<i>Heroic Krsna</i> is a portrait of a pre-Hindu and pre-classical figure of a superhuman hero who in time became the divinity Krsna, an incarnation of Visnu. This is a picture, drawn from the epic Mahabharata, of an archaic warrior who excelled as a charioteer; in fact this is the best depiction that we presently possess in any epic <i>corpus</i> of a charioteer type. Krsna is also described in his role of moral instructor, as poet and ambassador, and in the office of dual kingship with the <i>dharmaraja</i> Yudhisthira. There is no other representation of a complex friendship in the poem apart from what exists between Krsna and Arjuna, and this profound amity is completely founded on the activity of a charioteer and his hero. Cultural and poetic continuities from the Bronze Age Vedic world are shown to exist in this model of duality. Krsna is also an adept of the <i>speech-act,</i> for—apart from his charioteering—he accomplishes little in the epic except via the causality of speech: he is a master of “doing things with words.” This book illustrates a heroic life which pre-exists the divine status of one of the most popular Indian deities of today.