*Includes pictures
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
In the West, Hinduism is a religion that everyone has heard of but one that few non-practitioners truly understand. Today it is widely regarded as one of the world's great religions and considered the indigenous religion of India, with practices and beliefs stretching back thousands of years.
Hinduism as a religion spans more than 3,000 years, and now it includes nearly 1 billion people. At the same time, it is not a specific term, since there are clear sectarian boundaries, the same way there are differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, and even differences between the various Protestant sects and the various Catholic sects, Hinduism may be broken down into many major sub-groupings that may or may not have much in common at all. Additionally, in the same way Christianity contains many smaller, spirituality heterodox groups like Gnostic Christianity (which are sometimes called cults), Hinduism also contains many groups that have beliefs that do not fit easily within the common corpus of Hindu belief systems. All of these divisions came well after the time of the Aryans, and Hinduism likely began to divide around the 1st century CE, about 1,000 years after the arrival of the Aryans into the Indian subcontinent.
Sri Krishna, believed to be the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, is without question one of the most popular and instantly recognizable deities within the Hindu pantheon, which encompasses hundreds of Puranic divine beings, coupled with approximately 33 Vedic gods and goddesses or "devas," and a sea of other lower-ranking demigods and legendary figures. The likeness of the blue-skinned, flute-toting god, blessed with an unspeakably beautiful face and midnight-black curls, has been replicated in countless sculptures, often clad in colorful clothes and adorned with gold and silver jewelry, relief carvings, paintings, and other artistic mediums, otherwise known as "murti." Hindus and subscribers of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as practitioners of bhakti yoga, ashtanga yoga, jñana yoga, and karma yoga are intimately familiar with this god of unconditional love, compassion, and tenderness, who has also been crowned "Yogesvara," the master of yogis and all things mystical.
While Hinduism has always seemed complicated to outsiders, even those not terribly familiar with the faith and those unpracticed in the art of yoga know of Krishna, or at the very least they have heard his name in the course of conversation. It is particularly difficult, if not impossible to escape the deity's omnipresence in India. In all likelihood, tourists privileged enough to experience the enchanting republic firsthand have visited (or marveled at in passing) one of the innumerable temples dedicated to Krishna peppered throughout India, and this is excluding the shrines erected in his honor in other parts of the world.
Perhaps it was the Radha Parthasarathi in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh that caught their eye: a vibrant temple built in the shape of a chariot and painted entirely in the dainty shade of watermelon-pink, complete with wheels and a quartet of colossal stallions that towered over its visitors. Or perhaps it was the Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi Mandir in New Delhi that stopped them in their tracks: a stunning and sprawling complex dominated by lace-white pointed oval domes and embellished with wooden, marble, and stone lattice carvings, which houses the 1,764-pound Astounding Bhagavad Gita, the "largest principle sacred text ever to be printed." The Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir, currently under construction, is slated to be the tallest religious monument ever built. Needless to say, the existence of these shrines alone is proof enough that Krishna is no ordinary divinity.