Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens – Reasons, Family life & Members!
Actual Qns:
(1) “Hare Krishna anna. I wonder Krishna who preached bhagavad gita marrying thousands of women. My friends always ask this question to me. Please clear their doubt”
(2) Hare Krishna prabhu, recently I watched a movie on another religion and found that messenger of God had married nearly 50 females. Please clear my doubt by explaining why Krishna has 16,108 wives.
REPLY:
First, do not restrict Krishna within a particular religion. He is the PARAMATHMA and Supreme Personality of Godhead for entire creations. He does not belong to Hindus alone. He is beyond religions. Anyone can worship Krishna! He attracts everyone irrespective of religions.
Now, let us take the matter of Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens. The problem for innocent people is: They see every activity of Krishna “with a material angle comparing with the activities of human society and their own life style“.
(KRISHNA AVATAR -ALL DATES RELATED TO ALL THE LILAS! READ HERE!)
First I like to remind this fact: We are the conditioned souls. So, we marry a person UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF OUR KARMA. That means, ‘who should come as our wife/ husband’ is decided by our past karma. So, we are NOT independent. We can’t decide our future. Though we love a girl or boy, our karma decides whether we can marry her/ him. So, our options are limited. That is why, we find it difficult to peacefully live with even a single spouse.
But, Krishna is Independent and He is the source of karma network, but not controlled by the karma. He is the Supreme Lord who created all the creations (including those girls). So, all of us are the creations of Krishna. Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens is not for His pleasure. He Himself is the reservoir of pleasure. He does not need pleasure from outside. And, Krishna is 100% renounced that is one of His qualities. So, it is very childish to think that Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens is for His pleasure.
Krishna can be approached by His devotees in different moods. As a child, as a friend, as a guru, as a lover, etc.. Krishna accepts all the bhawas of His devotees. If you consider Krishna as your lover, He accepts that.
(KRISHNA AVATAR – ITS IMPORTANCE AND UNIQUE FEATURES! READ HERE!)
So, KRISHNA PERFORMS EVERY LILA TO SATISFY HIS DEVOTEES! Similarly, Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens was because they surrendered to Him and requested Him. It is the causeless mercy of Krishna.
Let us read from the writings of Srila Prabhupada about Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens:
(1) WHY KRISHNA MARRIED 16108 QUEENS?
SB 1.10.29, Purport:
Rukmini had ten sons, like Pradyumna. There were other queens also taken away by Lord Krsna in a similar way. Full description of this beautiful booty of Lord Krsna will be given in the Tenth Canto. There were 16,100 beautiful girls who were daughters of many kings and were forcibly stolen by Bhaumasura (A demon Bhauma), who kept them captive for his carnal desire. These girls prayed piteously to Lord Krsna for their deliverance, and the merciful Lord, called by their fervent prayer, released them all by fighting and killing Bhaumasura. All these captive princesses were then accepted by the Lord as His wives, although in the estimation of society they were all fallen girls. The all-powerful Lord Krsna accepted the humble prayers of these girls and married them with the adoration of queens. So altogether Lord Krsna had 16108 queens at Dvaraka, and in each of them He begot ten children. All these children grew up, and each had as many children as the father. The aggregate of the family numbered 10,000,000.
(Is it true, Krishna was cursed, killed, died and left this world? A-Z Details! READ HERE!)
(2) DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMANS AND KRISHNA
SB 1.10.25, Purport:
When He descends, He exhibits superhuman acts just to prove His supreme right, and materialists like Ravana, Hiranyakasipu and Kamsa are sufficiently punished. He acts in a manner which no one can imitate. For example, the Lord, when He appeared as Rama, bridged the Indian Ocean. When He appeared as Krsna, from His very childhood He showed superhuman activities by killing Putana, Aghasura, Sakatasura, Kaliya, etc., and then His maternal uncle Kamsa. When He was at Dvaraka He married 16,108 queens, and all of them were blessed with a sufficient number of children. The sum total of His personal family members amounted to about 100,000, popularly known as the Yaduvamsa. And again, during His lifetime, He managed to vanquish them all. He is famous as the GovardhanadhariHari because He lifted at the age of only seven the hill known as Govardhana. The Lord killed many undesirable kings in His time, and as a ksatriya He fought chivalrously. He is famous as the asamaurdhva, unparalleled. No one is equal to or greater than Him.
(Was Krishna the cause for castes as said by my friend? READ HERE!)
(3) KRISHNA OFFERS HIMSELF AS HUSBAND TO DEVOTEES
SB 1.10.30, Purport:
The Lord used to live with His 16108 wives constantly. He expanded Himself into 16,108 plenary portions, and each and every one of them was the Lord Himself without deviation from the Original Personality. The Sruti-mantra affirms that the Lord can expand Himself into many. As husband of so many wives, He pleased them all with presentations, even at a costly endeavor. He brought the parijata plant from heaven and implanted it at the palace of Satyabhama, one of the principal queens. If, therefore, anyone desires the Lord to become one’s husband, the Lord fulfills such desires in full.
