Professor Goldstucker says [**] that this "is the most interesting incarnation of Vishnu, both on account of the opportunity which it affords to trace in Hindu antiquity the gradual transformation of mortal heroes into representatives of a god; and on account of the numerous legends connected with it, as well as the influence which it exercised on the Vaishnava cult. In the Mahabharata, Krishna--which literally means 'the black or dark one'

--is sometimes represented as rendering homage to Siva, and therefore acknowledging his own inferiority to that deity, or as recommending the worship of lima, the consort of Siva, and as receiving boons from both these deities. In some passages, again, he bears merely the

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THE KRISHNA AVATARA.

character of a hero endowed with extraordinary powers, and in others his divine nature is even disputed or denied by adversaries, though they are eventually punished for this unbelief. As the intimate ally of Arjuna, he claims the rank of the supreme deity; but

there are other passages, again, in the Mahabharata in which the same claim of Siva is admitted, and an attempt is made at compromising their rival claims, by declaring both deities one and the same. Sometimes, moreover, Krishna is in this Epos declared to represent merely a very small portion--'a portion of a portion,' as it is called--of the divine essence of Vishnu. In the Mahabharata, therefore, which is silent also; regarding many adventures in Krishna's life fully detailed in the Puranas, the worship of Vishnu in this incarnation was by no means so generally admitted or settled as it is in many Puranas of the Vaishnait sect; nor was there at that period that consistency in the conception of a Krishna Avatara, which is traceable in the later works."

In the "Prem Sagar," the Hindi version of the "Bhagavata Purana," is the following account of the object of this incarnation. A king of Mathura, named Ugrasena, had a beautiful wife, who was barren. One day, when walking in a wood, she lost her companions; and when alone, a demon becoming enamoured of her assumed her husband's form, and as a result a son was born, who was named Kansa. When a mere child Kansa manifested a most cruel disposition--his great delight being to catch and kill children--and he grew up to be a source of sorrow to his father, family, and country. He advised his father to give up the worship of Rama, the god of his race; and to call in secret only on Mahadeva (Siva). His father replied with sorrow: "Rama is my lord, and the dispeller of my grief; if I do not worship him, how shall I as a sinful man cross over the sea of the world?" Kanza hearing this, dethroned his father, and having usurped his place issued a proclamation throughout his dominions forbidding men to worship Rama, and commanding them to reverence Siva;