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Krishna, the other great incarnation of Vishnu, is one of the most conspicuous figures in the Indian pantheon, but his historical origin remains obscure.  The word which means black or dark blue occurs in the Rig Veda as the name of an otherwise unknown person.  In the Chandogya Upanishad,[366] Krishna, the son of Devaki, is mentioned as having been instructed by the sage Ghora of the Angirasa clan, and it is probably implied that Krishna too belonged to that clan.[367] Later sectarian writers never quote this verse, but their silence may be due to the fact that the Upanishad does not refer to Krishna as if he were a deity, and merely says that he received from Ghora instruction after which he never thirsted again.  The purport of it was that the sacrifice may be performed without rites, the various parts being typified by ordinary human actions, such as hunger, eating, laughter, liberality, righteousness, etc.  This doctrine has some resemblance to Buddhist language[368] and if this Krishna is really the ancient hero out of whom the later deity was evolved, there may be an allusion to some simple form of worship which rejected ceremonial and was practised by the tribes to whom Krishna belonged.  I shall recur to the question of these tribes and the Bhagavata sect below, but in this section I am concerned with the personality of Krishna.

Vasudeva is a well-known name of Krishna and a sutra of Panini,[369] especially if taken in conjunction with the comment of Patanjali, appears to assert that it is not a clan name but the name of a god.  If so Vasudeva must have been recognized as a god in the fourth century B.C.  He is mentioned in inscriptions which appear to date from about the second century B.C.[370] and in the last book of the Taittiriya Aranyaka,[371] which however is a later addition of uncertain date.

The name Krishna occurs in Buddhist writings in the form Kanha, phonetically equivalent to Krishna.  In the Digha Nikaya[372] we hear of the clan of the Kanhayanas (= Karshnayanas) and of one Kanha who became a great sage.  This person may be the Krishna of the Rig Veda, but there is no proof that he is the same as our Krishna.

The Ghata-Jataka (No. 454) gives an account of Krishna’s childhood and subsequent exploits which in many points corresponds with the Brahmanic legends of his life and contains several familiar incidents and names, such as Vasudeva, Baladeva, Kamsa.  Yet it presents many peculiarities and is either an independent version or a misrepresentation of a popular story that had wandered far from its home.  Jain tradition also shows that these tales were popular and were worked up into different forms, for the Jains have an elaborate system of ancient patriarchs which includes Vasudevas and Baladevas.  Krishna is the ninth of the Black Vasudevas[373] and is connected with Dvaravati or Dvaraka.  He will become the twelfth tirthankara of the next world-period and a similar position will be attained by Devaki, Rohini, Baladeva and Javakumara, all members of his family.  This is a striking proof of the popularity of the Krishna legend outside the Brahmanic religion.