Krishna

Krishna (mythology), in Hinduism and Indian mythology, the eighth avatar, or incarnation, of the god Vishnu. According to tradition, Vishnu appeared as Krishna to rid the world of a tyrannical king named Kamsa, the son of a demon.

Numerous legends describe Krishna's miracles and heroic exploits. Advertisement He slew or defeated scores of evil demons and monsters. He appears prominently, sometimes as a deity, in the epic poem Mahabharata, in which he sides with the Pandavas, one of two contending families, and acts as the charioteer of the hero Arjuna. It is to Arjuna, troubled on the eve of the decisive battle, that Krishna delivers the celebrated discourse on duty and life known as the Bhagavad-Gita.

For his part in the struggle between the Pandavas and their enemies, the Kauravas, Krishna and all his race were cursed by Gandhari, the mother of the slaughtered Kaurava brothers. Thereafter, Krishna's people quarreled among themselves, ultimately exterminating one another in a single day by fighting with uprooted reeds grown from a magical iron powder. Krishna and his brother Bala-Rama alone survived. They retired into a nearby forest, where a serpent crawled out of Bala-Rama's mouth, leaving him dead. The solitary Krishna was then killed by a hunter who mistook him for a deer and shot him with an arrow tipped with the same magical iron that had destroyed Krishna's people.

Although Krishna was earlier celebrated primarily as a heroic figure, in recent centuries he has been adored as a mischievous child and as the lover of the girls who live in the cowherd settlement where he began his earthly career.

Radha and Krishna in a Pavillion (1760?) is an example of the style of Indian miniature painting that was popular from the 16th to the 19th century. This piece, from India's Punjab Hills, is an illustration of a traditional story of Krishna, a Hindu god, and his lover, Radha. Krishna, left, the eighth incarnation of the supreme Hindu god Vishnu, serves as one of the central deities in Hinduism.

Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

The Bhagavad-Gita attempts to reconcile the two types of Hinduism (worldly and renunciatory) by offering a third way. This third way entails worshiping lesser gods, who emanate from the Supreme Brahman. An example of a lesser god is Krishna, the human hero who is worshiped as an avatar, or earthly descent of the god Vishnu. He is depicted here in Krishna with His Maidens, a 17th-century painting in the book Rasamanjari by Indian writer Bhanudatta.