What can I say except you are most patient and I hope you get very good karma for it.
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Krishna - Historical or mythological?
- Thread starter Dawnofhope
- Start date
What can I say except you are most patient and I hope you get very good karma for it.
I believe that Lord Krishna was a historical Sat-Guru who lived just over 3500 years ago and that the Mahabharata (which includes the Bhagavad Gita) story was written down around 200 years after Krishna lived.
I also believe that Lord Shiva was a very similar tantric type of Sat-Guru who lived yet 3500 years earlier in a more primitive age (at a time the Aryans had already started their immigrations into Bharat).
Their roles were different because the circumstances in human society differed and demanded different solutions for restoring Dharma in human society.
Because of the great time spans that passed after their lives, both these Maha-kaula* Guru's were embellished with countless myths, especially Lord Shiva because initially little was written down about his life.
This does not mean that all the supernatural things attributed to them are mythical, they were surely of a quite different category than great wise men such as Buddha and Jesus.
7000 and 3500 years ago, the world outside of India was still less civilised and the teachings of both Shiva and Krishna reached the rest of the world largely indirectly through watered down ideological offshoots (the original teachings of Buddha and Jesus are also quite tantric).
So the less tantric views on the personality of Lord Krishna have very little to do with the original Krishna and are distorted religious images (as the image of Jesus was distorted by early christians).
Every new spiritual or more religious ideology is syncretic in nature and lays claims to improvements, modernisations or adjustments to the spirit of the age and those should never be discouraged.
But sadly many ideologies are also more or less limited by lack of deeper knowledge of their propounders.
* a kaula has gained the ability to raise their kulakundalini to the level of God at will. A Maha-kaula can raise the kulakundalini of any other creature with a spinal collumn at will and is born fully realised himself.
I also believe that Lord Shiva was a very similar tantric type of Sat-Guru who lived yet 3500 years earlier in a more primitive age (at a time the Aryans had already started their immigrations into Bharat).
Their roles were different because the circumstances in human society differed and demanded different solutions for restoring Dharma in human society.
Because of the great time spans that passed after their lives, both these Maha-kaula* Guru's were embellished with countless myths, especially Lord Shiva because initially little was written down about his life.
This does not mean that all the supernatural things attributed to them are mythical, they were surely of a quite different category than great wise men such as Buddha and Jesus.
7000 and 3500 years ago, the world outside of India was still less civilised and the teachings of both Shiva and Krishna reached the rest of the world largely indirectly through watered down ideological offshoots (the original teachings of Buddha and Jesus are also quite tantric).
So the less tantric views on the personality of Lord Krishna have very little to do with the original Krishna and are distorted religious images (as the image of Jesus was distorted by early christians).
Every new spiritual or more religious ideology is syncretic in nature and lays claims to improvements, modernisations or adjustments to the spirit of the age and those should never be discouraged.
But sadly many ideologies are also more or less limited by lack of deeper knowledge of their propounders.
* a kaula has gained the ability to raise their kulakundalini to the level of God at will. A Maha-kaula can raise the kulakundalini of any other creature with a spinal collumn at will and is born fully realised himself.
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Your full post contained many good points that can be found in Truth given by God.
The part I quoted is the quandary all of humanuty now faces, it does not exempt you or I.
Aspects of that quandary can also be seen in the reply you gave.
Regards Tony
I'm not sure what you mean by 'Truth given by God' but if it is a text or book then I'm not acquainted with it.
But how can the Bahai really insult other religions (as you call other traditions) if most of those traditions themselves differ among each other in their theories about avatars etc. anyway?
The Bahai theory is just one among many.
Every tradition believes that their own cosmology (or lack of it) is the best.
It is only the fact that Bahai believe that all people on the planet will one day accept or bow down to their Bahai vision which is peculiar to me.
They are in a certain way islamocentric just like the Christians are in a way judocentric.
The Indian people who are not Christian or Muslim are far removed from those islamocentric and judocentric ideas.
Especially where they base their viewpoints on deep spiritual and cosmological philosophies, the Bahai viewpoint seems very much out of touch and quite irrelevant.
But for Bahai's this will never be clear to them as they lack the knowledge to be able to compare the different paradigma's in any meaningful way.
The problem with universal ideologies is that they feel they have the final superior overview regarding the whole spectrum of other ideologies.
But who is qualified or capable of making the ultimate overview?
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Could you or a moderator please kindly check the source of this post as I do not believe I wrote what is quoted as ‘lover of humanity’. I would never have written such a thing or it has been misquoted out of context. I have a deep respect for all faiths but do apologise if I have.
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loverofhumanity said: ↑
So this belief is unique to the small and insignificant Baha'i faith, and not common to mankind at all, as you insinuate. For a faith that preaches harmony, you guys sure know how to insult other religions.”
This is clearly cut and pasted from someone else’s post and presented as if I wrote it. I must submit it for moderating as these are not my words yet quoted as being my words???
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Many thanks.
River Sea
Well-Known Member
- Have you ever heard of Krishna, who is similar to Moses? Ram or Rama, similar to Abraham? If you have, can you tell me the similarities?
- Oh, I recently learned about the Hindu language, I understand why "Rama Ram" and "Yadava Yadav" are the same word. It's because the letter "a" can be at the end of the word or not, and both are the same word.
There aren't any. They aren't "similar." Two entirely different paradigms.
"The Hindu language"? There is more than one.
If you mean Hindi, as I understand it, the schwa ("a" at the end of the word) is deleted. I may be wrong, but I don't think it's optional in Sanskrit.
