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I have no knowledge that the Krishna of Mahabharata ever lived. My Krishna has nothing to do with any historical person.1 I would refuse to bow my head to the Krishna who would kill because his pride is hurt, or the Krishna whom non-Hindus portray as a dissolute youth. I believe in Krishna of my imagination as a perfect incarnation, spotless in every sense of the word, the inspirer of the Gita and the inspirer of the lives of millions of human beings. But if it was proved to me that the Mahabharata is history in the same sense that modern historical books are, that every word of the Mahabharata is authentic and that the Krishna of the Mahabharata actually did some of the acts attributed to him, even at the risk of being banished from the Hindu fold, I should not hesitate to reject that Krishna as God-incarnate. But, to me, the Mahabharata is a profoundly religious book, largely allegorical, in no way meant to the eternal duel going on within ourselves, given so vividly as to make us think for the time being that the deeds described therein were actually done by the human beings. Nor do I regard the Mahabharata, as we have it now, as a faultless copy of the original. On the contrary, I consider that it has undergone many amedations.

—Young India : October 1, 1925.

1. "I believe in Krishna. But my Krishna is the Lord of the Universe, the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer of us all. He may destroy because He creates."

—Young India : April 9, 1925.