Lord Krishna

About

Krishna murti and Kanha ji idols Krishna is kept in more forms than any other deity, and the reason is that people meet him at different points of their lives. A student gets the flute player. A new mother gets the child. A couple gets Radha at his side. A driver gets a pair of hands and a flute on the dashboard. Same god, four completely different objects, and the choice between them is not really about the shelf. He answers to as many names as forms. A Krishna ji murti in one house is a Kanha ji murti in the next, or Kanha ji ki murti in everyday Hindi. Kanhaiya and Bal Gopal for the child, Laddu Gopal for the infant kept in seva, Shreenathji at Nathdwara, Krishna Bhagwan in plain speech, and a Krishna statue or a Kanha ji statue when the listing is written in English. The material gets the same treatment: what a listing calls brass is pital in most of North India, and it is the same metal. One of these forms carries a daily practice the others do not, which is the single most important thing to understand before buying. Laddu Gopal, and whether you can keep up with it Laddu Gopal, also written Ladoo Gopal and known as Bal Gopal or Kanha ji, is the infant Krishna, and he is not kept the way other murtis are. In households that keep him he is treated as a member of the family: woken, bathed, dressed in seasonal poshak, offered bhog, put to rest at night. That is not sentiment layered onto a statue. It is formal Pushtimarg theology, in which the image is understood as personally present and served in the mood of Yashoda toward her child. Which raises the question that stops most people buying: can I keep up with it? The tradition answers generously. The Bhagavad Gita is explicit that what is offered matters less than the devotion behind it, a leaf or a flower or water offered with love being accepted. The Bhagavata Purana's own chapter on deity worship allows service according to available means. Households across India keep Kanha ji with a morning bath, a change of