58 Facts About Sri Krishna

Sri Krishna is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and as the Supreme god in his own right.

Sri Krishna is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one of the most popular and widely revered among Indian divinities.

Sri Krishna is a central character in the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana, the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, and the Bhagavad Gita, and is mentioned in many Hindu philosophical, theological, and mythological texts.

Sri Krishna's iconography reflects these legends, and shows him in different stages of his life, such as an infant eating butter, a young boy playing a flute, a young boy with Radha or surrounded by female devotees; or a friendly charioteer giving counsel to Arjuna.

Name and synonyms of Sri Krishna have been traced to 1stmillenniumBCE literature and cults.

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Sri Krishna-related literature has inspired numerous performance arts such as Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Odissi, and Manipuri dance.

Since the 1960s, the worship of Sri Krishna has spread to the Western world and to Africa, largely due to the work of the International Society for Sri Krishna Consciousness.

The waning moon is called Sri Krishna Paksha, relating to the adjective meaning "darkening".

Sri Krishna is known by various other names, epithets, and titles that reflect his many associations and attributes.

Some names for Sri Krishna hold regional importance; Jagannatha, found in the Puri Hindu temple, is a popular incarnation in Odisha state and nearby regions of eastern India.

Tradition of Sri Krishna appears to be an amalgamation of several independent deities of ancient India, the earliest to be attested being Vasudeva.

Vasudeva and Sri Krishna fused to become a single deity, which appears in the Mahabharata, and they started to be identified with Vishnu in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.

The tenth book of the text, which contains about 4,000 verses and is dedicated to legends about Sri Krishna, has been the most popular and widely studied part of this text.

Sri Krishna is represented in the Indian traditions in many ways, but with some common features.

Sri Krishna is often depicted wearing a peacock-feather wreath or crown, and playing the bansuri.

Sri Krishna is sometimes accompanied by cows or a calf, which symbolise the divine herdsman Govinda.

Alternate icons of Sri Krishna show him as a baby, a toddler crawling on his hands and knees, a dancing child, or an innocent-looking child playfully stealing or consuming butter, holding Laddu in his hand or as a cosmic infant sucking his toe while floating on a banyan leaf during the Pralaya observed by sage Markandeya.

Regional variations in the iconography of Sri Krishna are seen in his different forms, such as Jaganatha in Odisha, Vithoba in Maharashtra, Shrinathji in Rajasthan and Guruvayoorappan in Kerala.

In many temples, the stories of Sri Krishna are depicted on a long series of narrow panels along the base of the facade.

When Sri Krishna is born, Vasudeva secretly carries the infant Sri Krishna away across the Yamuna, and exchanges him with Yashoda's daughter.

Sri Krishna grows up with Nanda and his wife, Yashoda, near modern-day Mathura.

Two of Sri Krishna's siblings survive, namely Balarama and Subhadra, according to these legends.

Sri Krishna's interaction with the gopis at the rasa dance or Rasa-lila is an example.

Sri Krishna plays his flute and the gopis come immediately, from whatever they were doing, to the banks of the Yamuna River and join him in singing and dancing.

Sri Krishna is the spiritual essence and the love-eternal in existence, the gopis metaphorically represent the prakrti matter and the impermanent body.

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Sri Krishna befriends Arjuna and the other Pandava princes of the Kuru kingdom.

In Sri Krishna-related Hindu traditions, he is most commonly seen with Radha.

Sri Krishna then advises him about the nature of life, ethics, and morality when one is faced with a war between good and evil, the impermanence of matter, the permanence of the soul and the good, duties and responsibilities, the nature of true peace and bliss and the different types of yoga to reach this state of bliss and inner liberation.

The Bhagavata Purana in Book 11, Chapter 31 states that after his death, Sri Krishna returned to his transcendent abode directly because of his yogic concentration.

Sri Krishna's life is presented as a cosmic play, where his youth is set as a princely life with his foster father Nanda portrayed as a king.

Sri Krishna's life is closer to that of a human being in Harivamsa, but is a symbolic universe in the Bhagavata Purana, where Sri Krishna is within the universe and beyond it, as well as the universe itself, always.

