The similarities between Krishna and Christ have captured the attention of scholars for years. The initial reaction by scholars like Weber and Hopkins was to suggest that the Krishna legends copied earlier Christian stories; and for good reason, because the Krishna legends most similar to Christ were developed after Christ. Raychaudhuri in his book Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect states on page 3, “I have then tried to show that this Bhakti religion is not a plagiarism from Christianty, but owes its origin to Vasudeva.” Raychaudhuri successfully does this in his book, but in the process, inadvertently destroys any hope an anti-Christian copycat theorist might have at proving Christianity to be a plagiarism from Vaishnavism. He quotes Weber on page 86, saying, “Weber adds that ‘in the train of the birth-day festival we must suppose that other legendary matters came to India which are found in the accounts of the Harivamsa, of the Jaimini Bharata, and in some interpolated passages of the Mahabharata, in the Puranas, especially in the Bhagavata Purana and its offshoots which describe and embellish the birth and childhood of Krishna with notices which remind us irresistibly of Christian legends. Take, for example, the statement of the Vishnu Purana that Nanda, the foster-father of Krishna, at the time of the latter’s birth, went with his pregnant wife Yasoda to Mathura to pay taxes (paralleled in Luke 2:4-5) or the pictorial representation of the birth of Krishna in the cowstall or shepherd’s hut, that corresponds to the manger, and of the shepherds, shepherdesses, the ox and the ass that stand round the woman as she sleeps peacefully on her couch without fear of danger. Then the stories of the persecutions of Kamsa, of the massacre of the innocents (babies), of the passage across the river (Christophoros), of the wonderful deeds of the child, of the healing-virtue of the water in which he was washed, etc., etc. Whether the accounts given in the Jaimini Bharata of the raising to life by Krishna of the dead son of Duhsala, of the cure of Kubja, of her pouring a vessel of ointment over him, of the power of his look to take away sin, and other subjects of the kind came to India in the same connection with the birth-day festival may remain an open question.’”
Dating the Krishna Related Writings
To solve the question, it is necessary to date the legends. In order to do this it is necessary to realize the historical situation in India. The religion of the Bhagavadas, a devotional creed to Vasudeva, probably emerged before the 400’s BC (Raychaudhuri, 13, 18) In the 330’s BC, Greek influence spread as Alexander swept across Persia. The middle half of the 200’s BC was the reign of Asoka, in which Buddhism became the state religion. The Buddhist antagonism towards the Brahman priesthood and the caste system caused religious tension between Buddhists and Hindus. This tension continued for centuries. Differing sects such as the Jains, Saivists, and Buddhists challenged the old Vedic Hinduism. Finally, towards the beginning of the Gupta dynasty in the 300’s AD, a new form of Hinduism triumphed and the Vaishnava faith became standardized from a plethora of various religious groups. It is generally agreed by most scholars that the Hindu texts dealing with Krishna’s legend did not reach their final form until halfway through the Gupta dynasty sometime around 350 – 500 AD. Most of them were not even written until this time. We will investigate the works that contain the Krishna legend as follows:
Vishnu Purana: This work contains the geneology of the Gupta kings, and therefore could not have been finalized before 320 AD. Hazra is positive the date of this purana is between 275 – 325 AD, while Winternitz agrees it is not later than the 400’s. (Jaiswal, 17) Others agree it was probably written between 300 – 400 AD. (sdmart.com) Raychaudhuri agrees that it was probably written between 320 – 355 AD, and goes further by saying that the puranas that relate the Krishna story cannot be placed much before the Gupta kings, since the geneology of those kings is included. (Raychaudhuri, 91, 42)
Bhagavata Purana: Hazra points out that the Vishnu Purana is a source for the Bhagavata Purana and believes its date to be between 500 – 550 AD, despite many who believe the date should be even later. It embellishes the Vishnu Purana and is the most complete biography of Krishna. Another generally accepted date for it is 800 – 1000 AD. (sdmart.org) It includes myths about all ten of Vishnu’s avatars.
Harivamsa: The work was revised and changed numerous times and adopted its current form sometime around 400 AD. (Jaiswal, 16) It was added to the Mahabharata between 300-400 AD. It tells the story of Krishna as a youth. (sdmart.com)
The Bhagavad Gita: The Only pre-Christian Writing about Krishna
Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita: The Mahabharata was an evolving work that probably started sometime in the 200’s BC and ended in the 400’s AD. The work was constantly being added to, and it was corrupted so badly that we cannot be sure words were not interpolated hundreds of years later. The Bhagavad Gita is part of the Mahabharata and is thought by many to be written sometime around 200 - 300 BC. The familiarity with the Greeks as “famous fighters” places the Mahabharata after Alexander, and its alarm at the Buddhist edukas replacing Hindu temples makes a date around the time of Asoka likely. The Romans are mentioned only in passing in a list of possible peoples, thus placing the epic probably before the time of Rome’s greatness. (Raychaudhuri, 41, 42, 32) Nevertheless, many still consider a post-Christian date for the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita possible in the range of 200 BC – 200 AD. (Banerjee, 45) Pisani puts forward a strong argument that the Mahabharata was written between 100 - 300 AD, because it mentions Sakas (Scythians) who invaded around then, Parthians (Pahlavas) who had gained their independence from the Greeks, Huns (Hunas), and Romans (Romakas) who they had not established contact with before the time of Augustus. However, Moti Chandra states that the Hunas were really the Hiungnu, not the Huns, and that India could have heard legends about all these groups previous to contact. Furthermore, he points out that the Mahabharata mentions Antiochus, who ruled the Seleucids Empire in the 100’s BC. Moti Chandra dates it in the 100’s BC. The growing consensus for the Bhagavad Gita seems to be it was written in the 100’s BC, although some scholars place it earlier than that. In any case, the Mahabharata was badly corrupted after its initial writing. (Jaiswal, 12,13) The pre-Christian date of the Bhagavad Gita is only a small victory for christmythers. Although the Bhagavad Gita contains general metaphorical similarities to Christ’s discourses (especially as it relates to John’s gospel), there are no strong parallels with Christian legend that would indicate two legends evolved from the same story. Stronger parallels occur in the much later works mentioned above. In fact, all of the parallels mentioned below by the christmyth theorists come from post-Bhagavad Gita and post-Christian sources, with the exception of Krishna calling himself the “light” and the “beginning, middle, and the end,” a claim Krishna put forward in the Bhagavad Gita.
The Origins of Krishna Worship
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