Shrinathji

Published on 29th January, 2022, in Times of India. Five hundred years ago, when the Mughals ruled north India, there was an explosion of Bhakti poetry across India. From north to south, people expressed their devotion to different forms of god using emotionally charged language. One of these forms of God was that of Krishna. The songs dedicated to Krishna are composed in local languages. They are connected to particular temples where Krishna is known by different names. This makes the songs unique. So, although we speak of Krishna Bhakti as a pan Indian phenomena, the reality is he has many local manifestations. People from ..

Published on 29th May, 2016, in Mumbai Mirror. Ever since the British came to India, there has been a terrible need to explain Hinduism using homogenous terms. Take Krishna for example. Academics want to see him as a single entity whose story is clearly told in a book called Bhagavata Purana, as clearly as the story of Jesus is told in the New Testament in the Bible or the story of the Prophet Muhammad is told in the Hadith. But a textual understanding of Krishna will always be incomplete. For the Krishna experience is also embedded in rituals and festivals that are part of temple ..