Krishna's Butter Ball

I was a bit sad that there were not many festivals going on when I was in India. But, luckily, there is a holiday almost every day in there. One evening Pati informed us that it was Krishna's birthday, also known as Krishnashtami, Gokulashtami, Ashtami Rohini, Srikrishna Jayanti, Sree Jayanti or sometimes merely as Janmashtami. Sharanya squealed with delight and we were all ushered outside to the porch.

Sri Krishna is the 8th Avatar (representation) of Vishnu. As a symbol, Krishna, very clearly, represents the impulse of life. Many people mistake Hinduism as having multiple gods, but this is not really the case. All of these "gods" represent aspects of creation. Brahma is the act of creation, Vishnu is the preserver of life and Shiva is the destroyer of life. Each of these three aspects of nature are seen as inseparable and each avatar of these three gods represents the physical form, a sort of detail of their nature. It is as if you are viewing one god or one concept from multiple perspectives. Krishna is very much about love and the celestial play of creation. 

Pati had drawn some new Kolams on the front porch and she instructed us on what to do. 

Much like St. Patrick's day we then made Krishna's foot prints leading from the porch, up the stairs, through the living room and into the kitchen where the mischievous little god could find some sweet butter. The story goes that baby Krishna loved to sneak into the kitchen and steal butter. There are many different interpretations of this, but the essence of this story is tasting the richness and sweetness of life. Although in the Mahabharata, Krishna gives Arjun a lecture on doing his social duty, the stories of Krishna himself are those of someone who likes to break the rules. If we are sophisticated in our understanding, we might regard the stories of Krishna similar to Nietzsche's prelude to Thus Spoke Zarathustra - that learning your social duty, then breaking the rules in a way that brings vitality back to your life and your society is the path we all must take to grow. 

Pati showed us how to dip our hands into the rice-paste and make the sole of Krishna's foot, then with our fingertips, we made his toes. 

Nyasha, Sharanya and I have substantially larger hands than the average Indian woman. When we were finished, Pati looked at our foot prints and proclaimed, "Oh, we have had a healthy Krishna visit our house today... it's good luck." Sharanya's mom appeared out of the kitchen and plopped a glob of sweet butter in our hands. I'm not sure what all was in it, but it was delicious and I licked my fingers clean. 

The little foot prints dried to a bright, chalky white even against the white tile floor in the house. As you can see from the pictures below, baby Krishna is not the only representation of this god. He is also represented as the god of love with his consort, Radha. Although I didn't meet anyone special, as Suraj had hoped for me, love is something I learned a lot about in India.