Rehan
Krishna was never found. According to the story, after Jara shot him in the foot, he was horrified @ what he had done and begged forgiveness, and Krishna forgave him. It's said the devas came and took him to Vaikuntha. Arjun never found his body, and did his shradh, along w/ the rest.
Isn't Sati technically the cremation of a widow on her husband's pyre? If that was the case, none of Krishna's wives committed it, since Krishna's body was never found, and he was never cremated. According to one account, before Arjun left Dwaraka, Vasudev & Ugrasena both took Agni-samadhi, as did all the wives. So can one say that Vasudev & Ugrasena committed Sati? But another account I read in the Bengali edition had all the wives leave w/ Arjun for Mathura/Indraprastha, and after arriving there, they followed certain options. Rukmini, Jambavati and a few of the 8 chief queens did cremate themselves, Satyabhama and a couple of others went into permanent vanvas, while the 16,100 wives that Krishna had after killing Narakasura drowned themselves in the river Saraswati. Essentially, the reason the wives ended their lives or went into vanvas was the same reason that the Pandavas abdicated after that and decided to go to swargalok - since the god was dead. (The practice of Sati didn't begin until medeaval times - if you recall, even during Harshavardhan's time, his sister Rajyashri attempted suicide in the fire to avoid getting molested by her husband's enemy, but since Harsha found her in time and assured her that the enemy had been killed, Rajyashri went w/ him to Kanauj, where Harsha succeeded her husband as the ruler)
On Rama, while Valmiki doesn't usually attribute miracles to Rama, he is pretty clear about
Rama being an avatar in 1:15. Check the reference yourself. Similarly, the stories of the first 6 (or 7, depending on how one counts them) avatars of Vishnu long preceded even the Dwapar Yuga.
P.S. Lalitha, I agree w/ Rehan. Yeah, Rama & Krishna may have been Vishnu, but while they were human, they went by the protocols of the society. So while Kaushalya may have worshipped Vishnu, she could never have worshipped Rama - that would have been preposterous. Same w/ Krishna vs Vasudev, Devaki & Balaram. He'd always respect them as elders, even if he was actually Vishnu, and unlike Rama, knew it! So if the shastras gave precedence to the elders in terms of succession, Krishna too would have followed it. Yeah, today, people worship Krishna but not Devaki. But that doesn't mean that Devaki worshipped Krishna, or that Krishna even allowed it. Vishnu touching Devaki's feet would have been sinful, but Krishna doing the same thing wouldn't.
However, after he killed Kamsa, he declined Ugrasena's offer of the throne, and returned it to him. And Ugrasena never died until the fracticide @ Purvasa, so the question of precedence never arose. And Vasudev & Balarama both passed on, as did Krishna, before any succession could be put together.
Edited by _Vrish_ - 12 years ago
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