Just Like That: Understanding Krishna

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

As Janamashtami, the festival to celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna, approaches on August 16, I sometimes wonder how foreigners react to the massive Indian veneration of a God whose persona is so radically different to their concept of divinity. Here is a God who steals butter as a child, precociously flirts with the gopis when still in his teens, is the ultimate lover—Sringaramurtimam—in his raas with the gopis and his immortal love lore with Radha, plays a key role in the great battle of Mahabharata between the Pandavas and Kauravas—in which he is willing to unethically break rules so that ultimately Dharma wins, and—in an entirely different role—is the sage counsellor to Arjuna in the Bhagwad Gita. A child dressed as Lord Krishna tries to break an earthen pot (dahi handi) on the occasion of Janmashtami festival. (PTI File Photo)
Is Krishna one God, or is he several personas rolled into one? To the Hindu mind, the attraction of Krishna lies precisely in this exuberance of his multifaceted personality. The love and reverence he invoked was never meant to be monochromatic. For Hindus, divinity is not necessarily a hostage to conventional yardsticks of behaviour. It is meaningful for the image it invokes, for the emotions it releases, for the ends it achieves, and for the joy and bliss it symbolizes and guarantees.
Krishna, to be truly understood, must be seen—in contrast to maryada purushottam Ram, the very epitome of rectitude—as leela purushottam, the human incarnation of the playful, whimsy divine who is unconventional, nonconformist, lovingly mischievous, the very embodiment of a god who revels in the sheer joy of his divinity. Why did Hinduism conceive divinity as this kaleidoscope of differing attributes?
The answer provides the key to the cerebral complexity of Hinduism and its fearless resolve to uninhibitedly plumb the unusual in order to provide a glimpse of the plenitude of divinity. While not all its infinite aspects can be captured, because it is both omnipresent and omnipotent, a glimpse can be provided of this very infinity by portraying it in myriad ways, each only a fragment of the whole, and yet a window to that endless canvas. Maryada Purushottam Ram is one aspect of the grandeur of the universe; Leela Purushottam Krishna is another aspect of the playful energy of the cosmos. Both represent facets of the seamless benediction of Ishwara, and the omniscience of Brahman.
Whatever the philosophy underpinning Krishna, there is little doubt that as a religious deity he is arguably the most ubiquitous presence in India. In Vrindavan, people still believe that every night Krishna and Radha meet to enact their raas-leela. At the sandy stretch along the river Yamuna—the Raman Reti—people still build sand-houses in the hope that the Yugal Sarkar—Krishna and Radha—may walk over the edifice, and thus bless them. At the famous temple of Nathdwara near Udaipur, Krishna is worshipped as Shrinathji. The entire worship is premised on the assumption that the image of Krishna in the sanctum sanctorum is living. Across the land from Udaipur, at Puri, on the eastern coast, Krishna is worshipped as Jagannath. And possibly his most resplendent representation is seen at Guruvayoor in the south.
If Shiva, in the awe-inspiring grandeur of his tandava was Nataraja, Krishna, in the delicate seductions of his movement, was Natwara. He is the main theme of the Manipuri dance of the north-east, of Kathak in the north, and of Odissi in Odisha. His dominant presence is also seen in the Yakshagana dance form of Karnataka, in the Kuchipudi dance style of Andhra, and in Bharatanatyam in Tamil Nadu. In Gujarat, the folksy Lakuta and Dandiya raas are inspired by him, as is the Tamasha folk theatre in Maharashtra, and the Chaitanya inspired yatra dramas in Bengal.
His presence in music is equally pervasive. In West Bengal, they have a saying: Kanu bin gita nahin, which means 'without Krishna there is no song'. In fact, he is the focus of the largest number of compositions in Indian classical music, and his presence is even more dominant in the light music genre of the thumri, raas, hori, and dadra. Of course, in literature, he has inspired an entire compendium of poets, from Jayadeva to Surdas, Chandidas to Vidyapati, Bihari to Keshavdas, Mirabai to Antaal. And in art, the palm leaves creations in Bengal and Odisha, the Madhubani paintings of Bihar, the Thanjavur works of Tamil Nadu, and the Paithen paintings of Maharashtra are all testimony to his immense popularity.
In his form of a personalised God, perhaps Krishna transcends the horizons of Hinduism. In the court of seventeenth century princely states of Mewar, the master painter who illustrated the Bhagwata Purana was a Muslim, Sahibdin. In Odisha, to this day, devotees sing the Muslim poet Salbeg's lyrics to welcome Lord Jagannath. Krishan looms large too in the devotional outpourings of Malik Mohammad Jaise. Syed Ibrahim Ras Khan (17th century), wrote his Rachnavali in praise of Krishna. Its opening lines were:
Worthy to be human, are only those Ras Khan
Who dwell among the cowherds of Gokul Gaon,
And blessed alone are those animals,
Taken to graze with the cows of Nanda's barn.