Lord Krsna had 16108 wives, and for each and every one of them there was a fully equipped palace complete with necessary compounds and gardens.
(Why Krishna do not save the devotees killed during pilgrimage? READ HERE!)
(5) LORD EXPANDED AS 16108 KRISHNAs
SB 1.11.31, Purport:
As mentioned above, the Lord entered His home palaces occupied by 16,108 queens. This means that the Lord at once expanded Himself in as many plenary expansions as there were queens and palaces and entered in each and every one of them simultaneously and separately. Here is another manifestation of the feature of His internal potency. He can expand Himself in as many forms of spiritual identity as He desires, even though He is one without a second. It is confirmed by the S’ruti-mantra that the Absolute is one alone, and yet He becomes many as soon as He so desires. These manifold expansions of the Supreme Lord are manifested as plenary and separated portions. The separated portions are representations of His energy, and the plenary portions are manifestations of His Personality. Thus the Personality of Godhead manifested Himself in 16,108 plenary expansions and simultaneously entered into each and every one of the palaces of the queens. This is called vaibhava, or the transcendental potency of the Lord.
(WHY PANDAVAS DID NOT GO TO VAIKUNTA or GOLOKA THOUGH KRISHNA WAS WITH THEM? READ HERE!)
KRISHNA LIVED AS A PERFECT HOUSEHOLDER
SB 1.11.35, Purport:
The Lord married and lived like a householder. This is certainly like a mundane affair, but when we learn that He married 16108 wives and lived with them separately in each and every palace, certainly it is not mundane. Therefore, the Lord, living as a householder amongst His competent wives, is never mundane, and His behavior with them is never to be understood as mundane sex relation. The women who became the wives of the Lord are certainly not ordinary women, because to get the Lord as one’s husband is the result of many, many millions of births’ tapasya (austerity). When the Lord appears on different lokas, or planets, or on this planet of human beings, He displays His transcendental pastimes just to attract the conditioned souls to become His eternal servitors, friends, parents and lovers respectively in the transcendental world, where the Lord eternally reciprocates such exchanges of service. Service is pervertedly represented in the material world and broken untimely, resulting in sad experience.
(WHY KRISHNA SUPPORTED ANIMAL SACRIFICE IN YAGAS AND YAJNAS? READ HERE!)
KRISHNA’s FAMILY HAD 1,610,800 MEMBERS
SB 1.14.31, Purport:
As already mentioned, Lord Krsna married 16108 wives, and each of them had ten sons. Therefore 16108 x 10 = 161,080 sons. They all grew up, and each of them had as many sons as their father, and the whole aggregate was something near 1,610,800 family members of the Lord. The Lord is the father of all living beings, who are countless in number; therefore only a few of them are called to associate with the Lord in His transcendental pastimes as the Lord of Dvaraka on this earth. It is not astonishing that the Lord maintained a visible family consisting of so many members. It is better to refrain from comparing the Lord’s position to ours, and it becomes a simple truth as soon as we understand at least a partial calculation of the Lord’s transcendental position. King Yudhisthira, while inquiring about the Lord’s sons and grandsons at Dvaraka, mentioned only the chieftains amongst them, for it was impossible for him to remember all the names of the Lord’s family members.
(8) KRISHNA’S MARRIAGE CEREMONY
SRIMAD BHAGAVATHAM 10-69-1&2:
Narada muni saw Sri Balramaji, Nandbaba, Devkimata, & everybody who attended Krishna’s marriage.
(HOW KRISHNA IS THE CAUSE FOR THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE INCIDENTS IN OUR LIFE? READ HERE!)
He exclaims:
Hearing that Lord Krsna had killed Narakasura and had alone married many brides, Narada Muni desired to see the Lord in this situation. He thought, “It is quite amazing that in a single body Lord Krsna simultaneously married sixteen thousand women, each in a separate palace.”
Narada Muni could see this when he came to Dwaraka to attend Krishna’s marriages. Krishna was required for the marriage to take 16108 forms & were attending the marriage at one time, in different houses.
CONCLUSION:
I hope you are clear now about Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens. Never consider Krishna like humans. He is so merciful. He will give Himself if His beloved devotees qualify themselves to get Him.
So, see Krishna’s marriage with 16108 queens as His causeless mercy to the surrendered souls. And, do not associate with anyone who speaks ill of His pastimes. Try to explain him once. If they do not accept it, leave them to avoid offences.
(Why Radharani did not marry Krishna? Complete Details! READ HERE!)