Tales froM Indian Mythology

Author(s): A S Raman
Publisher: Kutub Popular

Page 64

The
Birth
of
Krishna
HOSE were dark, dreadful days. It was truly an age of anxiety, much like our own. Sin and savagery reigned supreme, and the end of the world seemed in sight. Though the absence of modern inventions necessarily limited the scope for man's madness, and localized his adventures, they basically remained almost as murderous as their contemporary variations. The difference, however, lay in the weapon with which the victims armed themselves—Faith. They would not surrender it in the worst of crises. For they knew they would ultimately triumph, as their forefathers, similarly armed, had done in the past. The incarnations of the Lord Vishnu, after all, had no other purpose but to wipe out the wicked and redeem the righteous.
It was Vaikuntha, the heavenly abode of the Supreme Prew.ver Vishnu. Reclining on the Sesha serpent, he was serd usly teasing his consort Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, amorónri softly stroking his tired feet. "Lakshmi,” he said, who was