The Killing of Kamsa: A Pastimes of The Supreme Lord "Sri Krishna"
The Killing of Kamsa Excerpted from Back to Godhead Magazine Volume 01, Number 67, 1974
by His Holiness Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami
Bhagavad-gita
states that Lord Krsna descends to this world to vanquish miscreants
and rescue His devotees. Once when the world was overburdened with
demoniac forces, the demigods prayed for the appearance of the Lord.
Lord Krsna accepted the prayer, and He decided to appear as the son of
two pure devotees, Vasudeva and his wife, Devaki. Years before Krsna’s
actual advent, on the day Devaki and Vasudeva were married, Kamsa, the
brother of the bride, was driving the couple to Vasudeva’s home. In the
middle of the joyous procession, a voice suddenly rang out from the sky.
“Kamsa,” the voice said, “you are such a fool! You are driving the
chariot of your sister, but you do not know that the eighth child of
your sister will kill you!”
Kamsa
then at once took hold of Devaki and drew his sword to kill her. This
shows the essence of Kamsa’s demoniac mentality: anyone or anything that
threatened his bodily enjoyment must be destroyed. Vasudeva at once
intervened and pleaded with Kamsa not to kill Devaki. Vasudeva spoke in a
very enlightened way. Death, he told Kamsa, is inevitable, so why
should we be afraid of it? After the end of this body, we get another
body to fulfill our desires. Death is only a change of bodies. The real
self is eternal, so we should try to find our real life beyond the body.
Unfortunately,
Kamsa, being an atheist, could not listen to good instruction. Although
each of us has but little control over the forces of nature, foolish
people try to become lords of all they survey. They live only for the
pleasure of the body, taking the body to be the self, and disregarding
the soul. In ignorance, they say there is no soul.
This philosophy
is now very popular, but it has existed since time immemorial.
Thousands of years ago, in Vedic times, it was propounded by a
philosopher named Carvaka, who taught that one should simply enjoy
sensual pleasures, like eating, as much as he can. One should not
hesitate to commit any irresponsible act to reach his goal, and one
should not worry about the next life because at death everything will be
finished. When modern so-called leaders take up this philosophy, people
in general follow, and society becomes hellish. Not considering the
will of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, or His supreme
proprietorship, men take to animal slaughter, abortion,
intoxication—anything. We are seeing only the beginning of this in
current times. When Krsna conscious persons like Vasudeva try to give
enlightenment, many so-called educated men take them lightly and say
that the existence of God and the eternity of the soul are myths. And
when governments also fail to meet their responsibility to further God
consciousness, social degradation is assured.
To dissuade Kamsa
from murdering Devaki, Vasudeva promised that he and Devaki would bring
Kamsa each of their children as they were born so that he could do what
he liked with them. Kamsa relented, and when Vasudeva brought Kamsa
their first-born child one year later, he became a little compassionate
and spared the baby.
Later, however, Kamsa became alarmed when he
heard from the sage Narada that Krsna was soon to appear. Narada told
Kamsa that in his past life he had been a demon named Kalanemi, who had
been killed by Lord Krsna, the Personality of Godhead. On hearing this,
Kamsa foolishly became determined to kill the Lord. “Any child might be
Krsna,” he concluded. He at once ordered the imprisonment of Vasudeva
and Devaki and killed their child. Kamsa committed many other
atrocities, all so that he might live and rule at any cost. He made
alliances with many demoniac kings and imprisoned anyone who opposed
him, including his own father, Ugrasena. In this way he expanded his
kingdom, just as modern politicians do, until he became the strongest
emperor of his time. He broke the solidarity of the Yadu dynasty, which
included all of Krsna’s relatives, and forced them to hide in caves.
Year after year Devaki gave birth to a child, and Kamsa murdered every
one—six in all—fearing each to be the child who would kill him.
