Page:Hindu Gods and Heroes.djvu/97

Rh and herdswomen of Vraja (the Doab near Mathurā) with its marvellous freaks and wonderful exploits, his amorous sports with the herdswomen, in fact all the sensuous emotionalism on which the later church of Kṛishṇa has ever since battened. About the same time appeared the Vishṇu-purāṇa, which includes most of the same matter as the Hari-vaṃśa; and some centuries later, probably about the tenth century, there was written a still more remarkable book, the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, of which a great part is taken up with the romance of Kṛishṇa's babyhood and childhood, and especially his amorous sports. In the Bhāgavata the later worship of Kṛishṇa found its classic expression. In the Hari-vaṃśa and Vishṇu-purāṇa religious emotion is still held under a certain restraint; but in the Bhāgavata it has broken loose and runs riot. It is a romance of ecstatic love for Kṛishṇa, who is no longer, as in the Vishṇu-purāṇa, the incarnation of a portion of the Supreme Vishṇu, but very God become man, wholly and utterly divine in his humanity. It dwells in a rapture of tenderness upon the God-babe, and upon the wanton play of the lovely child who is delightful in his naughtiness and marvellous in his occasional displays of superhuman power; it figures him as an ideal of boyish beauty, decked with jewels and crested with peacock's feathers, wandering through the flowering forests of Vraja, dancing