Krishna
Teacher, friend, beloved — the butter thief of Vrindāvan, the flute-player the gopīs could not resist, the king of Dvārakā and the charioteer who spoke the Gītā.
No figure in the Hindu world is loved in so many ways at once. A mother rocks a little brass Krishna in a cradle on his birthday; a philosopher studies his words to Arjuna; a young dancer in Kuala Lumpur learns to play Rādhā waiting in the moonlit grove; a monk in saffron chants his name on a street corner. They are all loving the same Krishna. His name means “the dark one” — dark as a rain cloud, and, his devotees add, the one who draws all hearts to himself.
The many Krishnas
Krishna’s life is told in the Mahābhārata, its appendix the Harivaṃśa, the fifth book of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, and above all the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Each stage of it has become a whole way of loving him. Choose one:
The child of Vrindāvan. Born at midnight in the prison of the tyrant Kaṃsa in Mathurā, the eighth child of Devakī and Vasudeva, Krishna is carried across the flooded Yamunā to be raised by the cowherds Nanda and Yaśodā in Gokula. There he steals butter, breaks pots, kills the demons Kaṃsa sends, dances on the serpent Kāliya, and lifts the mountain Govardhana on one finger for seven days to shelter the villagers from Indra’s storm. When Yaśodā looks into his mouth to see if he has eaten mud, she sees the whole universe. These are his līlās, divine play — see Maya & Lila. To love him as a child is vātsalya, the mother’s love (see Bhakti Yoga).
The beloved of the gopīs. As a youth, Krishna’s flute calls the cowherd women (gopīs) from their homes into the forest on autumn nights. In the rāsa-līlā he multiplies himself so that each dances with him; when he vanishes, they search for him, singing their longing. The Bhāgavata (10.29–33) tells this as the supreme image of the soul’s love for God, beyond all social bonds, and warns that only Krishna, who is God, could do it. Jayadeva’s 12th-century Gītagovinda makes Rādhā and Krishna’s quarrel and reunion into the great love-poem of India.
The king of Dvārakā. Krishna leaves Vrindāvan, never to return, kills Kaṃsa at Mathurā, and later builds the city of Dvārakā by the western sea. He marries Rukmiṇī — who wrote to ask him to carry her off — Satyabhāmā and many others; he kills Narakāsura (see Deepavali); he welcomes his poor childhood friend Sudāmā (Kucela) and, for a handful of beaten rice, makes him rich without being asked.
The friend and charioteer. In the Mahābhārata Krishna is cousin and friend to the Pāṇḍavas: peace envoy, strategist, and on the field of Kurukṣetra, Arjuna’s unarmed charioteer, who speaks the Bhagavad Gita and shows his cosmic form. He wins the war by means that trouble even his friends (see The Mahabharata), and dies, struck in the foot by a hunter’s arrow, after his own clan has destroyed itself.
The gopīs’ song of longing in the Bhāgavata, sung when Krishna has hidden from them, is one of the tenderest passages in Sanskrit:
दयित दृश्यतां दिक्षु तावकास्त्वयि धृतासवस्त्वां विचिन्वते ॥ jayati te ’dhikaṃ janmanā vrajaḥ śrayata indirā śaśvad atra hi,
dayita dṛśyatāṃ dikṣu tāvakās tvayi dhṛtāsavas tvāṃ vicinvate Because you were born here, the land of Vraja is glorious above all, and Lakṣmī lives here for ever. Beloved, show yourself! Your own, whose very lives are held in you, are searching for you everywhere. Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.31.1 (the Gopī-gīta)
His names
Krishna has a thousand names, each a story. Tap a few of the best known:
How Krishna grew
For the tradition, Krishna is one person, who lived at the end of the Dvāpara Yuga; the Kali Yuga begins at his departure. Historians see several streams flowing together. A Kṛṣṇa Devakīputra appears as a student in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (3.17.6). The grammarian Pāṇini (c. 4th century BCE; some argue earlier) mentions devotees of Vāsudeva; coins of the Indo-Greek king Agathocles (early 2nd century BCE) show Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa with Balarāma; and in the late second century BCE the Greek envoy Heliodorus set up a pillar at Besnagar (Vidiśā) to “Vāsudeva, god of gods,” calling himself a bhāgavata. This Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa, hero and god of the Vṛṣṇi clan, is the Krishna of the Mahābhārata and the Gītā. The cowherd Gopāla-Kṛṣṇa of Vrindāvan appears fully only in the Harivaṃśa and the Purāṇas, and many scholars think he came from the devotion of pastoral peoples. Both were then identified with Vishnu. The tradition sees one Lord revealing himself more fully over time; historians see a confluence. The two need not quarrel.