Sri Krishna theology is presented in a pure monism framework by Vallabha Acharya, who was the founder of Pushti sect of vaishnavism.

Worship of Sri Krishna is part of Vaishnavism, a major tradition within Hinduism.

Sri Krishna is considered a full avatar of Vishnu, or one with Vishnu himself.

Gitagovinda of Jayadeva considers Sri Krishna to be the supreme lord while the ten incarnations are his forms.

Bhakti movements devoted to Sri Krishna became prominent in southern India in the 7th to 9thcenturies CE.

The Pranami Sampradaya emerged in the 17th century in Gujarat, based on the Sri Krishna-focussed syncretist Hindu-Islamic teachings of Devchandra Maharaj and his famous successor, Mahamati Prannath.

In South India, the acharyas of the Sri Sampradaya have written reverently about Krishna in most of their works, including the Thiruppavai by Andal and Gopala Vimshati by Vedanta Desika.

Sri Krishna is found in Southeast Asian history and art, but to a far lesser extent than Shiva, Durga, Nandi, Agastya, and Buddha.

The most elaborate temple arts of Sri Krishna is found in a series of Krsnayana reliefs in the Prambanan Hindu temple complex near Yogyakarta.

Sri Krishna remained a part of the Javanese cultural and theological fabric through the 14thcentury, as evidenced by the 14th-century Penataran reliefs along with those of the Hindu god Rama in east Java, before Islam replaced Buddhism and Hinduism on the island.

Sri Krishna's iconography has been found in Thailand, along with those of Surya and Vishnu.

The stories enacted and the numerous choreographic themes are inspired by the mythologies and legends in Hindu texts, including Sri Krishna-related literature such as Harivamsa and Bhagavata Purana.

Sri Krishna stories have played a key role in the history of Indian theatre, music, and dance, particularly through the tradition of Rasaleela.

One common scene involves Sri Krishna playing flute in Rasa Leela, only to be heard by certain gopis, which is theologically supposed to represent divine call only heard by certain enlightened beings.

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Sri Krishna-related literature such as the Bhagavata Purana accords a metaphysical significance to the performances and treats them as a religious ritual, infusing daily life with spiritual meaning, thus representing a good, honest, happy life.

Similarly, Sri Krishna-inspired performances aim to cleanse the hearts of faithful actors and listeners.

Singing, dancing, and performing any part of Sri Krishna Lila is an act of remembering the dharma in the text, as a form of para bhakti.

Palliyodam, a type of large built and used by Aranmula Parthasarathy Temple in Kerala for the annual water processions of Uthrattathi Jalamela and Valla Sadhya has the legend that it was designed by Lord Sri Krishna and were made to look like Sheshanaga, the serpent on which Lord Vishnu rests.

For example, Sri Krishna loses battles in the Jain versions, and his gopis and his clan of Yadavas die in a fire created by an ascetic named Dvaipayana.

Similarly, after dying from the hunter Jara's arrow, the Jaina texts state Sri Krishna goes to the third hell in Jain cosmology, while his brother is said to go to the sixth heaven.

Partial and older versions of the Sri Krishna story are available in Jain literature, such as in the Antagata Dasao of the Svetambara Agama tradition.

In other Jain texts, Sri Krishna is stated to be a cousin of the twenty-second Tirthankara, Neminatha.

Sri Krishna dies in the Buddhist legend by the hand of a hunter named Jara, but while he is traveling to a frontier city.

In Chinese Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese folk religion, the figure of Sri Krishna has been amalgamated and merged with that of Nalakuvara to influence the formation of the god Nezha, who has taken on iconographic characteristics of Sri Krishna such as being presented as a divine god-child and slaying a naga in his youth.

Sri Krishna is mentioned as "Sri Krishna Avtar" in the Chaubis Avtar, a composition in Dasam Granth traditionally and historically attributed to Sikh Guru Gobind Singh.

Baha'is believe that Sri Krishna was a "Manifestation of God", or one in a line of prophets who have revealed the Word of God progressively for a gradually maturing humanity.

Sri Krishna was canonised by Aleister Crowley and is recognised as a saint of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica in the Gnostic Mass of Ordo Templi Orientis.