Correct on both counts. The schwa is dropped at the end of words in Hindi, and at times within a word, such as Bhagwan instead of the Sanskrit Bhagawan. Or Devnagari instead of Devanagari. The only time it’s not dropped is when it makes the word rather awkward to pronounce ie Krishn or another name of his Kanha, does not become Kanh. In Sanskrit it’s part of the inflectional system. It denotes masculine singular. Feminine singular would be Rādhā (raadhaa).
River Sea
Well-Known Member
- Yes, you're correct. Instead of typing "Hindi language," I wrote "Hindu language." How did I make that error and not see it?
- Is it common for people who know Hindi to also know Sanskrit, or do many people who know Hindi not know Sanskrit?
- @SalixIncendium can you tell me more about the different paradigms of Moses and Krishna?
- I enjoy psychoanalyzing; do you enjoy psychoanalyzing?
- I want to psychoanalyze Krishna and Moses and explore my imagination too?
- What was the purpose of stories that are passed down?
- What causes some stories to continue while others fade and no one knows about them?
- What would the world be like if no one passed down any stories?
- Why do humans pass down stories but animals do not?
- What are your opinions on Moses and Krishna killing a human? Moses killed a Mitsrite. Krishna killed Kamsa. Both fled; how come they are similar in this area?
- How did Moses and Krishna manage their spirituality?
- Did Moses and Krishna struggle and wrestle in their spirituality ever?
- What was Moses and Krishna's spiritual journey until they felt safe and could rest in their spirituality?
- How did killing affect or not affect? Why did Moses and Krishna flee run away, did they run from spirituality too or cling to spirituality all the more?
- Who did Moses and Krishna allow to teach them? Same God, same what?
- Where did these stories come from?
- Was Moses and Krishna's spirituality a personal relationship with what?
- What happens when people don't personalize their spirituality? Is that possible?
- I think it's ok to use my imagination to explore Moses and Krishna, or is imagination forbidden?
No, yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi#cite_note-de-37 However, Hindi has lost most of the extensive inflectional system of Sanskrit. This is not unlike Colloquial Latin and the modern Romance languages having lost the extensive grammatical inflections of Classical Latin.
Sanskrit is largely a liturgical language nowadays used in temples, home/personal worship, and such. Most people do not speak or understand it. Even when chanting prayers, hymns, mantras, most people do not know what the meanings are. So yeah, the question is why do it? Because it's less the meaning than the sound energy of the prayers, hymns, mantras.
That said, there is a town or two in India where Sanskrit is being revived as a spoken language, much as what happened with Hebrew. No one really knows how Biblical Hebrew sounded, likewise no one really knows how Vedic and Classical Sanskrit actually sounded, but enough linguistic work has been done to get a really super close approximation.
I hope that helps.
I'm going to jump in and again step on @SalixIncendium's toes to answer. The answer to all your questions is summed up thus, from the pov of a Vaishnava Hindu (devotee of Vishnu of whom Krishna is an incarnation).:
There is no comparison whatsoever between Krishna and Moses.
- Krishna: God. Incarnation of Vishnu, Lord of the Universe. That's it... He's God. He's what Abrahamics believe Yahweh is. He is not a prophet or messenger as the Baha'i propose. In fact, to Hindus that's offensive.
- Moses: Not God, a prophet, a messenger. A mortal.
Bharat Jhunjhunwala
TruthPrevails
Brahman or God is Spirit. Mortal human is flesh. The mortal human can connect upwards with Spirit. The Spirit can descend into a mortal human. Moses and Krishna were both mortal humans that connected with Spirit. Both were Spirit as well as mortal. Bible stresses the mortal aspect hence "Prophet." Hinduism stresses the Spirit aspect hence Brahman.
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
The OP was asking if Krishna was historical or mythical. I think the same can be asked about Moses. Too many things in the Bible story make Moses sound very much mythical. But even in the Bible stories, nothing makes him out to be more than a human. Krishna is made out to be an incarnation, isn't he? So, if by chance they were both real, historical people, Krishna would be an incarnation of a God, and Moses would still be a human who was used by a God. If they were both mythical, then it doesn't matter. They were both fictional.
But then what's also important here is what the Baha'is say about them. And that is both were what Baha'is call "manifestations" of God. To do that, they make Moses more than just a human but also divine. And with Krishna, they take him from being a God to being a perfect reflection of the Abrahamic God but not God.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
Historic but not mythical. Referenced science ancient history causes.
Mind reviewing had not yet evolved healed to discuss it as a science concept. Rather than it being self human awareness life was changing.
Mind reviewing had not yet evolved healed to discuss it as a science concept. Rather than it being self human awareness life was changing.
No. And Yes. A comparison to Sanskrit and Hindi would be akin to a comparison between Latin and Spanish. The modern day language is a derivative of the more ancient tongue.
Putting it simply, Moses comes from an Abrahamic paradigm; Krishna from a Dharmic one. Moses was a messenger of God; Krishna was an incarnation of God. No similarities between them.
You are looking at it from the Baha’i and “New Age” pov that relegates Krishna to a messenger or prophet. Krishna has a mortal form but he is God who deliberately and consciously took birth. He took that form as a mortal human. Moses, is not svayam bhagavan. He is not Jagannatha. Moses didn’t consciously incarnate any more than I did, he was born just like you and I, and he and she, and they, our dogs and cats, bees, ie all living beings. Krishna says “I am the Ātman who is seated in the hearts of all beings …”. Moses nor any other being can say that, though Christians say that about Jesus. No comparison whatsoever between Krishna and Moses. My pov as a Vaishnava.