The Art of Loving Krishna: Ornamentation and Devotion

Krishna to Go

Krishna to Go Up to this point, we have centered our consideration on the experiences temple-goers have when they behold special physical manifestations of Krishna, all of which originated and are rooted in the sacred domain of Braj. We have explored the visual vernaculars of various temples and connected them to their sectarian histories.In all cases, we have seen that decoding the language of ornamentation allows access into culturally specific notions of time, place, and space. In addition, we have examined the central role of the goswami as arbiter of taste and curator of aesthetic and ritual traditions . But what happens when visual imagery is not bound by the specificities of temporality, history, hagiography, or locality? In fact, most images of Krishna inhabit a visual universe free of such constraints, an open, and increasingly global, domain that is decoupled from such concerns. The world we live in is dominated by images and multiple types of media, and the visual universe is changing and expanding at a dizzying pace. There is a new generation of worshipers poised to have a dramatic effect on how Krishna is visualized and venerated, and innovative visual media are indisputably changing the face of Krishna worship. The most recent case of such a challenge to convention was the fall 2007 release of Krishna: Aayo Natkhat Nandlal, the first 3-D animated film on Krishna. Sold in a colorful blue box with a winsomecartoonimageoftheyounggodonthefront ,thefilmnarrates the story of Krishna’s birth and adolescence through his slaying of Kamsa. The animation takes its cues from Disney in its soft-focus, dreamy, westernized aesthetic, and its visualization of the Indian religious landscape is equal parts Bambi and Aladdin. Background music is provided by Bollywood singers, there is an overt appeal to a young, contemporary audience, and there’s now an English version available.1 The cover of the DVD quotes the Times of India as saying,“TakeYourKids.They’llloveit,evenastheygetacquainted 4 with Indian mythology.” Animated cartoons of Hanuman and Ganesha have also been highly successful, in large measure because the gods do cool superhero things that today’s kids can relate to. The Washington Post’s Foreign Service reported fromNew Delhi in an article entitled “In India, Gods Rule the ‘Toon’ Universe” that filmmakers “take a revered Hindu story line, tweak it, put it in a 21st-century context and bring the gods down to earth.”2 The gods play guitars, ride snowboards, speak “Hinglish” (Hindi-English), and are transported to other countries and cities. For today’s parents interested in having their children learn about the classical Hindu gods and goddesses, such “mytho-cartoons” are filling a much-needed educational niche. HowKrishnalooks,dresses,andactsischanging.Theprivileged sense of historical continuity and aesthetic control that we have followed in the Radharamana, Radhavallabha, and Govindadeva temples fade far into the background once one takes up the larger issueofpopularpracticeandthewidespreadavailabilityofKrishna imageryineverysortofmaterialandmedium.Canthevisualtraditions that we have considered thus far continue to have meaning in today’s ’toon universe? What happens when Krishna is worshiped and visually adorned outside of his sacred homeland; put another way, if you take the boy out of Braj, do you also take Braj out of the boy? This chapter reviews some of the ways in which people can take away a visual reminder of Krishna from his homeland and further considers what can happen when images of Krishna and Radha are recontextualized outside of Braj: in people’s homes, on theirtelevisions,andontheircomputerscreens.Wewillalsobriefly reviewotherkindsofre-situationsbylookingatsomenewtemples, not all of which are dedicated to Krishna, that have been built in India and in the diaspora. Temples and home shrines need images to worship, and a popular placeforpurchasingrepresentationsofdeitiesandtheirappropriate decorative accoutrements is Vrindaban’s bazaars. In addition to its historical centrality and its importance on the pilgrimage circuit, Vrindaban is the economic center of a well-developed and highly fluidartandsouvenirmarketforKrishnaimagesandparaphernalia. New shops are continuously springing into existence, fueled by a seemingly inexhaustible appetite for fresh and inventive merchandise destined to be transported by pilgrims to their home shrines Stylists for the Gods Krishna to Go 177 and altars, or commissioned for display in temples in Vrindaban, other places in India, or abroad. Part of the process of packaging “Krishna to go” necessarily involves adapting traditional practices and aesthetic norms to new ritual, physical, and cultural contexts. When patrons are making personal choices and are not constrained by a particular traditional temple or image, the primary guide for the god...