01Born in Kamsa’s prison
The Bhagavata tells that Kamsa, warned that Devaki’s eighth child would kill him, kept her and Vasudeva in chains and killed six of their sons at birth. On the eighth day of the dark half of Bhadrapada, at midnight under Rohini nakshatra, Krishna was born in four-armed form, then became a baby. The guards slept, the chains fell, and Vasudeva carried him across the flooded Yamuna to Gokul. The Garbha Griha shrine of the present complex is built over what is shown as the prison-cell.
02Temples raised and razed
In 1018 Mahmud of Ghazni sacked Mathura; his secretary Utbi wrote of a great temple at its centre that would take two hundred years to build, and of idols of gold that were broken and carried off. A Sanskrit inscription found at Katra Keshavdev records that one Jajja built a temple of Vishnu there in 1150, in the reign of a king named Vijayapala. Around 1618 Raja Bir Singh Deo Bundela of Orchha built a towering Keshavdev temple whose gilded spire, travellers said, could be seen from Agra. In January 1670 Aurangzeb ordered it demolished. The Maasir-i-Alamgiri records that its jewelled idols were taken to Agra and buried under the steps of the Begum Sahib mosque so that they would be trodden on. The Shahi Idgah was built on the temple’s site.
03Patnimal, Birla and Malaviya
In 1815 the East India Company auctioned the Katra Keshavdev land and Raja Patnimal of Banaras bought it. At Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya’s urging, the industrialist Jugal Kishore Birla bought the site from Patnimal’s heirs in 1944, and in 1951 the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust was formed. Over the next three decades the Keshavdev temple, the Garbha Griha shrine and the great Bhagavata Bhawan were raised beside the Idgah. Suits over the Idgah land are now before the courts.
The life of this place
- 1018Mahmud of Ghazni sacks Mathura and its great temple (Tarikh-i-Yamini).
- 1150Jajja builds a temple of Vishnu at the site (Katra Keshavdev inscription).
- c. 1618Raja Bir Singh Deo Bundela builds the great Keshavdev temple.
- January 1670Aurangzeb orders the Keshavdev temple demolished; the Shahi Idgah is built (Maasir-i-Alamgiri).
- 1815Raja Patnimal buys the Katra Keshavdev land at a Company auction.
- 1944Jugal Kishore Birla buys the site at Malaviya’s urging.
- 1951Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust is formed.
Janmashtami midnight abhishek is the great day; security is tight and phones are not allowed. Combine with Vishram Ghat on the Yamuna and the Dwarkadhish temple in the old city.
