The name ‘Shri Krishna’ stirs up a flurry of emotions inside every Indian especially Hindus although Indian Muslims and Christians too are extremely fond of him as one can find many people belonging to other religions that swear by his name.

Krishna was born on what many Indians celebrate today as the festival of Janmashtami, which falls on August 19 for the year 2022, which is the date as per the Gregorian calendar although Hindus follow the Hindu calendar to mark all the Hindu festival and celebrate it whenever it falls as per the Gregorian date.

Shri Krishna has billions of devotees all over the world that are no longer limited to Indians as he has countless temples in his name and likeness even in western nations of Europe and America aside from many in other parts of the globe.

Brief Up

Shri Krishna, the eighth avatar of Lord Vishnu, was born to Vasudev and Devaki in the prison cell of Mathura kingdom where they were imprisoned by the latter’s cruel brother Kansa, who had heard of a prophecy that he will be killed by Devaki’s eighth child.

Accordingly, Kansa leaped into action when his life was threatened and immediately had his sister and brother-in-law imprisoned. He killed their first seven children, one by one, the minute they were born.

So, Krishna lived under the shadow of death even before birth and had to be transported by his father via sea to Gokul where he was brought up by the cowherd Nanda and Yashoda, his foster parents, along with his older brother, Balarama, who was an incarnation of Shesha, the serpent on which Lord Vishnu reclined.

Right from his infancy and throughout his childhood, he faced many attempts on his life from his uncle Kansa, who sent many demons to kill him in order to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled, but they were all slain by Krishna and Balarama.

It isn’t that Krishna and Balarama only lived in the fear of imminent death looming over their heads, waiting to pounce on them any moment as they defeated all their potential killers effortlessly and without a shred of fear.

Krishna is also seen as a mischievous prankster who would often steal pots of butter from the residents of Gokul even when they were kept high out of his reach, resulting in the women of every household constantly complaining to Yashoda about her son’s behavior.

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There are many images depicting him as an infant with pots of butter with a large amount of it smeared all over his face. Krishna, like Rama and other deities, has distinct characteristics but is easily identifiable with a peacock feather on the tip of his crown.

As a last resort, Kansa invited the two brothers to Mathura on the pretext of watching a wrestling match but in reality, he wanted those wrestlers to kill the two kids, who were around 8 to 10 years old at the time.

Another interesting facet of Krishna is the countless names he is addressed with and it is said that it might be possible to count the dust in the world but it’s to keep count of the names and forms he has inhabited with a few well known ones being Kanha, Kanhaiya, Madhusudan, Janardhan, Ranchod, and many, many more.

In Popular Culture

Given the immense adoration he enjoys, it is only obvious that Shri Krishna too will have many TV serials and movies based on him with the most popular ones being B.R Chopra’s Mahabharat (1988) where he was played by Nitish Bhardwaj and Ramanand Sagar’s Shree Krishna (1993) where he was portrayed by Sarvadaman Banerjee.

These two actors have been immortalized Krishna like no other despite the deity being played countless number of times before and after them in countless number movies and TV shows.

For the millennial generation who have grown up in the era of social media platforms it is Saurabh Raj Jain who they know and love as Shri Krishna in Star Plus’s Mahabharat (2013), which was a massive success and dubbed in many Indian and foreign languages.

When we have so many representations of Krishna on the small and big screen, how can animation be left out so let us now look at some important animated series that are based on Shri Krishna.

• Krishna: The Birth- This movie was released in 2006 and depicts the birth of Krishna where his biological parents, Devaki and Vasudev, keep him out of sight of Kansa and how Vasudev transports him to Gokul where he grows up amidst many threats to his life, his adventurous exploits, and life lessons that everyone can learn
• Krishna Makhan Chor– This one depicts Krishna’s life in Gokul and his relationship with foster parents, Nanda and Yashoda, where you get to see the mischievous side of young Krishna when he stole butter from many households, leading to the name ‘Makhan Chor’
• Krishna in Vrindavan– This one depicts his growing up years in Vrindavan and the adventures of his youth along with his relationship with Radha
• Krishna Kansa Vadh– An inspiring series for young children that teaches them right and wrong, good and evil, etc. along with the reason for Krishna’s birth and concludes with the slaying of his evil uncle Kansa and his parents’ release from imprisonmentAs mentioned above, Krishna is many things to many people and he takes the form that people give him. For some he is the lord incarnate who vanquishes evil while for others he is the mischievous prankster, for women he is the eternal lover, for Mathura and Braj residents, he is the butter thief, etc.

One can go on and on about Shri Krishna who lives on in many forms while actors who have portrayed him in popular culture movies and series too have become immortalized and remain fixated in public memory as ‘Shri Krishna’ where they have hordes of people touching their feet wherever they go.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) was founded in 1966 in New York City that aims to make people aware of Shri Krishna and what they can learn from his life so that they accordingly inculcate these principles into their own life as well.

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