Pradyumna and His Foundation Narrative in the Critical Text Harivaṃśa

Abstract Chapter 3 turns to the Harivaṃśa’s foundational episode of Pradyumna’s birth. As soon as Pradyumna is born, the demon Śambara abducts him and gives him to his wife Māyāvatī to raise as her own son. Māyāvatī approaches Pradyumna sexually once he is fully grown, explaining that she is not his mother; Pradyumna slays Śambara, accepts Māyāvatī as a love partner, and returns to his real family, where Kṛṣṇa identifies him as the rebirth of Kāmadeva, the God of Love. The episode is examined through a number of lenses, particularly a set of gendered premises on the nature of women and certain social-sexual dynamics of South Asian families. In sum, it is argued that the Harivaṃśa birth narrative constructs Pradyumna as a vaṃśa-vīra, or “lineage-hero,” a champion whose sexual virility and beauty, military power and resilience against the forces of infant mortality make him a champion of his father’s ancestral line.