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14. THE CONCEPT OF AVATARS
"The god Dionysos (later Bacchus) ... has conquered the East as far as the land where swarthy India is watered by remote Ganges' stream" [Cf. Met 94]. It implies that orgies in woods spread eastwards in antiquity. That could throw much suspicion on parts of the Krishna literature, for Hare Krishna is distinctly hailed for orgiastic dancing with females in the woods as well. There is a similarity between the rites dedicated to the Greek Bacchus and this practice, suffice to say. [Cf Sh] This will also explain the Heraklis (Hercules) as one of the gods of India as given by Megasthenes.
It is evident therefore that the current figure of Krishna is a composite of many gods joined together to form a single god. What we have seen is the generation of a deity collecting the lives and teachings and qualities of several heroes - Kings, War Heroes, Peace Makers, Play boys, Sex artists, philosophers, saints and sages - and dumped these mutually conflicting legends into one person with all the various names. This is also confirmed from the iconographic studies of Prof. Jain from which I quote relevant parts below:
Iconographic Perception of Krishna's Image Article of the Month - September 2004
by Prof. P. C. Jain http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/krishnaimage
The Growth of Krishna-cult
"Early references to Krishna, sometimes as Krishna Harita, a teacher of 'Yoga' and metaphysics, and sometimes as Devaki Krishna, a great philosopher, occur in Vedic literature itself, but it is in the Mahabharata that he appears with a fully evolved personality as a great warrior, strategist, diplomat and finally in his Vishwa-rupa, manifesting the cosmos in his form. He was seen as incarnating Vishnu, the supreme Lord of all gods and all beings with a rank and distinction above them all. In the course of time, this Brahmanical cult of God as king, or Lord, had to face the challenge from the fast growing radicalism of Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity and subsequently from Islam that perceived in an humble human born prophet the ultimate divinity effecting transcendence of whosoever was devoted to his teachings. This forced brahmanical scriptures, though they yet continued with their incarnation theory, to minimize, or rather to give up, in their depiction of Krishna, his king-like 'above common man status'. They devoted greater space, instead, in delineating his exploits against evil forces, eliminating Putana, Trinavarta, Kaliya, Shakata, Keshi and finally Kansa, all doing in human form.
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