Who is Krishna?
KRISHNA AND THE GOPIS Next | Back | Section | Home | Index

Krishna was especially beloved by the gopi girls, milkmaids who churned the sweet milk of the cows into butter. As a young boy he played many tricks on the gopis. As he grew from a beautiful boy into the most handsome of young men, the gopis grew more and more enamored of Krishna. One beautiful full moon night, the gopis gathered for a ritual dance. Each woman wished that Krishna could join her in the dance. So distracted were the women that they failed to form the circle of the Rasa dance.

"So Krishna took each one of them by the hand and completed the circle of the dance with the cowherd women, closing their eyes with the touch of his hand. And so the dance began, with the melodious sound of tinkling bracelets accompanying the seasonal song of autumn. Krishna sang about the harvest moon, the moonlight and the night-blooming lotus, but the crowd of cowherd women sang only the name of Krishna, over and over again." (1978:126)

Each woman believed that Krishna was dancing with her, and was filled with happiness.

"Vishnu, whose nature is beyond measure, appeared in this way as a young man and sported with the cowherd women day and night. He whose real form is as pervasive as the wind lives as the lord in those women, in their husbands, and in all creatures as well. Just as ether, earth, water and wind are in all beings, so does the lord himself, pervading the universe, dwell in all things." (1978:128)