Table Of ContentKRISHNA GOPESHVARA
KRISHNA
GOPESHVARA
BOOK 1 OF THE LORD KRISHNA TRILOGY
THE TRUTH OF
VRISHNIS
Sanjay Dixit
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FOREWORD
Background of Krishṇa and the Mahabharata
The Mahabharata, for which Sri Krishṇa is the central figure, is the
great national epic of India going back over three thousand years. It is
one of the longest books in the world, with tremendous intricacy in its
stories, and has seen several additions and adaptations over the long
course of time. The Mahabharata is attributed to the sage and Vedic
compiler Vyaasa and no doubt has a core of his writing, but has been
amplified and commented upon by great thinkers and yogis not only
in India but extending to Indonesia and all the areas that Hindu
culture has influenced.
Sri Krishṇa is the dominant figure behind India’s profound yogic
civilization. He is the most famous of its many avatars and gurus, and
the most common figure in its many stories, poems, music, dance and
artistic depictions. Krishṇa is an iconic figure who has influenced the
entire world as one of humanity’s most important spiritual guides. His
Bhagavad Gita is the most central scripture and teaching of the Hindu
religion. Yet there is something profoundly human about Krishṇa as
well. His character engages all aspects of life, all fields of activity,
and has something for every type of individual. His solutions to life’s
difficulties are very practical on an outer level; yet direct us to our
own highest potentials, awakening our inner Self, not leaving us with
any external dogma to blindly accept.
Krishṇa is a monumental figure with many sides to his character
and a diverse life experience, far more so than any usual religious or
spiritual personage. Krishṇa is a sublime guru, master yogi, noble
king, skillful diplomat, determined warrior, and sensitive artist. His
wisdom is profound beyond limits providing the essence of the Vedas
and their Rishi vision. Yet his actions often present an enigma,
paradox and mystery, working through the dilemmas of human life in
a way that the human mind finds it difficult to comprehend.
Krishṇa’s behavior does not conform to any regulations,
stereotypes or dogmas, even what some may regard as the fixed rules
of the Vedas or Hindu law codes. He acts out of a direct insight
beyond the dichotomies of the human mind or any set code of
conduct. He recommends what is best possible in a given
circumstance, however difficult, rather than following a rigid ideal
beyond the practicalities of its application. He does not uphold any
mere abstract principles but draws from the very ground of existence
within us like a force of nature. He knows that life is an inner battle
between dharma and adharma and cannot be won by pity,
compromise or fear. He is a spiritual warrior above all, which is the
basis of his yoga, bhakti and Jnana, most eloquently taught on the
battlefield of Kurukshetra.
Krishṇa embodies the very abundance and mystery of life that
cannot be reduced to any pattern and does not follow any expected or
planned course. His way of action is dynamic, fluid and spontaneous,
not a repetition of the past. He shows us our highest human potential
with the skills and capacities that we can draw upon deep within us.
He guides us how to deal with the most problematical situations in a
transformative manner, pushing us beyond our ordinary human
choices. His thinking is always out of the box as it were.
As such, encountering Krishṇa in his many facets is certainly
daunting, particularly in this era of media stereotypes. It is easier to
focus on one side of Krishṇa only or to make him into a hagiographic
image in which we accept whatever he does as an article of faith,
rather than searching out the deeper wisdom behind his actions. But
to do so is to miss the real Krishṇa who is meant to challenge us to a
higher vision, not to make us feel safe in our mere human identity and
conventional role in society.
Sanjay Dixit
Sanjay Dixit has authored a unique new trilogy on Lord Krishṇa that
goes into the depths and embraces the paradoxes of Krishṇa’s life in a
way that is innovative and inspiring. He brings out the reality of
Krishṇa, both human and cosmic, for a new global era beyond all
dogmas of the past. It is a vast and daunting task that he has taken
upon himself to bring Krishṇa back to life as the master of all sides of
the human being and a guide for all aspects of society. He has the
insight and breadth of vision to address his topic in a way that brings
Krishṇa closer to us again today, not as some distant deity but as our
highest potential, our inner wisdom and capacity for ever new growth
and transformation.
Previous efforts to understand Krishṇa have often focused on one
side of the great master, whether it is devotional Bhakti, Vedantic
Jnana or integral Yoga, which certainly have their inestimable value.
Yet Krishṇa contains all of this wisdom and more and embraces their
application in a totally engaged human life, connecting with humanity
as a whole, young and old.
Notably Sanjay presents Krishṇa as a rationalist who teaches
people how to think and discern in order to uncover the right way of
action that is hidden behind the veil of appearances and the illusions
of the human mind. Yet his Krishṇa is no mere logician, much less an
atheist or agnostic, but one who realizes that true insight is born of
detached inquiry and sustained contemplation – which requires that
all questions and all possibilities are examined and given their due
before coming to a conclusion. The yogic vision is to integrate this
comprehensive examination into a clear focus and sharp and decisive
judgment, which is Krishṇa’s art of karma yoga. This rational image
of Krishṇa is particularly relevant today in our age of science when
the yogic science of consciousness must be understood not just as a
way of understanding the cosmos but also of dealing with our
complex human problems in the context of global technology.
