Gopala-Krishna
male given name
Gopala Krishna (Sanskrit: गोपालकृष्ण, romanized: Gopālakṛṣṇa, lit. 'cow-protector Krishna') refers to a form of the Hindu deity Krishna, as featured in the Harivamsha and the Puranas. The narratives of Gopala Krishna are set in the cowherd settlement of the Vraja region called Gokulam, where he is raised by his foster-parents, Nanda and Yashoda.
Historically one of the earliest forms of worship in Krishnaism, it is believed to be a key element of the early history of the worship of Krishna. This tradition is considered separate from the associated traditions of Bala Krishna and Radha Krishna, that led to amalgamation under Bhagavatism at a later stage of historical development.
Literature
The Bhagavata Purana, as well as the Harivamsha, a text that supplements the Mahabharata, are the primary sources that describe the legend of Gopala Krishna. The tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana, called the Krishna-charita, offers details regarding the childhood of Krishna as the foster-son of Nanda and Yashoda, his life of a cowherd in Vraja, his defeat of the malicious Putana and Kaliya, and his relationship with the women of the region. Indologist Wendy Doniger states that the Harivamsha, composed two centuries after the Mahabharata, integrates the mythologies of the powerful deity and prince who appears in the latter epic, with the folk and vernacular stories of Krishna as a cowherd child. Thus, she believes that his narrative is composed as God pretending to be a prince, who is pretending to be a cowherd.
Legend
In this form, Krishna is represented as a divine cowherd, engaged in the playing of his flute, enrapturing the minds of the milkmaids of Vraja, called the gopis. He is described to be a frolicking youth, and a prankster who amuses himself in his mischief.
“Gopala-Krishna” enters the record as male given name. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gopala-Krishna, male and given can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gopala-Krishna” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.