5,000th Birthday

Hindus observed last week the 5,000th birthday of Krishna, their epic hero, who traditionally composed the Bhagavad-gita--perhaps comparable to Solomon's Song of Songs--and is now exalted as the full incarnation of Vishnu, a God of the Bright Heaven.

Simultaneously was celebrated the season in which Indra, a God of the Air, performed a grotesque miracle.

Indra, sensing a challenge to his power in the superhuman purity of Saradvat, an holy man, sent a celestial nymph to tempt him. The celibate, seated in austere nakedness upon the ground, "fixed his eyes upon himself" and resisted temptation.

At length, though Saradvat ignored the nymph, Indra was able by a miracle to effect his undoing. "A slight convulsion shook the form of Saradvat," and "from himself sprang twin children, a boy and a girl, Drona and Kirpa."