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As all of you know, Valmiki is the author of Ramayana which depicts the life of SriRama. The epic Mahabharata was written by Vyasa and Krishna plays the important role in there. As per the Puranas both of these stories happened in two different yugas, Treta yuga and Dwapara yuga. So obviously there could have been a long interval.

So the question is, did the author of Ramayana- Valmiki wrote anything about the the incarnation of SriKrishna in Dwapara yuga? Is there any scriptures written by Valmiki about this?

The question has another version too.

Was there any scriptures predicting the 'Srikrishna incarnation' during the time of SriRama?

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  • "As per the puranas both of these stories was happened in two different yugas, Treta yuga and Dwapara yuga." There's reason to believe that the Ramayana happened not just in an earlier Yuga, but rather in an earlier Mahayuga. See my answer here: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/7189/36
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented May 31, 2015 at 13:37

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There's only one reference to Krishna in the Ramayana. In this chapter of the Uttara Kanda, Rama asks Lakshmana to find out whether anyone is waiting to see him, because Rama was distraught over Sita's exile and thus wasn't seeing any subjects for the past few days. Rama tells Lakshmana that it is very important for a king to see his subjects promptly. He cites a story about the ancient king Nriga, who was cursed to turn into a lizard by two Brahmanas who were waiting to see him. Here is what the Brahmanas said:

Since thou hast not granted us an interview though we have been waiting here for a long time, thou shalt, by our curse, remain invisible, being a lizard... When Vishnu assuming a human person shall be born in the Vasudeva family of Yaduvas and enhance their glory he shall liberate thee from the curse. Immediately befere the advent of the Kali Yuga the Rishi Nara Narayana gifted with great prowess shall descend upon earth to relieve her of the burden.

So that's a prophecy of the birth of Krishna and Arjuna. And indeed Krishna did free Nriga from the curse, as described in this chapter of the Srimad Bhagavatam.

Note that the Uttara Kanda does have some interpolations, so it's possible that this chapter is a later addition after the time of Krishna. (In fact, some people even call the Uttara Kanda itself a later addition to the Ramayana, but I don't think that's correct.)

As far as other scriptures go, there are lots of incidents in the Puranas taking place long before even the time of Rama which prophesy the birth of Krishna, but I'm not aware of any scriptures older than the Ramayana prophesying him.

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  • Rama promised Vali to give him a chance to avenge his unjust murder. Vali was reincarnated as the hunter and archer Jara in Mahabharata (Dwapar Yug). Jara was the cause of the death of Shri Krishna (the reincarnation of Shri Rama) when he struck His feet by an arrow taking them to be a deer.
    – Nishant Solanki
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 6:34
  • @NishantSolanki Well, the question is about whether the Valmiki Ramayana contains prophecies of Krishna, and the Valmiki Ramayana doesn't mention anything about Vali killing Rama in a future birth. And I'm not aware of any other scripture that mentions Jara being the rebirth of Vali, although it's certainly a popular story.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 12:06
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    @NishantSolanki Also, Rama killing Vali was not unjust in the slightest, and even Vali acknowledged that before he died. See my answer here: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/246/36
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 12:08
  • but I have heard many times that Rama told Vali that Rama's next incarnation will be killed by Vali's next incarnation.. so as we know Rama's next incarnation is Krishna
    – Nishant Solanki
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 12:09
  • @NishantSolanki I've heard it many times too, but Rama and Vali don't have any conversation about future births in the Valmiki Ramayana, and I'm not aware of any other scripture where they have a conversation like that.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 12:15
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As per the explanation of Swami Nirmalanda Giri Maharaj in this talk, the answer for the question is YES. (The talk is in Malayalam as he is from the state of Kerala.) This is explained on minute 4:39 in the video.

In the scripture, YogaVasistha which is written by Valimiki in Treta yuga, there is predictions of Dwapara Yuga. It is given as Vasistha's answer to Lord Rama's questions. In Arjunopakhyana, Valmiki wrote about the advises given to Arjuna by Krishna which clearly indicate that the predication had made by Valimiki in YogaVasistha which contains 32000 slokas.

Note: I have not added online ref. for the same, please add if you find the online resource for YogaVasistha.

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  • The Yoga Vasishta is widely agreed to be a very late text. It's originally taken from a 10th century text called the Mokshopaya, and then in Medieval times it was transformed into a dialogue between Rama and Vasishta.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented May 31, 2015 at 17:56
  • You can read the Yoga Vasishta here, by the way: scribd.com/mobile/users/scribasum/collections/2493058
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented May 31, 2015 at 19:02

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