|| Doubts and Discussions Thread: Shri Krishna || - Page 4

thanks for the thread Janu di! <3

Proteeti, can you make this thread sticky?

If it gets pushed down then sure will. 😳

Thanks

Right now, I've just completed watching the Paundrak saga.

Two questions I have here about Dwaraka's political setting:

• Ever since the Dwarka move, they showed Krishna as the king of Dwarka.  But when did the political scenario change after the move from Mathura?  As is well known, Krishna had Ugrasena reinstated as king, and Ugrasena remained that upto the Yadava fratricide.  When Arjun was doing the Ashwamedha yagna and some Yadavas captured the horse, he persuaded Ugrasena and Vasudeva to get the horse freed, since he didn't wanna go to war w/ Dwarka
• In the Syamantaka gem episode, they showed Satyajit getting his gem from his land, and then presenting the gold from it to his admirers.  (In fact, Satyajit, who was a great Surya bhakt, got it as a boon from Surya-dev).  That created a commotion in the court, and a demand/expectation that Satyajit turn that gem over to the Dwarka king so that it benefits all of Dwarka.  Satyajit of course refused, and Krishna persuaded his court that that gem belongs to Satyajit since he got it from his land.

So where did this idea come from that Dwarka was a socialist kingdom, where everybody's property belonged to the king?  It couldn't have been as prosperous as it was had that actually been the case: it was prosperous b'cos everybody owned their property and everything it yielded.  And in Satyajit's case, since he actually got it as a boon from Surya-dev, it was even more inarguably his: boons weren't transferable b/w people, and that's what that Syamantaka gem was.

Another question: after Krishna lifted and then restored the Govardhan hill/mountain, did he and Indra have any discussion about supporting Arjun?  I didn't see that anywhere in the SB chapter about it!

Krishna was never the King of Dwaraka, but he was considered its 'lord and protector' and thus called Dwarakadheesh. But Ugrasena was the official 'King', the one who never died no matter how old he got, lol. He was alive even when Krishna's great-grandson was born. 🤪 I wonder if Kamsa ever knew how long his father would actually live, he'd have gone after him and not Devaki. 😲

They did. That part is true. I think this might be from one of the other versions, either Vishnu puraan or Harivamsa, if not SB. 

Indra asks Krishna to support Arjuna, as he supported 'Surya putra Sugriva' in his previous avatar, and thus he owed it to Indra to support Indra putra Arjuna in current avatar. 

A few more things that I noticed that were weird once I got to think about it:

• Revathy's marriage to Balarama is shown, but that's a cameo appearance by Revathy and Revat.  Whenever they showed family moments in Dwarka, like say Krishna bringing back his 6 brothers and they showed Rukmini and Balarama w/ them, shouldn't Revathy have been there as well?  Or when Balarama was raging against Paundrak, there was no Revathy to discuss that w/ him, even though Rukmini was there at Krishna's side?
  
• After Krishna defeats Rukmi, absolutely nothing is shown about Krishna's nuptuals w/ Rukmini.  For a serial about Krishna, doesn't that look like a major oversight?  Yeah, it doesn't have to take a full week's of episodes like Dwarkadheesh, but I'd have thought that an hourlong episode might have been worth it.  It could also have shown been some sort of a send-off for the earlier cast of the serial - Vasudev, Devaki, Rohini, Nanda, Yashoda, Ugrasena, et al.
• The only times Jambavati and Satyabhama are shown is up to the Tulabharam episode, after which they completely disappear.  Also, the serial skips Krishna's marriages to Naraka's 16,100 captives
  

The show didn't handle Krishna's older life very well. It focused more on MB, possibly to rival BRC's MB which was its predecessor, but in the process it didn't do justice to Krishna, who the serial was about. It didn't focus on his family and his own story, like the earlier part of the show did. Even though Rukmini is shown throughout the show, her character becomes very boring. All she does is stand as a showpiece to Krishna, agree with everything he says, and smiles the whole time. She doesn't add anything to the story. The Rukmini, Jambavati, Satyabhama stories were interesting (up to a point) only until the birth of Pradyumna. Afterwards, they more or less disappeared.

True!

Also, I was watching the episode about Krishna's first battle w/ Jarasandha.  One thing that struck me about that divine chariot that came down from the sky and was there at the service of Balarama and Krishna:

• Was Daruka divine as well - they showed him come down from heaven, along w/ the chariots?
• When did Krishna send those chariots and weapons back?  He kept  them ever since.  In MB, in Mausala Parva, it describes how all of Krishna's accessories - his divine chariot, his sudarshan and everything else - he suddenly lost all of them in the run-up to the fratricide.  In other words, he couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted

Also, why would Jarasandha want Balarama's head as well, since Krishna was the only one who killed Kansa, and the war was fought to avenge Asti/Prapti's plight