50 Fun Facts About Krishna

Krishna and Rama are both avatars of which Hindu god?

Most Vaishnava lists make Rama the seventh and Krishna the next of the ten Dashavatara; Krishnaite traditions go further and treat Krishna as the source of all avatars.

In which city was Krishna born, according to Hindu tradition?

The birthplace is marked today by the Krishna Janmasthan Temple Complex, built over what tradition says was an underground prison.

Who were Krishna's birth parents?

The foster parents in Gokul are the ones who actually raised him after the swap on the night of his birth.

What relation was the tyrant Kamsa to Krishna?

Kamsa had imprisoned his own cousin Devaki and killed her earlier children after a prophecy foretold his death.

According to the prophecy Kamsa heard at Devaki's wedding, which of her children would kill him?

Kamsa killed Devaki's earlier children one by one; the seventh, Balarama, was transferred to Rohini's womb and the eighth was smuggled out to Gokul.

Which river did Vasudeva carry the infant Krishna across on the night of his birth?

A Kushan-era artwork thought to show this scene has Vasudeva carrying the baby in a basket over the water.

The Sanskrit word krishna, from which the god takes his name, means what?

That is why murtis of Krishna are so often painted black or blue; the same root gives Krishna Paksha, the waning 'darkening' half of the lunar month.

Krishna's childhood pranks earned him the nickname Makhan Chor, meaning what?

The Dahi Handi pyramids that smash hanging clay pots each Janmashtami re-enact exactly this habit.

Which hill did Krishna lift to shelter the people of Vrindavan from devastating rain?

The 8 km ridge in the Braj region is still circled by pilgrims on a parikrama path, and is itself worshipped as a natural form of Krishna.

Krishna is most often shown playing which instrument?

The peacock-feather crown and the flute are his two most recognisable attributes in art.

The gopis who danced with Krishna were what by occupation?

The most celebrated of them was Radha; the gopis are said to number 108 in Vrindavan tradition.

Which demoness tried to kill the infant Krishna by breastfeeding him poisoned milk?

The name is often glossed as 'devoid of virtue', yet she is also counted as a foster-mother of Krishna because she nursed him.

The serpent Kaliya had settled in Vrindavan because a curse kept which enemy of all serpents away?

Kaliya's original home was the island of Ramanaka; Krishna ended up dancing on his hoods and banishing him back there.

Yashoda, Krishna's foster mother, was married to which chieftain of Gokul?

The Harivamsa makes Nanda a step-brother of Krishna's birth father, which is why the baby was entrusted to him.

Krishna's elder brother Balarama is usually described as an incarnation of which being?

Balarama's weapon is a plough, and one 12th-century poem even lists him rather than Krishna among the ten avatars.

After killing Kamsa, whom did Krishna reinstate as king of the Yadavas?

Ugrasena was Kamsa's own father, deposed by his ambitious son; Krishna refused the throne for himself.

Which coastal city in present-day Gujarat did Krishna found as his capital?

The name means 'city of gates'; the town's Dwarkadhish Temple is one of the four Char Dham pilgrimage sites.

Who is listed first among Krishna's eight principal wives in the Bhagavata Purana?

She was a princess of Vidarbha who eloped with Krishna to escape a marriage arranged by her brother Rukmi.

What humble gift did Krishna's poor childhood friend Sudama bring to his royal court?

Krishna replaced Sudama's hut with palaces without ever mentioning his friend's poverty.

Where did Krishna and Sudama study together as boys?

The ashram is traditionally placed at Ujjain in present-day Madhya Pradesh.

On what condition did Krishna agree to be Arjuna's charioteer in the Kurukshetra War?

The Kauravas got Krishna's army instead, while Arjuna chose the unarmed Krishna himself.

How many chapters does the Bhagavad Gita contain?

Its 700 verses are only a small part of the Mahabharata but became Hinduism's most widely read scripture.

The Bhagavad Gita is traditionally attributed to which sage?

Historians treat it as a composite work by several authors, probably composed in the second or first century BCE.

What is the name of Krishna's conch, which he blew at Kurukshetra?

The Mahabharata says the shell was taken from a slain daitya named Panchajana; Devadatta was the conch of the Pandava archer and Kaumodaki is Krishna's mace.

Krishna beheaded which abusive king with the Sudarshana Chakra at Yudhishthira's coronation?

Krishna had promised the king's mother to forgive a hundred insults; the hundred-and-first was fatal.

The Syamantaka jewel of the Krishna legends originally belonged to which god?

The ruby was said to yield eight bharas of gold a day, and Krishna was falsely accused of stealing it before he tracked it to the bear-king Jambavan.

How does Krishna die in the Mahabharata and Puranic accounts?

