Kamsa
According to Hindu myths, Kamsa or Kansa ( Sanskrit कंस) was king of the north Indian city of Mathura . He was the brother of Princess Devaki , who later became the mother of Krishna . In the Puranas he is described as a demon ( asura ) .
myth
Kamsa was the son of a wandering demigod-like Gandharva who, in the guise of the Yadava king Ugrasena, had sexual intercourse with his wife Padmavati; after its completion, Devaki recognized the deception and cursed her son, who, however, grew into a being endowed with superhuman powers, who even took on the Vedic gods Indra , Varuna and Kubera . Later Kamsa married the daughters of Jarasandha, the king of Magadha he had defeated . On the advice of two shady advisers named Banasura and Narakasura , Kamsa subjugated his supposed father Ugrasena during the wedding celebrations. One day a heavenly voice prophesied that the eighth son of Devakis would one day kill him. He then had Devaki and her husband Vasudeva imprisoned and their first six sons killed. The unborn seventh son was saved by a trick; he was given the name Balarama . Her eighth son Krishna was brought into the care of the shepherd family, who had already taken in Balarama, in the village of Gokul, where both were raised by their foster parents - despite various stalkings by Kamsa and the demons he had sent.
When Krishna was old enough, he went to the royal court of Mathura, killed Kamsa, and reinstated Ugrasena as the rightful king.
literature
- Anneliese and Peter Keilhauer: The Imagery of Hinduism. The Indian world of gods and their symbolism. DuMont, Cologne 1983, pp. 98ff, ISBN 3-7701-1347-0 .
Web links
- Kamsa . Yogawiki