Historical Krishna - Part 9

Let us now try to describe Krishna and analyze his activities in Vrindavan. Unfortunately there isn’t much realistic information available on how Krishna looked like, even though there are a lot of poetic descriptions. So it’s really difficult for us to construct the human Krishna from the poet’s or devotee’s imagination. However there are some pertinent and relevant pieces assimilated from various sources. For instance, he had curly hair, his body colour had a greenish (like that of new born grass) hue and was not exactly blue as depicted in popular imagination, he had large eyes (like petals of a lotus), he was fond of yellow garments, used to wear ornaments possibly of wild flowers and used to carry peacock’s tail plume on his head and carried a flute. His eyebrows were thick but not bushy. Atleast that was his description from Vrindavan days and since we have been discussing the Vrindavan days so far let us focus on these descriptions and their inherent meaning. Krishna is dark in almost all depictions, whether realistic or poetic. Sometimes he is dark like a rain bearing cloud, sometimes like that of the leaves of the Tamal tree, sometimes like the newly formed green grass. Dhirendra Nath Paul seems to think that Krishna was dark in comparison with the general body colour of the Aryans, who were of golden hue, but was not black. That is why he is depicted to be of greenish or bluish hue – a tinge of darkness over the golden complexion. Possibly this is the correct version. Draupadi for instance was called Krishna but she was a dusky beauty. So possibly both Rama and Krishna who are taken to be of the same hue were tanned but not black. That made them look even more handsome and attractive than if they would have been of fairer skin. Both of them have large, lotus like eyes. What this means can be seen by looking at the eyes of any of the photos of Swami Vivekananda. This was certainly no imagination, they had the large eyes so characteristics of a Yogi. The eyes were mischievous, compassionate, full of fun and pranks and eternally lovable. There was always a sweet smile in his soft and tender boyish lips, even when he was angry at his enemies. The compassion stemmed from seeing the ignorance and the suffering in the world, just as Buddha would have done. His eyes radiated peace and joy as any enlightened soul’s would have. He used to wear yellow because it went so well with his hue. It enhanced his attractiveness. So great was his attraction to the gopas and gopikas, the rustic men and women who loved him with all their heart. The gopikas were enchanted by this boy whow as sweetness personified, who could play so many pranks and yet was so unattached to anything. His beautiful lips played on his flute and composed music of unearthly, divine flavor. As bees are attracted to a full grown lotus, the villagers were attracted to him. In him they found the eternal companion, the savior, the protector, the friend of all. Vaishnava form of worship of Krishna is of five types – Santa or the normal attitude devoid of all passions, dasya or the reverential attitude of a servant towards his master, sakhya or the attitude of a friend, vatsalya or the attitude of a mother towards her son, and madhura or the attitude of a wife towards husband or a woman towards her lover. Such attitudes were actually adopted from the attitudes of Krishna’s early companions and kinsmen towards him. The elderly gopikas were all attracted towards him with their maternal instinct of love and joy in seeing the child, the younger ones desired him as their lover and prayed to goddess katyaani for the fulfillment of their desire, the male companions all treated him as their friend, even sharing their food with him and playing with him in all sincerity, some of the elder men treated him with utmost respect devoid of all passions, and some of them, including his own father and mother – Nanda and Yasoda, served him with all their heart. So he was loved by them all, none hated him except Kamsa and his clan and in his later life his political enemies. We see interesting parallels in the life of Sri Ramakrishna, who, as per his biography was loved by everybody in his village and beyond, esp. the women folk who could not live without seeing him for a day. They loved his numerous pranks, his ability to tell story and make them laugh and cry, his mastery over the scriptures, his mimicry esp. of the village plays or jatra, his artistic temperament and his general joyous nature. Being with him was being in the presence of an everlasting source of joy as testified by many, even in his later days. We can surmise that the same would have been the case with our boy Krishna. He was joy personified and therefore was the cynosure of all eyes.

A typical day in Vrindavan would be spent like this. In the morning the boys used to take home made food like curd and rice with pickles, carried their staff like sticks, horns etc. and went out with their calves for the groves. Then they would let the calves graze all by themselves, kept a watchful eye over them and played in each other’s company for the whole day, until sunset. Possibly in the afternoon after lunch they had a siesta and some rest while calves roamed around lazily munching or ruminating or themselves playing. Then they would play so many varieties of games like that of catching hold of Krishna who would run as fast as he could. Possibly they would wrestle among themselves as most of them were quiet strong. They danced and sang merrily along with peacocks and dears who were there in plenty. Perhaps they would climb trees and chase monkeys some of whom were great friends of Krishna as he used to often feed them with butter. Perhaps Krishna would become the king and the other children his subjects and they enacted some trials. Perhaps Krishna just played on his flute and others listened to him spellbound. Perhaps Balarama would show his valour and strength and lift a calf or shake a large tree to get its fruits. Perhaps they just jumped into the water of the Yamuna and swam and played in the water or used to have mock fights. All in all they were happy, joyous, playful and merry esp. in Krishna’s presence. He was the light of their lives.