the child slipped out of his hands, flew into the sky, and transformed into a resplendent goddess with eight arms, each one bearing magnificent weapons and announced that the killer of Kansa was still alive. And that Kansa would die as foretold.

Krishna is no ordinary character. He is God to the Hindus, Vishnu, who descends from Vaikuntha to establish dharma. He does so as Parashurama and Ram before him takes the form of Krishna.

Krishna’s entry into the Mahabharata at the time of Draupadi’s swayamvara is significant; she embodies the world he is meant to protect. Krishna comes only after Draupadi rejects Karna and chooses instead a Brahman who turns out to be a Kshatriya in disguise. She ends up marrying not only this fraud, but also his four brothers. Krishna knows the consequences of her decision. These husbands will end up gambling her away. He therefore becomes a part of her life to protect her from a distance.

The story of Krishna’s life was first narrated by Vyasa’s son, Suka, to Parikshit, seven days prior to Parikshit’s death. This narration helped Parikshit come to terms with his life. It is retold by Ugrashrava, the narrator of the Mahabharata, in the Naimisha forest. This narration is called the Harivamsa, or the tale of the clan of Hari, Hari being another name for Vishnu and Krishna.

Kansa struggles to overpower what fate has in store for him. According to one tradition, Kansa was a child of rape; his father was a Gandharva and not of true Yadu bloodline. By the law of Shvetaketu that made the Pandavas the son of Pandu, Kansa should have been treated as a Yadava. But he was not. He was considered illegitimate and ostracized by the people of Mathura and he ended up hating them. Since he was not treated as a Yadava, he refused to submit to the ancient Yadava tradition of never wearing the crown. His hatred for the Yadavas fuelled his ambition to be dictator of Mathura. In some traditions, Yashoda’s daughter who Kansa tries to kill is reborn later as Devaki’s youngest child, Subhadra. In other traditions, she is reborn as Draupadi. Both Subhadra and Draupadi marry Arjuna. Arjuna and Krishna are said to be Nara and Narayana, two ancient Rishis, both incarnations of Vishnu. Both Subhadra and Draupadi are thus in some way connected to the Goddess.

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