Lord Krishna

Who Lord Krishna is

Krishna is the eighth avatar of Vishnu in the classical Dashavatara reckoning, and in the theology of many bhakti traditions he is svayam bhagavan — God himself, of whom the other avatars are partial descents. His life, told in the Bhagavata Purana, Mahabharata, and Harivamsha, is among the most narratively rich in any religious tradition: the cowherd child of Yashoda and Nanda in Gokul; the flute-playing lover of the gopis on the banks of the Yamuna; the prince and statesman of Dwarka; and the charioteer-philosopher who delivers the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna on the field of Kurukshetra.

These multiple Krishnas — child, lover, king, teacher — are not held in tension by the tradition; they are read as facets of the same divine play, lila. Different sampradayas emphasise different facets: the Pushtimarg of Vallabhacharya centres the cowherd-child, the Gaudiya tradition of Chaitanya centres Krishna with Radha in Vrindavan, and the Gita-centric traditions read Krishna primarily as cosmic teacher.

Festivals and worship days

Janmashtami — Krishna’s birthday — falls on the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Bhadrapada (August–September) and is celebrated with night-long fasts, recitations of the Bhagavata Purana’s tenth book, and at midnight the symbolic birth of Krishna in the temple. In Mathura and Vrindavan, the festival fills the towns for days. Holi — the festival of colours — also has deep Krishna associations through the lila of Krishna and Radha throwing colour at each other in Barsana.

Wednesday is the conventional weekly day for Krishna worship; Ekadashi is observed by many Krishna devotees as a fasting day.

What devotees seek

Krishna is invoked for love in its many forms — the love of parent and child, of beloved and lover, of friend and friend, of devotee and Lord — and for the dissolution of pride that makes any of these loves possible. The Bhagavad Gita is read for guidance in moments of moral paralysis; the Bhagavata’s tenth book is read for the cultivation of devotion; the simpler chalisas, aartis, and stotras are recited daily.

The texts collected on this page include the Krishna Chalisa, Aarti Kunj Bihari Ki, the Madhurashtakam of Vallabhacharya, the Govind Damodar Stotram of Bilvamangala Thakur, and other widely loved compositions for daily practice and festival observance.