Rādhā
Surprisingly, Rādhā is never named in the Bhāgavata. Its rāsa story speaks only of one unnamed gopī whom Krishna takes away from the others — and whom later devotees identify as Rādhā. She appears in earlier Prakrit love poetry and becomes central with Jayadeva. For the Nimbārka and Gauḍīya traditions (see Other Vedantas) she is not merely a devotee but Krishna’s own power of delight, his śakti, inseparable from him; in Vrindāvan today the greeting is not “Hare Krishna” but “Rādhe Rādhe.” Gauḍīya view Gauḍīyas see Chaitanya himself as Rādhā and Krishna in one body.
Not every Krishna tradition centres on Rādhā. In the Tamil south, Krishna’s favourite is Nappiṉṉai, the cowherd girl whom Āṇṭāḷ calls on in her Tiruppāvai to wake and open the door (see Tamil Sacred Literature). In Maharashtra, Viṭhobā of Pandharpur stands beside Rukmiṇī.
Avatar or source?
Is Krishna an avatar of Vishnu, or is Vishnu an aspect of Krishna? The schools answer differently.
- Gauḍīya and other Krishna-centred traditions: Krishna is svayaṃ bhagavān, “the Lord himself,” from the Bhāgavata’s words kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (1.3.28, quoted on Other Vedantas); the other avatars, even Vishnu-Nārāyaṇa, flow from him. Vallabha’s Puṣṭimārga and Nimbārka agree that Krishna is the highest.
- Śrīvaiṣṇavas and Mādhvas: Krishna is a full descent (pūrṇāvatāra) of Nārāyaṇa-Vishnu, wholly God but not other than Vishnu. See Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita.
- Advaita: Krishna is Īśvara, the personal Lord, and in the Gītā speaks as the one Self; Madhusūdana Sarasvatī wrote that he knew no reality higher than Krishna. See Advaita Vedanta.
- Shaiva and Śākta traditions honour Krishna, but see the supreme as Shiva or the Goddess; in the Mahābhārata, Krishna himself worships Shiva.
Great temples
- Guruvāyūr (Kerala): Guruvāyūrappaṉ, a four-armed child Krishna, one of the most visited temples in South India. Here Melpathur Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭatiri composed the Nārāyaṇīyam, the Bhāgavata in a thousand Sanskrit verses, in 1586.
- Udupi (Karnataka): the image of the child Krishna installed by Madhva in the 13th century. Popular tradition When the poet-saint Kanakadāsa, of a low caste, was refused entry, the image is said to have turned to face him through a crack in the wall — the “Kanaka window,” still shown to pilgrims.
- Dwarka (Gujarat): Dvārakādhīśa, the king, at one of the four dhāms, the great pilgrimage seats.
- Puri (Odisha): Jagannātha, whose chariot festival, the Ratha Yātrā, draws vast crowds; the present temple dates from the 12th century.
- Nathdwara (Rajasthan): Śrīnāthjī, Krishna lifting Govardhana, centre of Vallabha’s tradition.
Janmāṣṭamī
Krishna’s birthday, Janmāṣṭamī — in Tamil, Gōkulāṣṭami or Krishna Jayanti — falls on the eighth day of the dark fortnight in the month of Śrāvaṇa or Bhādrapada (August–September). Devotees fast until midnight, the hour of his birth, then bathe and cradle his image, sing, and break the fast with his favourite foods: butter, milk sweets, beaten rice. Community practice In Tamil homes, tiny footprints are drawn in rice-flour paste from the doorway to the prayer room, as if the baby Krishna had walked in; children dress as Krishna; murukku and seedai are made for him. In Maharashtra, human pyramids climb to break a pot of curd (dahi-handi); in Tamil Nadu, the game of uriyaṭi is similar. Customs vary from family to family.