When
Krsna Himself became the eighth child, He cheated Kamsa. He appeared
before Vasudeva and Devaki as the Supreme Lord and then transformed
Himself into a normal child. Krsna ordered Vasudeva to exchange Him with
a female child just bom to mother Yasoda in nearby Gokula. Although
Vasudeva was shackled and Kamsa’s prison well guarded, by Krsna’s mystic
potency Vasudeva was able to escape from the prison, make the exchange,
and return unnoticed to his cell.
Kamsa heard the cries of the
newborn child as his death knell, and he rushed in to kill him. But the
baby flew up into the air and assumed the form of the demigoddess Maya.
“You rascal,” she said to Kamsa. “The child who will kill you has
already been born elsewhere. You cannot kill Him.”
Threatened in
this way, Kamsa and his demoniac associates began an all-out purge,
ordering the murder of all male children born within the previous ten
days. Kamsa also harassed all saintly persons and brahmanas. He knew
that the devotees are the heart and soul of his enemy, Lord Krsna, so he
tried to attack Him by persecuting His closest servitors and putting a
stop to all religious activities.
Lord Krsna, however, was not at
all fearful. He simply enjoyed His childhood pastimes in Vrndavana,
giving pleasure to His friends, His mother and father, and the cowherd
men and women. Kamsa, however, tried repeatedly to disrupt Krsna’s
pastimes. First he sent a witch named Putana, who had already killed
many babies by her black arts. She tried to kill Krsna when He was only a
few months old. She smeared poison on her breast, appeared in Vrndavana
as a beautiful young woman, and took permission from mother Yasoda to
give Krsna her breast to suck. Baby Krsna, however, not only sucked her
breast milk, but sucked out her life as well.
After Putana, Kamsa
sent many demons, among them Trnavarta and Aghasura. Trnavarta appeared
in the shape of a whirlwind and tried to kidnap Krsna and destroy Him
high in the sky. Aghasura, the brother of Putana, came before Krsna and
His friends as a giant serpent. But Krsna nonchalantly killed these
ferocious demons one after another. Krsna’s father, Nanda, and other
elders of the village were concerned about the constant attacks upon
Krsna, so they moved their entire village community to a more suitable
place, where they hoped to be free from attack. But more demons came; a
giant horse, an enormous bull, a pack of asses, and many others. Child
Krsna killed them all, assisted by His brother, Balarama.
When
Krsna was sixteen years old, Kamsa discovered for certain that Krsna in
Vrndavana was Devaki’s eighth child. Narada told Kamsa of Krsna’s true
identity and related how He had killed all the demons without
difficulty. In desperation, Kamsa formed his final plot: he arranged for
a big wrestling match at Mathura and sent Akrura, Krsna’s uncle, to
Vrndavana to invite Krsna and all His relatives and neighbors to attend
the gala affair.
Akrura was actually a great devotee of Krsna. So
when he arrived in Vrndavana, he confided to Krsna that the wrestling
match was an elaborate plan to kill Him and His brother. Krsna and
Balarama mildly laughed at this. They invited all the townsmen to go to
Mathura, and They Themselves set out with Akrura.
Krsna’s arrival
in Mathura was supposed to be His entrance into an ominous trap, but
Krsna very blissfully and lightheartedly entered the city. And when the
news spread that Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, had come,
all the residents of Mathura spontaneously turned out to see Him. The
real festival in Mathura became the festival of seeing Krsna. All the
young girls were very eager to see Krsna, but out of modesty they went
to the roofs of the houses to catch a glimpse of Him. The people had
heard about Krsna and His activities, but only now did they have the
chance to see Him. They became ecstatic and rushed from whatever they
were doing to see Krsna passing through the streets. People talked back
and forth about how beautiful Krsna was, and they praised the great
fortune of the gopis and other devotees of Vrndavana who were able to
see Krsna every day.
There are two kinds of human beings—devotees
and demons—and in Mathura Krsna encountered both. While Krsna and
Balarama were walking through the streets of Mathura, They met a
washerman carrying various garments. Krsna asked the washerman for some
clothing and promised to award him all good fortune. This is the basis
of Krsna consciousness: the devotee offers whatever he has to the Lord,
and the Lord, although not in need, accepts the offering to help awaken
the devotee’s original relationship of service to Him. Unfortunately,
this washerman thought himself a servant not of Krsna but of Kamsa. Not
only did he refuse to give Krsna clothing, but he called Him impudent.
