Actually, the date of Krishna was probably, at the latest, around 1500 BCE, if not earlier. Krishna’s city of
Dwarka might have been recently located, in a now-submerged locality off the coast of western India.
Actually, if Krishna’s birth was was circa 3500 or 1500 BC (the earlier date ALSO from a Hindu source-claim, so which one do we go on???) is immaterial–either one is non historical. The Indians were not writing any decipherable texts for us to say “there he (Krishna) is!” There were probably mythic tales of some pre 1200 BC folk hero who may have been called Krishna–who like all mythic characters is “long ago and far, far away” (maybe the land of
Far Far Away from
Shrek II?) In fact, the child tales of Krishna are really in the same order of Herakles (Hercules), what with stealing butter, moving mountains, and of course multiplying himself for all those Gopis (milkmaids),
Literally ANYBODY can take a folk tale and attach all sorts of things to it–to amuse people, to instruct them, and to promote a social–or religious agenda. And the Vedic literature is rife with that sort of embellishment–placing all sorts of religious claims on non verifiable events–
and projecting long later ananchronisms of society and technology into far earlier times.
That last deserves a bit of explanation–in the
Mahabarata, where Krishna plays a significant part, we have described a magnified post 1200 BC civilization–what with steel weapons, chariot mounted archery using nobility, etc…things utterly absent from pre-1200 indian civilization–at least as far as archaelogy has been able to coraborate. In some ways, the pre-1200 Indian civilizations of india were better than contemporary Sumer–they had efficient sewers and public baths–but in
no way were they a civilization that could have fielded the multiple-million man armies (both sides) described in the
Mahabarata. If the
Book of Mormon falls flat on this claim so does the
Mahabarata.
In short, Jesus of Nazareth is historical, the gospels are historical. Krishna and the Vedas are not.
Devotion to Krishna need not be based on a literalistic reading of any Hindu text. Indeed, it’s the living example of the Sat-Guru, the Jivanmukta, or the Paramahansa who verify the reality that Avatars such as Krishna or Rama embody.