Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/147

 and amorous Krishn[)u] is the most popular deity, and especially revered by Hindūstanī women.

His parents were Vasudeva and Dewarkī; but he was brought up in the house of Nanda and Gosodā. In his infant days his life was sought: to preserve the child, and to conceal him from the tyrant Kansa, to whom it had been predicted that a child, the eighth of his family, would destroy him, his uncle fled with him to the banks of the Jumna: the pursuers were at his heels, escape was impossible; the infant god commanded the waters to open a passage for him; the waters heard and obeyed the command, they stood like a wall on the right side and on the left; Krishn[)u] was carried across by his relative; on reaching the opposite bank, the waters flowed on as before, and cut off the pursuit of his enemies.

The city of Mathurā is celebrated as the birth-place of Krishn[)u]. In the family of Nanda he passed his youth amidst the gopas and gopīs. During his childhood he vanquished the serpent Kāliya, and slew many giants and monsters: afterwards he put the tyrant Kansa to death, and kindled the mahā-bārat or Great War. He is the Apollo of the Hindūs, and is supposed by Colonel Wilford to have lived about thirteen hundred years before Christ. Krishn[)u] is a terrestrial god, and is represented by the image in black marble that stands on the right of Ganesh, in the frontispiece of the first volume; I procured it at Allahabad during the great fair; it came from Jeypore. The Hindoo deity is represented playing on the flute, an amusement to which he was prone when in the forests, surrounded by the gopīs or milkmaids, who were his ardent admirers and followers; amongst them he had 16,000 lady-loves, besides his lawful wives. The Hindoo code allows of two helpmates, but the laws of man extend not to the gods, and Krishn[)u] took unto himself eight wives, each of whom bore him ten sons; also Radha, the beloved, the wife of another, to say nothing of the 16,000 gopīs, each of whom also bore him ten sons. Nevertheless, it is asserted, his life was one of purity, and whatever may tend to give contrary ideas on the subject is all māyā or illusion.

The Bhagavat Purana gives the following:—"In this happy