#14 THE LIFE OF KRISHNA (TO THE NEAREST THOUSAND YEARS)

“He was born in the settlement of a chieftain, a place which no longer exists. It was between Delhi and Agra in Northern India in the second millennium BC”.

“The second millennium BC covers one thousand years. I know you have difficulties pinpointing time. If, however, I you give the dates of some of St Germain’s other lives could you tell me which lives co-existed with Krishna? Imhotep, who lived in Egypt between 2686-2613BC? Or 2697-2597BC … when Ch’i Po lived in China …”

“Stop there, at the end of Chi’ Po’s life, Krishna was a child. So if we say he was born about 2595 and died in about 2554 BC, this would be approximately right. My advisors are unconcerned with time. Now I will continue… A power struggle between two brothers led to the imprisonment of the elder brother, Krishna’s father, who was the rightful heir. When Krishna was born, his father contacted his chief hunter or what you’d call a gamekeeper and, working on the understanding that the devil can count, he left the gamekeeper’s daughter in the prison in his son Krishna’s place.

There’s truth in the story about him as a Peeping Tom in early adolescence. Finding clothes near a swimming hole, Krishna immediately reasoned that if there were abandoned clothes, there must be naked bodies and he was not above perving. As a punishment, the infuriated older girls formed a circle around him and chanted spells and mocked him. Although there is a mischievous air in all adventurers as there is plainly in St Germain, Krishna was just a normal adolescent boy curious about sex.”

“Was he given any education?”

“None at all. He was self-educated as an adult. He spoke Sanskrit, a bazaar Sanskrit. Later he would learn Raj Sanskrit from a captured Brahman, whom he freed from slavery and paid him to be his tutor. Krishna called him Pandit Muktar and it was from him and another that he learned metaphysics. He also had a captive Persian, a Zoroastrian, who taught him much. But his grasp of metaphysics really came from Nepalese and Chinese sages who read to him and related their oral traditions. Eventually, he would go to their countries because he had heard so much about them.”

“Indians celebrate Krishna dancing with his partner Radha, his first love….”

“There were lots of lovers. She was the woman who took his virginity or shall we say he left it with her.”

“Why didn’t their love continue?”

“It was unimaginable to wed outside of your caste. Krishna was a raj. It was a rigid system although not as strict or as complicated as it would become later. When Krishna left Radha behind, he went on to kill his uncle and get his revenge for his family’s murder. At sixteen he then went on to conquer most of northern India. By his mid-twenties his influence extended to Southern India. He built a loose confederation of petty kingdoms.”

“What motivated him?”

“His concerns were typical of St Germain’s concerns: were the highways of India safe for communication, commerce and travel; were the ports safe for trade. He is a nation builder. He developed a system of fiefdoms and his own form of government. Each chief was sworn to him and ruled with local forces. He was good at organising and deputising. Even beyond his government areas, rulers were appointed with his approval.”

“At this stage of his life, what qualities was Krishna showing?”

“Krishna was already a poet, a musician, a soldier and on the death of his uncle, he became a king. He was a warrior but a dilettante warrior; he went into battle with his robe adjusted, confident it was of a suitable colour and his hair just right. Think of the most handsome Bollywood actor you can imagine and double it. Here you have an extraordinary presence; he was over six foot tall. He was Aryan with light complexion, and as the Epic says, his skin was the colour of rain clouds; black hair, extremely handsome, fine boned with a long classic aquiline nose, large fine eyes and long sensitive musician’s fingers. He was an accomplished, self-taught musician and played the sitar, the lyre, but his favourite instrument was the flute. Krishna was a very good dancer at both ritual and impromptu sequences. As a man he was very talented, a renaissance man, pious too, but an adventurer who invaded while he sang, danced and played music from one end of India to Sri Lanka to Burma and even to South China and back again.”

“An Indian would say that India had never invaded another country in any of the last ten thousand years of her history.”

“Krishna invaded southern China three times when he was thirty-two, thirty-four and thirty-six; each time extending his territory.”

“Why did he invade China?”

“Around India the coastal trade was done on the west coast by sailors from the Middle East later known as Arabs and in the east by Malays. Large Chinese junks that used Malay crews and used them in small boats for mapping and charting the coast dominated the eastern trade. Krishna needed to gain new sources of wealth and keep his military and governmental machinery going and he wanted to remove the Chinese from his Indian ports.”

“Can we return to China later? Before his exploits there, you have told me that Krishna took part in one of the most successful battles against evil in Sri Lanka. The story we have in the Gita takes place not in Sri Lanka, but in Southern India when it was his last battle.”

“It was neither his first nor his last battle. Krishna saw warfare as commonplace and what a man did. Ferried across to Ceylon by Arab and Malay sailors … it’s only about twenty miles across … Krishna was inspired to fight the wicked Monkey King because he wanted to expand his kingdom into Southern India. Sri Lanka had mines for precious jewels, the best rubies and sapphires and some beautiful diamonds, so Krishna also went there with three thousand men for its treasure and for the plunder and the power.”

“This sounds like the story in the Ramayana where Rama fights Lanka!”

“There is a cross-over. Some of the Ramayana appropriates Krishna’s story and vice versa.”

“Did Krishna become charioteer for Arjuna in that battle?”

“Arjuna was his charioteer, his archer but they did swap places. And because the Monkey King is the hero in one of Buddha’s beautiful stories, I am advised by my Brahman friends here that I should call the evil king the ‘Ape King’.”

“Does he have a proper name?”

“Yes, but it is difficult and long … I will spell it … R A T N A J A M C H E R H U R S I N G A P U T N A M A. Even so these words are not exactly correct but it is the nearest we can do in your alphabet. Believe me it’s much easier to call him the ‘Ape King’.

The Ape King headed a force of thirty thousand troops and his chief target in the battle was Krishna’s gilt chariot. The King’s men made a formation like a flying wedge or an arrowhead aimed at Krishna’s chariot. Arjuna dressed in Krishna’s clothes and Krishna in Arjuna’s … they had swapped places … and they had a remarkable plan. The Ape King had much in common with many evil figures in history; he had sold his soul to the devil, which I mean figuratively not literally. He was intent on destroying Hinduism, a religion of great beauty, peace and light. He had set up ideological schools where the local Dravidian population could be taught his correct thinking – now does this seem familiar? The Dark is boring and predictable and always repeats itself. Krishna shone with light. The Ape King’s flying V, a suicide squad, made straight for Krishna’s chariot. It was a clash of Light against Dark. If the Ape King achieved his objective of killing Krishna and moving into Southern India, he would spread his poison there. Krishna had to stop India becoming a kingdom of darkness …”

“It is at this point, I get edgy, Gatekeeper. All the light and dark sounds like a Marvel comic or a Tolkien novel. Let’s keep to the facts! What happened? How did Krishna win?”

Ignoring me the Gatekeeper acclaimed: “What a story it is! Krishna would win with blinding light! Around Krishna’s chariot were select troops … a guarded elite … which blunted the arrowhead … but at the right moment … Arjuna threw a magic bolt of lightning which caused chaos and brought victory…”