krishna had 16000+ wives.....?

[vinay]

it is said that krishna had 16000+ wives. is it true? is there any mention of this in the scriptures?

and what are we supposed tio imbibe from this?

 

[Sirona]

Yes it is true. It appears several times in the Bhagavatam.

I think there are two ways of interpreting it:

(1) Powerful men have many women and because Krishna is the most Powerful he has really a lot of women.

(2) A relation between a man and a woman is by its very nature something that excludes others. However, from the Gita we learn that Krishna is not prejudiced or discriminating against anyone because of what they are. So if several souls desire to adopt a lover's attitude towards the Lord he rejects no one. Anyway one should also take into consideration the rasa-lila. Krishna was dancing with 108 gopis at the same time while each gopi perceived he was dancing with her only. While Krishna was living with his 16108 princesses he manifested 16108 times his form so every wife could have her own husband. The women were not living together in a harem but they had their own homes respectively.

If mystical souls desire to be loved by God He does not pick one to leave the others behind. Instead He becomes the Lover of them all.

 

Last but not least: Krishna freed the princesses who were kept as prisoners by a demon. According to harsh Indian moral standards they could not marry any more after their liberation because they were considered "impure". Krishna's act of marrying them was an act of great compassion to save them from loss of social status leading to misery. And don't forget they were all in love with him what brings us back to the topic of loving God.

 

 

 

 

 

[leyh]

Vinay:

The following is an excerpt from Krsna --- The Supreme Personality of Godhead,also known as the "Krsna Book" (you can read the entire Krsna Book online at www.krsnabook.com) The "Krsna Book" is by His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (Founder-acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) and the following excerpt might be of some help to you in understanding why Krsna had 16,108 wives.

 

The Supreme Personality of Godhead Krsna certainly has no business being anyone's husband or son or father, because everything belongs to Him and everyone is under His control. He does not require anyone's help for His satisfaction. He is atmarama, self-satisfied; He can derive all pleasure by Himself, without anyone's help. When the Lord descends to play the part of a human being, He plays a role either as a husband, son, friend or enemy, in full perfection. As such, when He was playing as the perfect husband of the queens, especially of Rukminiji, He enjoyed conjugal love in complete perfection.

 

According to Vedic culture, although polygamy is allowed, none of the wives should be ill-treated. In other words, one may take many wives only if he is able to satisfy all of them equally as an ideal householder; otherwise it is not allowed. Lord Krsna is the world-teacher; therefore, even though He had no need for a wife, He expanded Himself into as many forms as He had wives, and He lived with them as an ideal householder, observing the regulative principles, rules and commitments in accordance with the Vedic injunctions and the social laws and customs of society. For each of His 16,108 wives, He simultaneously maintained different palaces, different establishments and different atmospheres. Thus the Lord, although one, exhibited Himself as 16,108 ideal householders.

 

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of the Sixtieth Chapter of Krsna, "Talks Between Krsna and Rukmini."

 

 

[This message has been edited by leyh (edited 12-11-2001).]

[shvu]

it is said that krishna had 16000+ wives. is it true?

Well, nobody knows the answer to that.

 

is there any mention of this in the scriptures?

The Mahabharata, the oldest source for Krishna does not say he had 16000 wives. Next came the Vishnu Purana and again, no mention of 16000 wives. Then came the Bhagavatam and now he had 16000+ wives. So the answer to your question is, yes and no.

 

..and what are we supposed to imbibe from this?

The 16000+ wives by itself, has no significance and so there is nothing to be imbibed from it. The Bhagavatam is about describing glories of Krishna and to understand that, you will have to study the text in full.

 

Cheers

 

[stonehearted]

Originally posted by shvu:

The 16000+ wives by itself, has no significance and so there is nothing to be imbibed from it. The Bhagavatam is about describing glories of Krishna and to understand that, you will have to study the text in full.

Cheers

stone: Ditto to the last sentence; the only way to really understand the Bhagavatam is to study it in full. I would add one thing: we are best served by studying it under the guidance of a competent professor of the subject matter--a spiritual master.

 

One thing we can understand from Krishna's marrying over 16,000 wives is that he is not one of us. The Bhagavatam says that Krishna was able to interact individually with each of his wives simultaneously and completely satisfy them in every way. If any of us can do so with just one spouse, we're considered extraordinary. Devotional students of the Bhagavatam accept this as evidence of Krishna's position as the Supreme Person.

