Krishnavatara
Krishnavatara (Hindi: कृष्णअवतार) is a series of seven novels written by Dr. K.M. Munshi. A projected eighth novel was not completed. The series is based on life of Lord Krishna and the epic Mahabharata.
About Krishnavatara [1]
“ | Shri Krishna!--what a name to conjure with! Every mother or father of a child, every boy or girl who has a playmate, every lover who has a beloved, every soldier who has an enemy to fight, every king who has a political opponent, every aspirant who has a spiritual goal, every yogi who seeks kaivalya--every one in India--thinks of Shri Krishna as the perfection. Hindu life is woven with the memory of Lord Krishna and with Truth, Love and Beauty he stands for. | ” |
reads the preface to the series.
It goes on to say: "Krishna literature has grown since it first took definite shape in Mahabharata, then in Harivamsha and Vishnu Purana, and was elaborated in Shrimad Bhagavata and other Puranas. To this literature in Sanskrit has been added other literature, for the story of his life has been told in epic, song and story by thousands of poets in every Indian language for centuries. In the course of being so told, Shri Krishna has come to be invested with traits and credited with exploits of such divergent nature that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for a reader to have a clear picture of the Krishna as he was known by his contemporaries."
"In making this attempt to divest his personality of later accretions, Munshi has sifted the available Krishna literature in Sanskrit to find the Krishna as he must have lived. Then, with the aid of his creative imagination, he has woven the essential events of his life with romance, to present in this work, Shri Krishna at once as a man, a superman and God. What was, according to Bhagavata, the story of God who had come to the world as a man, has become, in Munshiji's hands, the fascinating story of a man who became God."
The series[2]
- Krishnavatara I: The Magic Flute
- Krishnavatara II: The Wrath of an Emperor
- Krishnavatara III: The Five Brothers
- Krishnavatara IV: The Book of Bhima
- Krishnavatara V: The Book of Satyabhama
- Krishnavatara VI: The Book of Vedavyaasa The Master
- Krishnavatara VII: The Book of Yudhishthira
- Krishnavatara VIII: The Book of Kurukshetra (incomplete)