dedicated to the worship of Vishnu.
Most Hindu festivals have certain
prescribed rites usually involving fasting
(upavasa) and worship, and often
promise specific benefits for faithful
performance. The name Kamika means
“desiring,” a theme supported by the
charter myth. According to this story,
the brahmins in a certain village
refuse to perform religious rites for a
landowner guilty of murdering another
brahmin. The landowner is freed from
that sin by observing the Kamika
Ekadashi and is thus able to have the
desired rites performed.
Kamsa
In Hindu mythology, the wicked king of
Mathurawho is considered the brother of
Devaki, the god Krishna’smother, and
thus Krishna’s uncle. According to leg-
end, Kamsa is born when a demontakes
the form of Ugrasena, Devaki’s father,
and under this guise has intercourse
with Kamsa’s mother.
On Devaki’s wedding day, a divine
voice warns Kamsa that his sister’s
eighth child will eventually kill him. In
an effort to prevent this prophecy, he
kills all of Devaki’s children as soon as
they are born. Yet on the night Krishna
is born, a deep sleep falls over the
inhabitants of the palace, the locked
doors magically open, and the infant is
spirited away to the home of his foster
parents, Nandaand Yashoda. When
Kamsa finds out what has happened,
he first sends his men to kill all the
newborn children in the country. When
that attempt fails to destroy Krishna,
Kamsa sends various demon assassins,
such as Putana, Shakata, Trnavarta,
Keshi, and Bakasur. Krishna dispatches
all of these with ease, and Kamsa even-
tually has to try other strategies. He
announces a grand festival and dis-
patches his chariot to pick up Krishna
and his brother Balarama, who by
then have grown into adolescents.
Kamsa’s plan is to lure the brothers to
the festival grounds where they can be
killed in a “friendly” match with some
experienced wrestlers. The two boys
derail this plot by killing the wrestlers,
after which Krishna leaps up into the
royal box and kills Kamsa as well.Kamya Karma
(“desiderative [ritual] action”) One of
three general categories of ritual action,
the others being nitya karma and
naimittika karma. Kamya karma is a rit-
ual performed solely for the performer’s
desire (kama) to obtain the benefits of
this action. Unlike the other two cate-
gories, which must be performed at spe-
cific times or occasions, this one is
completely voluntary and based solely
on the desire for its benefits. One exam-
ple of a kamya karma is religious pil-
grimage, which one is not required to do
but which is believed to generate reli-
gious merit. Another example would be
performing a particular vrat, or religious
vow, which might be done daily, weekly,
monthly, or yearly.Kanada
(2nd c. B.C.E.?) Philosopher who is tradi-
tionally named as the author of the
Vaisheshika Sutrasand founder of the
Vaisheshika philosophical school, one of
six schools of Hindu philosophy.
Kanada’s date is uncertain, but he is
believed to have lived after the third
century B.C.E. In its earliest form, the
Vaisheshika school followed a doctrine
of atomism, asserting that there are sim-
ple building blocks that cohere to form
complex objects. This cohesion also
attaches objects to their qualities. As
Vaisheshika combined with the Nyaya
school, another of the six schools, the
Vaisheshikas gradually adopted the
Nyaya idea of God as the regulating
force behind these atomic relations.Kanauj
Small city on the GangesRiver, about
fifty miles upstream from the city of
Kanpur. Kanauj is now insignificant, but
the city, formerly known as Kanyakubja,
was once one of the most important inKamsa