 

 

[This message has been edited by stonehearted (edited 12-11-2001).]

[karthik_v]

Originally posted by shvu:

The 16000+ wives by itself, has no significance and so there is nothing to be imbibed from it. The Bhagavatam is about describing glories of Krishna and to understand that, you will have to study the text in full.Cheers

Excellent Shvu. It is not very often that I agree with you, but this time I do.

 

 

[Avinash]

I have read many objections against Hindu scriptures that these scriptures are obscene etc. etc. If we just read only a few sentences of the scriptures, then these objections seem to be correct. But if we read the books in totality, then we find that we were wrong. Irrespective of who wrote these books or when they were written, these are real classics. These books show both the literary mastery as well as greatness (as human beings) of those who authored these. As an example, just read in Ramayana, the dialogues between Rama and Sita, between Rama and Bharata and many other dialogues. All of these are full of great teachings. Also, the metaphors used in the shlokas are such that there is sublime poetic beauty in them. Those who have mastery over Sanskrit will appreciate this beauty more than others.

[Guest guest]

Sri Krishna has always been the supreme sympathiser for those who have been hurt.Narakasura had these 16,000 princes kidnapped.When krishna destroyed Narakasura, these women pleaded with our beloved lord sri krishna about their destiny and that's when sri krishna accepted them as his wives since then nobody would dare to speak about them having been imprisoned by narakasura.Such was the greatness of our lord sri krishna

[sushil_kanoria]

Hari Bol,

 

After reading all the scriptures still people are confused, what is

right & what is not ??

This is because the srciptures are called Achintya(Inconcievable)

Thats why it is recommended to approach a bonafide spiritual

master, who will clear our doubts, just reading the scriptures

ourselves will not help us to understand everything.

When Ved-Vyasa confirms in the Bhagwatam that Lord Krishna has

16,000 plus wives, we have to accept it.

If we try to find out the answer just on our own, we will end nowhere

or rather say, just confusing our mind.

 

Hari Bol,

Sushil /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Abhishek]

There Are five Entities and they are "Jiva,Eshwara,Maya,Brahman,ParaBrahman".

Out of these five ParaBrahman is the Ultimate.Whan there was a need on the earth Parabrahman through his Shakti made an avtar of Krishna.So the fact that Krishna had 16000+ wives is true and they were not bodily related to him but related as devotees.They were such staunch devotees to him that when they asked him to show his abode Krishna did not show Golok But showed them the abode of Parabrahman.having so many wives is also a manushya Charitra done by lord.Krishna is not the ParaBrahman but is the form given by ParaBrahman Through his Shakti to kill Kans.

[Abhishek]

There Are five Entities and they are "Jiva,Eshwara,Maya,Brahman,ParaBrahman".

Out of these five ParaBrahman is the Ultimate.Whan there was a need on the earth Parabrahman through his Shakti made an avtar of Krishna.So the fact that Krishna had 16000+ wives is true and they were not bodily related to him but related as devotees.They were such staunch devotees to him that when they asked him to show his abode Krishna did not show Golok But showed them the abode of Parabrahman.having so many wives is also a manushya Charitra done by lord. Krishna is not the ParaBrahman but is the form given by ParaBrahman Through his Shakti to kill Kans.Only Radha's idol is placed beside Krishna Out 16000 wives because she was the best devotee of Krishna.If we become a devotee like Radha then only we can achieve Krishna.

[Guest guest]

There seems to be a terrible mistake in understanding the number of wives Krishna had. Perhaps one should ponder over such stories very carefully, before expressing his/her opinion about the same. When Krishna, killed Narakasur, there were many (over 16000) girls, languishing in Narakasur's jail. When Krishna released them and asked them to go home, they asked Him, where could they go as nobody would marry them. Krishna took pity on them and declared that, all those girls were his wives. However, the declaration was only for the sake of getting a good life for each of them and not for developing any conjugal relationship with each one. Thus because of His benevolence, the girls could lead a normal lives in the society.

[Eternal Law]

These 1600 souls were actually staunch devotees of Lord in previous births and their only wish was further devotion of Lord Krishna in his next human incarnation and symbolic marriage with God's next Human incarnation. So, God has to fulfill wish of his Staunch devotees and hence he did this lila.

