According to Hindu scripture, Vasudeva (Devanagari वसुदेव, IAST Vasudeva), also called Ānakadundubhii (“Drum”, after the sound of drums heard at the time of his birth), is the father of the Hindu deities Krishna (Vāsudeva, i.e. “son of Vasudeva”), Balarama and Subhadra. He was king of the Vrishnis and a Yadava prince. He was the son of the Yadava king Shurasena. He was also the brother (cousin) of Nanda, the foster-father of Krishna. His sister Kunti was married to Pandu. Kunti plays a big role later in the war Mahabharata.
The patronymic Vāsudeva (with long ā) is a popular name of Krishna, the son of Vasudeva with Devaki, “Vāsudeva” in the lengthened form being a vṛddhi-derivative of the short form “Vasudeva”, a type of formation very common in Sanskrit signifying “of, belonging to, descended from”. “Vasudeva” as an object of worship in Hinduism usually refers to the son Vāsudeva (Krishna), rather than his father Vasudeva.
Family
Vasudeva was born to Yadava king Shurasena and his wife Marisha, in the Surasena kingdom. Vasudeva had many brothers such as Devashrava and Devabhaga, and sisters such as Kunti (mother of the Pandavas), Shrutasravas (mother of Shishupala) and others. According to the Harivansa Purana, Vasudeva and Nanda, the Kshatriya chief of Gokula, were brothers or cousins.
Wives and children
Vasudeva and Devaki traveling in a carriage
Vasudeva married Devaki, and also others such as Pauravi (daughter of Bahlika), Rohini, Bhadra, Madira and Vrikadevi. Rohini begat sons such as Balarama, Sarana and Shatha. Vrikadevi begat sons like Avagaha and Nandaka. By Devaki, he had 8 sons – 6 of whom were killed by Kamsa and the other 2 being Balarama (transferred into the womb of Rohini) and Krishna. He also had a daughter – Subhadra from Rohini. In some versions of the Bhagavata Purana, Vasudeva also married Sutanu, the princess of Kasi and they had a son named Paundraka.
Descendants
His sons in turn had many sons. Sarana had many sons like Satyadhriti and Marsti, and Shatha had a son called Sarthi. Balarama espoused Revati and had 2 sons – Nishatha and Ulmuka. Krishna had 8 principal wives, and he begat many children from them, such as Pradyumna, Samba, Bhanu etc, and they also had many children. Vasudeva’s daughter Subhadra married Pandava prince Arjuna, and they had a son Abhimanyu. Ultimately, it was Abhimanyu’s son Parikshit who ascended the Kuru throne after Yudhishthira.
Many of the Yadavas killed themselves in the Yadava fracticide. Krishna, Balarama and Vasudeva later gave up their lives, and the Pandavascollected the remaining Yadava children and ladies with them to Indraprastha, where Pradyumma’s grandson Vajra was crowned as king of Mathura, and some other survivors also were crowned as kings of different places (See Mausala Parva).
The sons of Vasudeva were related to Bhagavatism that was largely formed by the 1st-millennium BCE where Vāsudeva (Krishna, the son of Vasudeva) was worshiped as supreme ultimate reality. This is evidenced by texts and archaeological evidence. As textual evidence, the Mahanarayana Upanishad records the verse:
नारायाणाय विद्महे वासुदेवाय धीमहि तन्नो विष्णुः प्रचोदयात्
nārāyāṇāya vidmahē vāsudēvāya dhīmahi tannō viṣṇuḥ pracōdayāt
We endeavor to know Narayana, we meditate on Vāsudeva and Vishnu bestows wisdom on us.
— Mahanarayana Upanishad, Chapter 7,
Krishna and Balarama meeting their parents (painting by Raja Ravi Varma).
This verse asserts that Narayana, Vāsudeva (Krishna) and Vishnu are synonymous. The author and the century in which the above Mahanarayana Upanishad was composed is unknown. The relative chronology of the text, based on its poetic verse and textual style, has been proposed by Parmeshwaranand to the same period of composition as Katha, Isha, Mundaka and Shvetashvatara Upanishads, but before Maitri, Prashna and Mandukya Upanishad. Feuerstein places the relative composition chronology of Mahanarayana to be about that of Mundaka and Prashna Upanishads. These relative chronology estimates date the text to second half of 1st millennium BCE.Srinivasan suggests a later date for the composition of the Mahanarayana Upanishad, one after about 300 BCE and probably in the centuries around the start of the common era.
Other evidence is from archeological inscriptions, where Bhagavan is documented epigraphically to be from around 100 BCE, such as in the inscriptions of the Heliodorus pillar. An Indo-Greek ambassador from Taxila named Heliodorus, of this era, visited the court of a Shunga king, and addresses himself as a Bhagavata on this pillar, an epithet scholars consider as evidence of Vāsudeva worship was well established in 1st millennium BCE. A popular short prayer for worshipping Vāsudeva is Dwadashaakshar.