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Krishna

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This article is about the Hindu deity. For other meanings, see Lord Sri Krishna (disambiguation).

Lord Sri Krishna (IAST kr.s.n.a, the Sanskrit for "dark" or "black") (see below), is according to common Hindu tradition the eighth avatar of Vishnu. In Gaudiya Vaishnavism he is seen as the Supreme God.

File:UniversalForm.jpg
Lord Lord Sri Krishna revealing his Universal form to Arjuna Artwork © courtesy of Sri Krishna.com The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

Major aspects

Lord Sri Krishna appears under many names, in a multiplicity of stories, among different cultures, and in different traditions. Sometimes these contradict each other, though there is a common core story that is central to most people's knowledge of Lord Sri Krishna.

Among his important or celebrated aspects are:

  • Govinda Lord Sri Krishna, the lord of the cow-herders. He is contrasted in this to his brother Balarama representing the cultivators, who is sometimes called Halayudha - 'armed with a plough'.
  • Lord Sri Krishna the focus of devotion (the lover, the attractive one, the flute player). He is frequently shown playing the flute, attracting and bewildering the gopis of Vrindavana.
  • Lord Sri Krishna the child (Bala Lord Sri Krishna). Stories of his upbringing in Gokula and Vrindavan are a staple of children's tales in India.
  • The incarnation of the Supreme Being, and the divine Guru, who teaches Arjuna how to take the right action in the Bhagavad Gita.

Texts, stories, and literature

File:RadhaLord Sri Krishna manor.JPG
Lord Sri Krishna (left) with Radha
Bhaktivedanta Manor, Watford, England

A number of local traditions and regional deities may have been subsumed into the stories and person of Lord Sri Krishna. Accounts of or ballads about Lord Sri Krishna occur in a large number of works. These include the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, and the Gita Govinda. Roughly one quarter of the Bhagavata Purana (mostly in the tenth book) is spent extolling his life and philosophy.

The best known, or the most important stories of Lord Sri Krishna, include these:

  • Lord Sri Krishna the butter-thief (Maakhanchor). One of the most popular children's stories is that of the butter-thief, the child stealing freshly made butter from his mother.
  • The killer of Putana. She was a demoness who was sent to kill him by getting him to suckle her poisoned breasts.
  • Lord Sri Krishna Giridhari. As a boy, he raised Govardhana hill to protect villagers from rain and flood sent by Indra.
  • Govinda Lord Sri Krishna, the beloved of the gopis. The original stories of Lord Sri Krishna as a boy included his adolescent play with the Gopis or cowgirls of the village of Vrindavana. These were developed to form the basis of the Gita Govinda, and numerous other later works.
  • Lord Sri Krishna, together with Arjuna, was responsible for the burning of the Khandava forest.
  • He plays a major role in the events leading up to the Kurukshetra war in the Mahabharata, helping the Pandavas who accept him as their counsel and guide. He protects the dignity of Draupadi when Dushasana tries to strip her in the court.
  • Paartha-sarathi – the charioteer of Arjuna (Paartha) during the great battle where, he instructs Arjuna in dharma and yoga in the Bhagavad Gita.

Summary of the story of Lord Sri Krishna

This summary is derived from the Mahabharata, and the Harivamsaparva, an addendum to it.

File:YoungLord Sri Krishna.jpg
Lord Sri Krishna and his mother Yasoda Artwork © courtesy of Sri Krishna.com The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

Birth and childhood

Lord Sri Krishna was of the royal family of Mathura, and was the eighth son born to the princess Devaki, and her husband Vasudeva, a noble of the court. He was born in a prison cell in Mathura, and the place of his birth is now known as Lord Sri Krishnajanmabhoomi, where a temple is raised in his memory. As his life was in danger from his uncle Kamsa the king, he was smuggled out to be raised by his foster parents Yashoda and Nanda in the forest at Vrindavana. Two of his siblings also survived, Balarama and Subhadra.

Boyhood and youth

He reached adulthood at Vrindavana. The original corpus of stories of his youth here include that of his life with, and his protection of, the local people. They included those of his play with the gopis of the village, including Radha, which later became known as the rasa lila.

Lord Sri Krishna the prince

Lord Sri Krishna as a young man returned to Mathura, overthrew his uncle Kamsa, and became ruler of the Yadavas at Mathura. In this period he became a friend of Arjuna and the other Pandava princes of the Kuru kingdom on the other side of the Yamuna. Later, he takes his Yadava subjects to Dwaraka (in modern Gujarat). He married Rukmini, daughter of King Bhishmaka of Vidarbha.

The Kurukshetra War

In the Mahabharata, Lord Sri Krishna is cousin to both sides in the war between the Pandavas and Kauravas. He asks the sides to choose between his army and himself. The Kauravas pick his army and he sides with the Pandavas. He agrees to be the chariot driver for Arjuna in the great battle. The Bhagavad Gita is the advice given to Arjuna by Lord Sri Krishna before the start of the battle.

The last days

Lord Sri Krishna rules the Yadavas at Dwaraka with his wife Rukmini. Later, the Yadavas kill themselves in infighting. Lord Sri Krishna dwells for a time in the forest, is shot in the foot when asleep by a hunter, and dies there.