“Don’t ask for things that are the King’s property,” he said, “or You
will be punished.” Krsna became very angry with this servant of Kamsa
and killed him, using only His hand as a weapon.
A little later
Krsna and Balarama met a florist who was exactly the opposite of the
washerman. He was very submissive and simply prayed to be eternally
engaged in devotional service to Krsna. The florist gave Krsna a very
beautiful garland at his home, and thus his desire was fulfilled.
Krsna
and Balarama also met a young hunchback woman carrying sandalwood
paste. Her duty had been to bring sandalwood to King Kamsa daily, but
when she saw the personal beauty of Krsna and Balarama, she voluntarily
offered the sandalwood paste to Them. In return, Krsna transformed her
from a hunchback into a beautiful young woman by touching her with His
hand. One may take these extraordinary encounters to be fictitious or
imaginary, but they are the actual historic activities the Personality
of Godhead performed while present on earth some 5,000 years ago. The
great authorities in Krsna consciousness who are passing down the
narrations of Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam do not doubt these
facts. Mundane scholars and people in general may doubt them, but they
cannot understand the science of God as presented in Vedic literature.
One who is not rendering service to the Personality of Godhead through a
bona fide spiritual master can only whimsically speculate about what
God can or cannot do.
As Krsna and Balarama approached the
sacrificial arena in Mathura, They saw a big display where a giant bow
was being guarded by state soldiers. Krsna walked right past the guards,
picked up the bow and broke it. The sound of the bow’s cracking
reverberated throughout the land and sky and even reached the palace of
Kamsa. The guards rushed Krsna and Balarama, but the two brothers
immediately killed them and left the arena.
Thereafter, Krsna
continued to visit various places in Mathura, and the citizens turned
out to see Him, astonished at His extraordinary beauty and opulence. In
Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Srila Prabhupada writes, “The
two brothers strolled carefree in the street, not caring for the law
and order of Kamsa.” In this way They hinted at the severe danger
awaiting Kamsa.
When Kamsa heard the bow break and heard how the
guards had been killed, he partially realized the power of the Supreme
Lord. He understood that the eighth child of Devaki had come to kill
him. That night he could not rest at all, for both awake and dreaming he
had inauspicious visions. He looked in the mirror but could not see his
head. He saw stars in the sky double. He saw holes in his shadow, heard
a buzzing sound in his ears, and had ghastly dreams of ghosts, poison
and murder. Thus he understood that his death was sure. But when morning
finally came, he busily arranged for the wrestling match. In his last
hours, with death so near, rather than pray to the Supreme Lord for
mercy, Kamsa anxiously planned how to avert what he knew was certain.
All
those who share Kamsa’s demoniac mentality are like that. They can see
that material nature will eventually kill them, just as it has killed
everyone else in history. Yet they act as if they will never die. A
great devotee once called this the most wonderful phenomenon: people see
the hand of death take away all their predecessors, but they think that
they themselves will not die. The Kamsas of this world are always busy
planning how to enjoy this life, even up till the second they are
snatched away by death. So many modern cities have been built all over
the world, but no one who lives in them has any guarantee that he won’t
be kicked out today or tomorrow by death. Ignoring the next life only
insures that we will have to take another birth to suffer miseries again
and again. Kamsa was like a man trying to raise his temperature when he
already has a high fever; when the fever reaches 107 degrees, a man
dies. Kamsa could not see that all his plans to survive would be
vanquished, nor did he care to hear about the next life. Like a typical
politician, on the morning of his death Kamsa busied himself making
plans for this temporary world.
