Pradyumna-Kāmadeva in the Major Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas

Abstract

Chapter 4 documents Pradyumna’s changing identity and significance in the context of the evolving Vaiṣṇava tradition, chiefly through an analysis of the abduction narrative as it is retold in the Viṣṇu, Bhāgavata, and Brahmavaivarta Purāṇas. Without radically changing the original Harivaṃśa scene, the sources reveal that three characteristics of Pradyumna have begun to emerge through a process of mutual fertilization: he is Kāmadeva, the handsome God of Love incarnate; he is a master of māyā or illusion; and he is a double of his father Kṛṣṇa. Important shifts in the meaning and role of bhakti (devotion) in Kṛṣṇa worship between the fifth and tenth centuries CE are identified as key factors underlying these developments. Particularly, Pradyumna’s identity as both the God of Love reborn and the double of Kṛṣṇa becomes hugely significant for the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which is deeply invested in a theology of Kṛṣṇa as a magnetic object of desire.

The eropolitical compound: immanence, transcendence and a parasitic operation of patriarchy in Sanskrit literature

“…Kṛṣṇa's son Pradyumna, and grandson Aniruddha, perpetuate the compound model vigorously in a number of sources that I have already treated in some depth (Austin 2018;2019a;2019b;2019c;, and so I will be as brief here as possible: Pradyumna's basic birth legend (Harivaṃśa 99;Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.27; Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.55), Aniruddha's very similar coming-of-age story Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.33; Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.62) and a later Pradyumna mini-epic (Harivaṃśa Appendix I.29F) all turn around the image of the sexually potent young male attracting and acquiring a feminine partner (respectively, Māyāvatī, Uṣā and Prabhāvatī) from her demonic protecting male figure (respectively Śambara, Bāṇa, and Vajranābha). In all cases, the defeated protecting male figure constitutes a threat to the cosmic and social order.…”