This letter was written with contributions by students from the entire class of Religion 352, Religious Traditions of India. Tim Morgan, you mention several inaccuracies in your letter on Dec. 3 regarding Krishna, a very important deity in Hinduism.

Specifically, you mentioned his apparent virgin birth in a manger setting, the celebration of his birth on Christmas and the wise men bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Krishna was not the product of a virgin birth as he was the eighth son born to Devaki and Vasudev while in a prison cell. He was neither born on nor is his birth celebrated on Christmas as you assert; rather, he was born on the eighth day of the dark fortnight in the month of Bradon which in the Julian calendar is sometime between August and September. His birth is actually celebrated on his accepted birthday.

There is no evidence in Hindu oral or written text regarding wise men visiting him upon his birth, although villagers did come to see him after Vasudev helped him escape from the jail cell and delivered him across the Yamana to live with foster parents, Nanda and Yashoda.

We would like to state, however, that you were correct in your statement that a king ordered the death of all newborn boys at the time of his prophesied birth.

We simply felt that we needed to set the record straight regarding these glaring inconsistencies about Krishna.

Don Paulsen

Senior

Psychology