176 REV. BICHARD COLLINS, M.A. 
Kshatriya father and a Brahman mother would scem to be an 
invention. ‘There is, again, the peculiar way in which 
Krishna is also made a relation of the Pandavas and 
Kauravas, which is very mysterious. ‘l'here is, moreover, a 
difficulty about Krishna’s raj, which is put, in the Maha- 
bharata, at Dwarak4, in Guzerat, 700 miles to the south of 
the site of the great war, and the capital of the Pandavas. 
Yet between these distant places communications are kept 
up between him and the great chiefs of the Mahabharata, 
The destruction of Dwaraké, too, after the war, with nearly 
all the Yddavas, and the death of Krishna himself by a 
passing hunter, are equally strange. 
29. Isit not more than probable that Krishna is an altogether 
imaginary person, introduced to give a new doctrine gleaned 
from the Christian story, as to the means of union with the 
divine? It is difficult to hide the suspicion that the very 
names, Krishna, Vasudeva (the divine Vasu), Devaki (the 
divine lady), and Yadu, may have been suggested by the 
names in the Christians’? account of Christ, the tribe of 
Yadavas being further suitable as a shepherd tribe, though 
ennobled, according to Hindu ideas, by the mythical descent 
from higher castes. These words are not mentioned as 
adaptations, but only as suggested. Krishna, meaning dark 
or black, may not have been an altogether uncommon name: 
there are still tribes in India who call their children by 
names indicating personal peculiarities: the Rishi Vyisa, the 
composer, or compiler, of the Mahibharata, was also called 
Krishna-Dwaipiyana (the Island-born Krishna)—there may 
have been many Krishnas; but if the name here was sug- 
gested by the name Christ, there is a difference of only 
one letter. Vasu, again, contains the same sounds inverted 
as Yoseph, or Yusaph. Devaki I have already explained; 
and Yadu is a singular echo of Yahudah. It may be merely 
a coincidence that the different names thus echo one another ; 
but if so, it is a very curious coincidence, and is not noticed 
here for the first time. 
30. It should, further, not be overlooked that Krishna is the 
vounger brother of Bala-Raima, who sometimes shares with 
himself the honour of being the eighth and last past avatar 
of Vishnu in the Hindu Pantheon. Why should such a 
discrepancy, or at any rate peculiarity, anywhere occur in 
Hindu mythology ? The sixth and seventh avatars of Vishnu 
are both Ramas. The sixth avatar is Parasu-Rama, Rama 
with the axe, the great hero of the Brahmans against the 
Kshatriyas. The seventh avatar is Rama-Chandra, the 
glorious Rama, the great hero of the Kshatriyas against 
