The Abduction of Rukmini: Politics, Genealogy and Theology in 87–90

This article examines the Harivaṃśa's rendering of Vasudeva Krishna's encounter with and marriage to Rukmini of Vidarbha (HV 87–90), and proposes that this episode of Krishna's life is of special importance to the Harivaṃśa's larger concern to develop in full the Mahabharata’s partial portrait of the adult V?sudeva K???a. I argue that the Harivamsa's basic work of unpacking Krishna's adult identity advances on three fronts simultaneously: genealogical, political and theological, and that it is especially by recounting Krishna's relationship with Rukmini that the poets are able to develop all at once some of the key political, genealogical and theological dimensions of Krishna's identity revealed only partially in the Mahabharata.