LORD KRISHNA AND RAPED WOMEN

India is a land where almost all the Hindus worship Lord Krishna as God Incarnate and thousands of temples are erected across the land to worship him.

People know Lord Krishna to be God because he revealed Himself to be God in a massive revelation, written down in the Holy Geeta of the Hindus, in which the Lord showed that he was limitless and All powerful, Beyond Space and time, saying: "Behold! I am God without a beginning and without an end!" - as the entire Cosmos, all of space and time, all of creation and existence unfolded itself before the eyes of the beholder.

His miracles abounded as he healed countless suffering souls and raised many from the dead, as the melodies of his flute spread peace and love into the hearts of people, and as tears flowed down from his eyes for the sorrows of the world.

People still worship the Mountain, Mount Gobardhan which he lifted with his little finger to save a township from a terrible storm, and which was just one amongst his awesome miracles upon earth.

Invincible, and valiant, he was chivalrous to the extreme and respect and venerated womankind. His love story with his devotee and beloved, Radhe is immortalized in all the temples of India.

Yet far from asking people to love him, Lord Krishna would say:

"I love those who love each other more than I love those who love me!"

"He who sees me in everyone and everyone in me is never separate from me nor I from him!"

"Setting aside all other paths, seek thou a refuge in me!"

People offer prayers to him and get the answers they are seeking and feel his love and compassion come down to them and believe salvation to be a final union with him.

But there is an aspect of Lord Krishna which people here appear to have forgotten or not paid much attention to -- and which is so important in the context of the rape of women going on in the land.

There was a time when Lord Krishna waged war against one of the most evil kings of that time, Jarasandha. The man had plundered and pillaged many a kingdom.

It was said that he and his armies had imprisoned and raped several women over the years, all of who were rotting in his fortresses and prisons.

Lord Krishna heard of the plight of the imprisoned women and waged war against Jarasandha and defeated him. Thereafter he set the women free.

However the women told him that they were all going to drown themselves in the sea because they had been raped and dishonored by Jarasandha and his men.

Raped women were looked down upon as "fallen women" and no one would even come near them far less think of marrying them. In fact their entire lives were ruined, to be lived in ignominy and disgrace. So they had decided to commit mass suicide.

Lord Krishna who was the living epitome of Love and Compassion and venerated women could not bear to see the women kill themselves.

In an unprecedented gesture, Lord Krishna declared that he was marrying all of them! That henceforth he would be known as their husband and that they would live in settlements that he would make for their habitation close to his palace.

And a mass marriage ceremony was performed, which was not just a symbolic marriage but a real ceremony with the proper chanting of Vedic rites by respectable pandits and priests. The aghast pandits and priests had no option but to obey Lord Krishna. Such a thing had never been done before. Lord Krishna had over- stepped the boundaries of accepted norms and religious customs.

Thereafter the raped and dishonored women lived lives of dignity and honor in the settlement made by Lord Krishna, under the divine shelter of Lord Krishna as their powerful husband till the end of their days.

When people look down upon any woman who has been raped and feel that she is not respectable enough to be married into a good household, then let them remember Lord Krishna and the supreme sacrifice he performed, to preserve the dignity and honor of womanhood.

And he did this at a time when he was worshiped as God Incarnate by many. He did not care what people would think or say about him or how history would look upon his act of merciful compassion.

People must remember their own legacy and the legacy that Lord Krishna left them of preserving the honor and dignity of women at all costs.

If nothing else, then let the rapists know that Lord Krishna will never forgive them for dishonoring women-- and they can expect his golden discus of annihilation to come at them in the end of days. Lord Krishna was not one to compromise with evil and always brought all evil doers to justice. Let all rapists in India remember that.