HAND KRISHNA

The name Krishna comes from a Sanskrit word (कृष्ण, kṛṣṇa) that means "black", "dark", or "dark blue". He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme God in his own right. Krishna became the focus of numerous bhakti (devotional) cults, which have over the centuries produced a wealth of religious poetry, music, and painting.  The basic sources of Krishna’s mythology are the epic Mahabharata and its 5th-century-CE appendix, the Harivansha, and the Puranas, particularly Books X and XI of the Bhagavata-purana. They relate how Krishna (literally “black,” or “dark as a cloud”) was born into the Yadava clan, the son of Vasudeva and Devaki, who was the sister of Kamsa, the wicked king of Mathura (in modern Uttar Pradesh). Kamsa, hearing a prophecy that he would be destroyed by Devaki’s child, tried to slay her children, but Krishna was smuggled across the Yamuna River to Gokula (or Vraja, modern Gokul), where he was raised by the leader of the cowherds, Nanda, and his wife Yashoda.

The child Krishna was adored for his mischievous pranks; he also performed many miracles and slew demons. At length, Krishna and his brother Balarama returned to Mathura to slay the wicked Kamsa. Afterward, finding the kingdom unsafe, Krishna led the Yadavas to the western coast of Kathiawar and established his court at Dvaraka (modern Dwarka, Gujarat). He married the princess Rukmini and took other wives as well.