The hunter Jara mistook the resting Krishna for a deer; Krishna forgave him before dying.

Which pilgrimage site in Gujarat marks the place where Krishna is believed to have died?

The site lies near Veraval on the Saurashtra coast and is a stop on the government's Krishna pilgrimage circuit.

Krishna's birthday festival, Janmashtami, usually falls in which months of the Gregorian calendar?

It is fixed to day eight of the dark fortnight of Bhadrapada in the lunisolar calendar, and devotees fast until midnight, the hour of the birth.

The Dahi Handi human-pyramid celebration after Janmashtami is especially associated with which state?

The pot of curd or butter hung high in the air stands in for the butter the child Krishna used to steal.

Radha's birthplace is traditionally placed in which town of the Braj region?

The town's hilltop Radha Rani Temple is the centre of the annual Lathmar Holi celebrations.

Roughly how many temples does Vrindavan, the town of Krishna's childhood, have?

The name comes from vrinda, holy basil, and vana, grove; Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is credited with rediscovering its lost holy sites in 1515.

Who make up the other two members of Jagannath's temple triad at Puri?

The English word 'juggernaut' comes from the huge Ratha Yatra chariots that carry the three deities through Puri each year.

Which Alvar saint composed the Tiruppavai, Tamil songs in which she imagines herself as a gopi?

The Alvar poets of Tamil Nadu produced the earliest of the great Krishna bhakti works, centuries before the north Indian saints.

Guruvayoorappan is the form of Krishna worshipped at the Guruvayur Temple in which Indian state?

Shrinathji at Nathdwara is the Rajasthani form and the Udupi image the Karnataka one, each with its own centuries-old tradition of song and ritual.

Which 12th-century poet wrote the Gita Govinda, the great lyric of Krishna and Radha's love?

The poem is still sung nightly at the Jagannath temple in Puri, and some of its hymns were included in the Sikh Guru Granth Sahib.

The 16th-century mystic poet Mirabai is famous in legend for surviving what attempt on her life by her in-laws?

The story has her tying a sacred thread on a Krishna murti for protection, sometimes cited as the origin of tying rakhi on his image.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) was founded in 1966 where?

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrived in the United States in 1965 with almost no contacts; San Francisco got the second centre a year later.

Where is ISKCON's spiritual and administrative headquarters?

Mayapur is the birthplace of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 16th-century saint whose Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition ISKCON follows.

How many words make up the Hare Krishna maha-mantra?

The mantra uses only three names, Krishna, Rama and Hare, and is first attested in the Kali-Santarana Upanishad.

Which book of the Bhagavata Purana, about 4,000 verses on the legends of Krishna, is by far its most studied?

The Purana has twelve books and roughly 18,000 verses in all, and its Krishna chapters are treated as a poetic masterpiece rather than the pastoral realism of the Harivamsa.

The Bhagavata Purana was the first Purana translated into a European language, in 1788. Which language?

The translation was made from a Tamil version, and introduced many Europeans to Hinduism during the colonial era.

The Chandogya Upanishad mentions a 'Krishna, son of Devaki' as the student of which sage?

Scholars still argue whether this Upanishadic Krishna is the same figure as the god of the Bhagavad Gita, or whether the verse was interpolated later.

The Heliodorus pillar at Besnagar, dedicated by an Indo-Greek ambassador, dates from roughly when?

Heliodorus served the Greek king Antialcidas, making the pillar some of the earliest hard evidence of Krishna worship.

Which Greek hero did Megasthenes equate with the god scholars think was Krishna?

His two named cities, Methora and Kleisobora, are read as Krishna's birthplace and Krishnapura, and the river Jobares as the Jamuna.

Where were the 2nd-century BCE coins of Indo-Greek king Agathocles showing Balarama and Krishna discovered?

Krishna appears with his conch and discus, Balarama with mace and plough, making them the earliest known images of the pair on coinage.

Jain tradition treats Krishna as the cousin of which tirthankara?

Jain texts also cast Krishna as a Vasudeva, Balarama as a Baladeva and Jarasandha as their Prativasudeva.

The Bhagavata Purana says Krishna's Raslila dance with the gopis lasted one kalpa, which is roughly how long?

The gopis slipped out of their homes on hearing the flute; the dance is treated as the Purana's 'ultimate message'.

Which later appendix to the Mahabharata gives a detailed account of Krishna's childhood and youth?

Together with the Bhagavata and Vishnu Puranas it supplies most of the familiar Krishna stories.

The 'Krishna Avtar' section of the Dasam Granth is traditionally attributed to which Sikh leader?

It forms part of the Chaubis Avtar, a composition on the incarnations of Vishnu.