After bathing and performing other
morning duties, Krsna and Balarama heard drums playing at the wrestling
arena, and They prepared to go see the fun. But when They arrived at
the gateway of the arena, a big elephant with a rider blocked Their
path. This was another of Kamsa’s schemes. Krsna told the elephant’s
caretaker to immediately clear the path, but the man became angry and
provoked the elephant to charge Krsna. Krsna moved around the elephant,
dragged it by its tail, tripped it and finally killed both the elephant
and its rider.
Krsna and Balarama then proceeded into the arena,
where everyone at once became attracted to Them. The audience was
completely attentive to Krsna and Balarama. The residents of Vrndavana
were all reciting Their pastimes, and others, seeing Them for the first
time, began to praise Their qualities.
Suddenly, a musical fanfare
announced the start of the wrestling match. The famous champion
wrestlers Canura and Mustika approached Krsna and Balarama, and Canura
said, “We have heard all about You. The King desires to see You display
Your wrestling abilities.” Krsna replied that although He and Balarama
liked to play and sometimes They wrestled with Their cowherd friends,
They were not professional wrestlers. Krsna said plainly that a match
of” professional wrestlers against young boys would not be equal, and
this would disturb the audience. But the wrestlers insisted that Krsna
and Balarama were not ordinary boys, and so the match began.
Many
members of the audience called out their disapproval, for Krsna and His
brother appeared to be delicate boys of tender age, whereas the
wrestlers were mountainous strongmen, trained in the art of crushing
opponents. In Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Srila
Prabhupada specifically describes what the members of the audience said.
“But my dear friends,” someone spoke out, “just look at the face of
Krsna. There are drops of perspiration on His face from chasing His
enemy, and His face appears like a lotus flower with drops of water. And
do you see how the face of Lord Balarama has turned especially
beautiful? There is a reddish hue on His white face because He is
engaged in a strong wrestling match with Mustika.” Another spectator
exclaimed, “Even in front of the King this wrestling match is going on
between incompatible sides.” Thus the members of the audience were very
attracted to Krsna, but at the same time they saw great danger and felt
anxiety for Him. Even Krsna’s very intimate devotees, such as His mother
and father, were also very anxious because they too did not know the
unlimited strength of Krsna and Balarama.
Lord Krsna is actually
all-powerful, and there is nothing to fear when He is fighting a
conditioned living being of the material world. Krsna is declared
throughout the Vedas to be the Absolute Truth, the source from whom
everything comes and upon whom everything rests. Srimad-Bhagavatam says
that He alone existed before creation. He is now the only ultimate
reality, and after annihilation only He will remain. But by Krsna’s
internal spiritual energy, called yoga-maya, He acts in different
relationships with His servitors according to how they approach Him.
Krsna
is the reservoir of all personal feelings, so we should not be
surprised that He reveals Himself differently in various relationships.
To the mass of people at the wrestling arena He appeared as the most
beautiful personality, but to the wrestlers He appeared like a
thunderbolt. The ksatriyas (warriors) saw Him as the strongest ruler,
while the females saw Him as the most attractive male. The cowherd men
from Vrndavana saw Him as their own kinsman, while the yogis saw Him as
the Supersoul in everyone’s heart. Kamsa also saw Krsna uniquely—as
Death Personified.
Kamsa was always fearful that Krsna would
someday kill him. Thus he spent his whole life absorbed in thoughts of
how to kill Krsna. Because he was always thinking of Krsna, Kamsa was
Krsna conscious. But because he thought of Krsna unfavorably, he is not
considered a devotee of the Lord. He was not practicing bhakti
(devotional service). To be always thinking, like Kamsa, of how to avoid
submitting to the Lord’s supreme will is the principal engagement of a
whole class of men, including modern educators, scientists, politicians
and philosophers. By hearing about Kamsa, we can clearly understand why
such a mentality is self-defeating.
Krsna and Balarama engaged the
wrestlers in the standard wrestling holds and maneuvers for some time,
but when the anxious protests of the audience grew too great, Krsna
simply spun one wrestler in the air, Balarama hit the other, and the
famous wrestlers were dead. Other wrestlers came forward, but the two
brothers killed them immediately, and the remaining wrestlers ran from
the arena. Musicians spontaneously beat their drums, and the crowd
cheered the victory of Krsna and Balarama.