[akshar]

When the demon on Godharvan hill caught all those women krishna freed them. He said to them from now on you are all my queens. If anyone dare raise a hand against you tell them we are krishna's queens. So he got 15,992 queens but he didn't persom marriage rites. He got 8 more queens who were maharanis when he was ruling dwarika. He got them defeating other kingdoms and things like that. I got that story from Bhupendrabhai Pandya

[vrajavasi]

Radhe Krishna

The complete krishna katha is found only in Shrimad Bhagavatham. To be precise, as per Shrimad Bhagavatham, Shri Krishna had 16008 wives. Starting from the vivaha of Rukmini, Shrimad Bhagavatham narrates in details the Ashta Mahishi vivaha. Shri Krishna married the first eight wives in the eight types of vaidika vivaha approved in scriptures for Kshathriyas.

In the 61st Adyaya of Dashmaskanda, it is described that the 16000 ladies married shri krishna.

Tathra Rajanya kanyaanaam shatsahasradhikayudham

Bhoumahathanaam vikramya rajabhyo dadhrushe hairhi 33

tam pravishtam sthriyo veekshya naraviram vimohithaha

manasa vavrire abheeshtam pathim daivopasadhitha 34

You will not find every incident in the avataraa of Shri krishna in every puraanaa or epic. But that can not be the basis for considering or not considering the incident, my dear friend shvu.

in the adyayas following, Shri Narada comes to see how shri krishna performs gruhastha dharma with all the 16008 wives and become astonished at shri krishna taking 16008 forms performing Deva pooja in one house, Agnihotram in another, Punyahavachanam in another house and so on and so forth.

The episode of shri krishna taking 16008 forms and performing gruhastha dharma in all the 16008 households - similar to what one could find in Raasaleela - taking that many number of forms as to that many number of Gopis in Raasa - These are amaanushya leela. Ofcourse, one can describe these episodes in a vedantic way - from Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and dvaita purports. But one need not even attempt to get any thread from these episodes for day to day mundane chores of humanbeings simply because these are Amaanushya leela.

Radhe Krishna

[hshk]

As per the story, Krishna married 16000 women who were kept in captivity by Narakasra, after Srikrishna killed him. All these stories have meanings behind them is what people fail to understand and they take it all in a materialistic way. From the social angle, Krishna was a samaja sudharaka (social activist) as otherwise, these women wouldn't had the respect in the society for no fault of theirs. From spiritual angle, Krishna is the internal soul in all and he possesses everything. One thing to note is that Srikrishna never married anyone with force and he married only because those girls were so much in love with him and won't settle for anything else.

 

Other misconcieved notion is that Krishna stole buter once he was a kid. The purpose behind that drama is to teach moms that they should feed their children first, before selling the milk/food in the market.

[Rupaar]

 

it is said that krishna had 16000+ wives. is it true? is there any mention of this in the scriptures?

and what are we supposed tio imbibe from this?

There is a total different meaning to 16000 wifes of Krishna.... My God, God father and Spiritual Master ... says ....

We have so many births... in different births we aspire god in different forms... but ultimately we all love god and want to merge with him......

In many births Sages who used to meditate for years to gether to get that love from God......

Krishna was full of love.... so those sages, devotees and who ever seeked Gods love in lover form was born as a female in Krishna Avatar.... so it is called as he was married to 16000 wifes....its just not 16000... it is much more....

Example for this is in Rama Avtar -- Jambavan was head of Bears... he used to love Rama that he wanted to hug him each time he saw.. but fearing that his body hair would poke Rama's soft body.... he didnt do it at all...

In Krishna Avatar, there is a substory that Krishna was blamed for stealing a bell .... in that when Krishna goes in search of it .... it finds it hanging in a bear's child cradle... when Krishna goes to take that .. That father of small bear comes and fights with Krishna for 10 days rolling and holding Krishna... then suddenly realises on 10th day that Krishna was not a human being... as no normal human being can fight with Jambavan for so many days...... then Krishna reveals that it was Jambavan's wish to (alinganam) hug him .... he had done this drama to satisfy Jambavan. This is a proof that whatever we wish and desire in one jenmma we carry forward it and get it satisfied in next one...

 

Ultimate thing is to not to wish and have desires in this world, to reach the lotus feet of GOD.

Thanks

[lou]

I found this nice explaination by Srila Prabhupada on youtube.. ''Again Become a Mouse'' by Srila Prabhupada.