Week 12 Reading: Epified Krishna videos, Part A

Image on Flickr

For this week’s free reading choice, I watched the Epified Krishna videos on YouTube. I had found these videos super helpful when studying the Mahabharata and thought that this would be a great way to learn some more about one of the most important characters in the epic. I like these videos because they go over important relationships and names of people and places, and the drawings are cute and provide a nice visual for the tales. I recommend turning on the captions when watching, as some of the Indian names are difficult to spell and remember.

From the first half of these videos, I was reminded about the events preceding the birth of Krishna, as well as his birth and his childhood. It was prophesied that King Kamsa of Mathura would be killed by his sister and brother-in-law’s eighth child. For this, he locked the two away for years. When the eighth child was born, the gods protected the husband, Vasudev, and instructed him to switch out the child, Krishna, for a newborn girl named Maya from a neighboring town. I did not remember the part about switching the children from reading the Mahabharata, so it was nice to be reminded in these videos.

I also liked learning about Krishna’s childhood with his “mother” Yashoda. When a demon goes to steal Krishna and breastfeed him poison, infant Krishna steals her power and she is killed. Krishna then grows up to be a trouble-making child, and Yashoda once scolds him for eating mud. When she looks inside his mouth, she sees the entire universe and her mind is so overpowered that she is almost lost when realizing the expanse of it. I thought about how amazing it would be to experience something so powerful and how shocked this normal mother must have been. Later, Krishna learns to play the flute. He defeats a powerful serpent by playing ominous music and dancing on its head, and this is how the townspeople know that he is an avatar.

I may write a story on Yashoda later in the week.

If you would like to watch these videos, click here: link.

“Epified Krishna .” YouTube, Epified.