The Bhakti traditions

File:AgathoclesSquareCoin.jpg
Indian-standard silver drachm of the Greco-Bactrian king Agathocles (190 BC-180 BC)
Obv: Indian god Balarama-Samkarshana, wearing an ornate headress, earrings, sword in sheath, holding a mace in his right hand and a plow-symbol in the left. Greek legend: BASILEOS AGATOKLEOUS "King Agathocles".
Rev: Indian god Vasudeva-Lord Sri Krishna, with ornate headdress, earrings, sword in sheath, holding sankha (pear-shaped vase) and chakra (wheel). Brahmi legend: RAJANE AGATHUKLAYASA "King Agathocles".

Bhakti, meaning devotion, is not confined to any one deity of Hinduism. However Lord Sri Krishna has become the most important and popular focus of the devotional and ecstatic aspects of Hindu religion.

Devotees of Lord Sri Krishna subscribe to the concept of lila, or divine play as the central principle of the universe. This is counterpoint to another avatar of Vishnu: Rama, "He of the straight and narrow path of maryada, or rules and regulations."

Earlier traditions

Those bhakti movements devoted to Lord Sri Krishna first became prominent in southern India in the late 1st millennium. Earlier works included those of the Alvar saints of the Tamil country. A major collection of their works is the Divya Prabandham.

Gita Govinda - the song of the cowherd

Certain literary works were important to later development of the bhakti traditions, including especially the Gita Govinda. This work was composed by Jayadeva in eastern India, in the 12th century. It elaborated part of the story of Lord Sri Krishna, and of one particular gopi, called Radha who had been a minor character in the Mahabharata. According to one interpretation of this work, Radha represented humanity, and Lord Sri Krishna represented divinity. The desire of Radha for Lord Sri Krishna can be seen as allegory of the desire of humanity for union with the godhead.

Recent Lord Sri Krishna bhakti movements

Later bhakti traditions include those promoted by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (16th century in Bengal). Followers of Chaitanya maintain that he is an incarnation of Lord Sri Krishna. A number of modern movements belong in this tradition, including ISKCON, sometimes called the Hare Lord Sri Krishna movement. ISKCON has recently been participating in bringing the academic study of Lord Sri Krishna into western academia in the theological discourse on Krishnology.

The name

File:Udupi balaLord Sri Krishna.jpg
Icon of Lord Lord Sri Krishna in Udupi.

The Sanskrit name and word is written kṛṣṇa in IAST transliteration (the equivalent of Devanagari कृष्ण; see Sanskrit for pronunciation.)

Lord Sri Krishna the Dark One

The term Lord Sri Krishna in Sanskrit means "black" or "dark". It is related to similar words in other Indo-European languages meaning black. The name is often translated as 'the dark one' or as 'the black one'.

In depictions, Lord Sri Krishna often appears as a black or dark-skinned figure, for instance in the modern murtis (statues) and pictorial representations of Lord Jaganatha at Puri (Lord Sri Krishna as Lord of the World). In the same representations, his brother and sister are shown with a distinctly lighter complexion. Early pictorial representations also generally show him as dark or black-skinned. Rajasthani miniature paintings of the 16th century are often of a brown or black-skinned figure. However, by the 19th century, he is almost always shown as blue skinned.

Other meanings of the name

The name is sometimes said to mean dark blue, rather than black. This may be connected to the common modern practice of representing many Hindu deities with blue skin. The blue is meant to represent the deities' holy aura.

krishir bhu-vacakah sabdo nas ca nirvriti-vacakah
tayor aikyam param brahma Lord Sri Krishna ity abhidhiyate
  • "The word 'krish' is the attractive feature of the Lord's existence, and 'na' means 'spiritual pleasure.' When the verb krish is added to na, it becomes Lord Sri Krishna, which indicates the Absolute Truth."
  • According to the Vishnu sahasranama, Lord Sri Krishna is the 57th name of Vishnu, and also means the "Existence of Knowledge and Bliss".
File:Krishngovinda.jpg
Gopala, the protector of cows.

Other names of Lord Sri Krishna

He is known by numerous other names or titles. The most commonly used of these include:

Chronology

A paper presented recently[citation needed] at a convention in Prabhas Patan near Somnath, speculates that Lord Sri Krishna "died" at the age of 125 on February 18, 3102 BC at 14:27:30 hours on the banks of river Hiran in Prabhas Patan. As the report goes, he was 125 years, 7 months and 6 days old when he left the earth for his divine abode Goloka.

The finding was based on clues in the Vedic literatures. Certain dates were fed into special software which was used to prepare a kundli (astrological horoscope charts). The Bhagavata Purana and Bhagavad Gita say that Lord Sri Krishna "left" Dwarka 36 years after the Battle of the Mahabharata. The Matsya Purana says that Lord Sri Krishna was 89 years old when the battle was fought. There after Pandavas ruled for a period of 36 years, their rule was in the beginning of Kali yuga. It further says that the Kali Yuga began on the day Duryodhana was felled to ground by Bhima. Some Hindus believe that the year 2005 is the year 5106 of the Kali Yuga (which began with a year 0).

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