The great mantra
The short Kali-santaraṇa Upaniṣad — a late text, outside the classical Upaniṣads — teaches a mantra of sixteen names that, it says, destroys the faults of the Kali age:
हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे ॥ hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare,
hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare O Hari (or Harā, the Lord’s power), O Rāma; O Hari, O Krishna — a chain of divine names, calling on the Lord again and again. Kali-santaraṇa Upaniṣad (in the order the Upaniṣad gives)
Notice the order: the Upaniṣad begins with hare rāma; the Gauḍīya tradition, following Chaitanya, chants hare kṛṣṇa first. Both are accepted. The Gauḍīyas call it the mahā-mantra, “the great mantra.” Modern movement A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda carried it across the world after founding ISKCON in New York in 1966. Community practice ISKCON has been active in Malaysia for decades, with its Sri Jagannath Mandir in Kuala Lumpur and centres in many towns; its Ratha Yātrā processions in Kuala Lumpur, Klang and Penang, and its free vegetarian meals, are familiar to Malaysians of every background.
On a quiet evening, read Āṇṭāḷ’s first Tiruppāvai verse, or the Gopī-gīta above, slowly and aloud. Then offer something small to a picture of Krishna — a tulasī leaf, a little butter or milk, a flower — saying his name. Krishna, the Gītā says, accepts “a leaf, a flower, a fruit, a little water” given with love (9.26).
Check your knowledge:
Which Purāṇa book tells Krishna’s life most fully?
The tenth book of the Bhāgavata — the Viṣṇu Purāṇa tells it in its fifth book.
Is Rādhā named in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa?
She becomes central with Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda and the later Vrindāvan traditions.
Who left one of the earliest inscriptions recording worship of Vāsudeva?
His pillar at Besnagar, from the late second century BCE, calls Vāsudeva “god of gods.” Slightly earlier, the coins of the Indo-Greek king Agathocles already show Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa.
For Gauḍīyas, Krishna is…
From Bhāgavata 1.3.28. Śrīvaiṣṇavas instead see him as a full avatar of Nārāyaṇa.
Questions people often ask
How should I understand the rāsa-līlā?
The Bhāgavata itself warns against imitating it and reads it as the soul’s love for God, which breaks every lesser bond. Its commentators treat it as the highest teaching of the book, not as worldly romance. It is told on Maya & Lila too.
Why is Krishna so often shown with a flute?
Because in the Vrindāvan stories its sound calls every creature to him. Teachers read the flute as the devotee: hollow, empty of self, and so able to carry God’s music.
Is ISKCON Hindu?
ISKCON belongs to the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, which goes back to Chaitanya in the 16th century. Some of its members prefer not to call themselves “Hindu,” stressing that Krishna-devotion is universal; most Hindus regard it as part of the family.
॥ Pause and reflect
- Child, beloved, king, or teacher: which Krishna do you feel closest to?
- The gopīs left everything at the sound of the flute. What calls you that strongly?
- How do you hold the tradition’s one Krishna beside the historians’ many streams?
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Key terms on this page
Sources & further reading
- Edwin F. Bryant (trans.), Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God (Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa Book X) (Penguin Classics, 2003).
- Edwin F. Bryant (ed.), Krishna: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, 2007).
- Barbara Stoler Miller (trans.), Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda (Columbia University Press, 1977).
- David R. Kinsley, The Divine Player: A Study of Kṛṣṇa Līlā (Motilal Banarsidass, 1979).
- Freda Matchett, Kṛṣṇa, Lord or Avatāra? The Relationship between Kṛṣṇa and Viṣṇu (Curzon, 2001).
- John Stratton Hawley, Krishna, the Butter Thief (Princeton University Press, 1983).
- Archana Venkatesan, The Secret Garland: Āṇṭāḷ’s Tiruppāvai and Nācciyār Tirumoḻi (Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Edwin F. Bryant and Maria L. Ekstrand (eds.), The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant (Columbia University Press, 2004).