Kamsa was enraged. He
announced that Krsna and Balarama should be driven from the city of
Mathura, Their riches plundered, and Krsna’s father killed. Krsna could
not tolerate such talk. He jumped over the high wall protecting King
Kamsa and stood before him face to face. Kamsa tried defending himself
with a sword, but Krsna grabbed him and dragged him down from the
throne. After throwing him on the ground, Krsna killed Kamsa by punching
him with His fist. Krsna then dragged Kamsa around the arena the way a
lion drags an elephant after killing it, just to assure His parents,
relatives and all pious people that Kamsa was actually dead.
One
may wonder why this narration contains so much violence and killing,
since the Supreme Personality of Godhead is said to be all-merciful. But
there is no question of wrongdoing in Krsna’s actions. Because Krsna is
absolute, whatever Krsna does is absolutely good. Fighting and killing
is required for a ksatriya (warrior) when there is a need to punish
miscreants who threaten the peaceful citizens of society. When such
criminals need to be rebuffed, nonviolence is cowardice, as Krsna told
Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra. Devotees of Krsna are naturally
nonviolent toward all living entities, even animals, but if the
demoniac make a violent disturbance, the devotees are prepared to
counter such violence in the service of the Supreme Lord.
Also,
when Krsna personally kills someone, He gives that person the
benediction of liberation. Astoundingly, Kamsa was immediately awarded
sarupya-mukti upon being killed by Krsna. This means that he went to the
spiritual planets, where he was able to live in eternity, bliss and
knowledge with a form almost exactly resembling the Supreme Lord’s in
opulence and beauty. Such liberation is very difficult to achieve, even
after hundreds of lifetimes spent searching for the Absolute Truth.
Yogis and ascetics achieve release from all material desires only after
prolonged, severe austerities. But even they do not reach the Vaikuntha
planets; they merge into the impersonal brahmajyoti, the effulgence of
the Lord. Kamsa, however, had a personal relationship with Krsna. He
thought of Krsna day and night: “When will He come? What is He doing
now? When will He kill me?” So Kamsa was given a place more exalted than
all the impersonal mystic yogis of the hatha-yoga school or the
philosophers who speculate about the impersonal Absolute Truth. This
gives a hint of the great power of bhakti. If an avowed enemy of Krsna
is given such a high place, we can barely even imagine the sweet favor
the Lord awards to those who relate to Him in a positive, loving way,
always rendering service to Him and chanting His glories.
Finally,
one might ask why Krsna should personally fight with a demon like
Kamsa. Krsna, being the source of all emanations and qualities, has His
own transcendental desires. Therefore He also has a fighting propensity,
which He exhibits in His playful wrestling with the cowherd boys of
Vrndavana. Authorities in the science of Krsna consciousness inform us
that Krsna’s choice to fight with Kamsa indicates that Kamsa is actually
a liberated devotee of Krsna’s who was sent to the material world to
provide the Lord a suitable opponent. Kamsa could not actually threaten
Krsna; Krsna arranged the fight for His personal pleasure. This
understanding brings us to a level of consciousness beyond violence or
nonviolence, morality or immorality.
Krsna displays His eternal
pastimes with His devotees just to attract us to return to His loving
service. We are all eternal parts and parcels of Krsna, but we are now
suffering the miseries of repeated birth and death in the material
world, in forgetfulness of Krsna. We should not struggle to rival Krsna;
rather, we should understand that the only business of our life is to
serve the Lord. We each have a natural aptitude for the service of
Krsna, and that should be developed, under the guidance of a bona fide
spiritual master. The first engagement is to hear the pastimes of Krsna.
Our present age is very fallen, full of materialistic and impersonal
concepts of reality, but the truth is available in the vast
treasurehouse of Vedic literature. The sincere seeker will find that
truth very easily, if he begins with a submissive ear.