Sanjay Dixit introduces his new vast Trilogy on Lord Krishṇa,
starting with the first volume of Krishṇa Gopeshvara, Krishṇa, the
lord of the Gopis. As the title suggests, the book deals with the
background and early life of Krishṇa. Yet it is much more than
Krishṇa’s interaction with the Gopis in the usual sense, or a recount
of Puranic accounts or that of Srimad Bhagavatam. His Radha is an
adept Yogini, not simply a devotional or romantic image, a character
with as much depth, refinement and as many nuances as Sri Krishṇa
himself. Her depiction reveals Yoga as an inner art and science of life
and nature, much like Krishṇa’s approach. Radha reflects Krishṇa’s
Shakti, exuberance, lila and ananda but as a power of awareness, not
merely as an outer expression.
Dixit provides a new and profound depiction of Krishṇa and the
very different times in which he lived. His is an action packed book
that takes us back to the ancient drama of an earlier Vedic era of
history that few today can understand or even recognize. His is a
detailed account of a remote epochal era of warriors and yogis, yet
complete with literary flourish, engaging dialogues, spiritual secrets
and deeper philosophical teachings.
Like that of Vyāsa, his Krishṇa is a master of all aspects of life,
action, thought and awareness. Like Vyāsa he portrays the princes of
the Mahabharata era as great figures in certain ways but with
notable, sometimes extreme flaws that can have devastating negative
consequences. The whole of human psychology is laid bare, including
the inherent limitations of the human creature and the need to
transcend our human nature through developing a more focused
insight within us.
Dixit portrays how Krishṇa revived the eternal Vedic Dharma at a
period in which dogma was starting to enter into human society, and
drag down our inner aspiration into politics and prejudice, when
spiritual striving and world domination began to be confused in a
dangerous manner. He shows how in India this movement of religious
exclusivism in human thought and belief was turned away under the
guidance and inspiration of Krishṇa, whose life and character
represent an opposite pluralistic force of dialogue, debate, reason and
diversity of expression. It is always easier to repeat, follow and
propagate a belief than to deeply examine the ignorance and
contradictions within us and look for a real development of inner
wisdom at an individual level. Krishṇa teaches us this way of Self-
actualization and Self-realization by example and experience, not by
asking us to merely imitate him or adulate his human personality.
Historical Fiction in India
Yet Dixit’s marvelous book does not attempt a factual retelling of the
Mahabharata, or try to be an historical account according to modern
standards for which the outer physical person is the real concern. It is
not a search for the historical Krishṇa but for the Krishṇa that is
relevant to all of us as our inner guide. The idea of such historical
fiction is not new in Indian thought and is common in all of world
literature. In India we find many different versions of the Ramayana
and many variations on the sacred stories of Hindu deities, such as
abound in the Puranas. Even the life of the Buddha is not an example
of historical precision but the portrayal of a great ideal. Indic thought
does contain its long lists of kings and dynasties, longer than any
other country’s records, showing a historical continuity, but how great
figures impact humanity is more important than the actual events of
their outer lives, which are elusive to prove in any case.
The Indian mind has never been trapped in physical reality or
bodily identity, looking for a mere literal time-space portrayal of life
as the final truth of our existence or our characters. The Hindu mind
sees the world as Maya, an appearance or veil, behind which obscure
and transcendent forces are operating beyond the constraints of
human logic or any mere creaturely concerns. Yet that Maya is also a
Lila or Divine play devised to impel us into a deeper level of
consciousness, which begins when we learn to question the reality of
our world and ourselves.
We see the same factors of diversity in Indian art where each deity
has innumerable names and a number of portrayals and depictions.
There is no sword of dogma, on one hand, or need to conform to
physical reality, on the other, which limits the Indian imagination.
Nor is there any mere mundane sense of history that places
economics and politics over human aspiration. Hindu thought knows
that our human nature can only be transcended by great effort over
many lifetimes. Each life story is a lesson for all to learn from, and
many of these lessons are poignant, if not painful.
The Hindu storyteller must bring the ancient story and its
characters alive in a new and engaging manner, without losing the
essence of truth and dharma behind the lives of its characters.
Krishṇa as Yogeshwar, the Lord of Yoga, offers many options in this
creative process. Sanjay explores these different aspects of Krishṇa in
the different layers of the tapestry of his book.
Vyāsa in the Mahabharata was not concerned with mere
hagiography but of showing all the sides of a person, including
characters like Bhishma that had both monumental wisdom and great
personal failings. Sanjay takes the same view of exposing and
revealing our human nature, so that its potential for further growth
and evolution can be uncovered and promoted. He begins not simply
with the birth of Krishṇa but first sets the stage with the fascinating
variety of characters, situations and alliances that made up the world
in which Krishṇa had to act.
There is a richness and complexity to Dixit’s thought and
presentation. He makes both the background and circumstances of
Krishṇa’s life alive for us. He shows India in the ancient world
according to its own vision, lifestyle and values. He is not using
Krishṇa’s story to promote one way of looking at life or to uphold
one philosophy or another. He is not interpreting Krishṇa according
to outside values or western intellectual concerns of our times. He
shows the continuity of India’s own tradition of story telling and
historical depiction, compared to which the western historical
accounts seem mundane, spiritually naïve and blind to the importance
of karma, trapped in an outer vision of life.
To put it in modern terms, Krishṇa was concerned not with getting
a Nobel Peace Prize for himself in his actions but with thoroughly
eradicating as much as possible ignorance and evil from the minds
and hearts of the people around him, with no sympathy or
compromise with the forces of adharma. He was not afraid of death or
even human suffering, but knew that falsehood, deception, dogma and
egoism could not be tolerated and could not be removed by mere
half-measures.
