battle-field of Kurukshetra. For eighteen days the battle rages till
finally the Pandavas are victorious. Their success, however, is at an
appalling cost. During the contest all five Pandavas lose their sons. The
hundred sons of their rival, the blind king Dhritarashtra, are dead and
with a sense of tragic futility, the epic ends.

It is as an actor in this tangled drama that Krishna appears. Alongside
the Pandavas and the Kauravas in Northern India is a powerful people, the
Yadavas. They live by grazing cattle but possess towns including a
capital, the city of Dwarka in Western India. At this capital resides
their ruler or king and with him is a powerful prince, Krishna. This
Krishna is related to the rival families, for his father, Vasudeva, is
brother of Kunti, the Pandavas' mother. From the outset, therefore, he is
placed in intimate proximity to the chief protagonists. For the moment,
however, he himself is not involved and it is only after the Pandavas have
gone into exile and reached the kingdom of Panchala that he makes his
entrance. The occasion is the archery contest for the hand of Draupadi.
Krishna is there as an honoured guest and when Arjuna makes the winning
shot, he immediately recognizes the five Pandavas as his kinsmen although
as refugees they are still disguised as Brahmans. When the assembled
princes angrily protest at Draupadi's union with a Brahman, and seem about
to fight, Krishna intervenes and persuades them to accept the decision.
Later he secretly meets the Pandavas and sends them wedding presents.
Already, therefore, he is fulfilling a significant role. He is a powerful
leader, a relative of the central figures and if only because the feud is
not his own, he is above the conflict and to some extent capable of
influencing its outcome.

His next appearance brings him closer still to the Pandavas. When Arjuna
is exiled for his breach of marriage etiquette, he visits Krishna in his