English: Approx. 1400–1500

Southern India; former kingdom of Vijayanagara Granite The Avery Brundage Collection, B64S9

Krishna is shown as a young herder playing a flute. His divinity is revealed, however, in his having four arms, two of which carry symbolic implements of the great deity Vishnu (of whom he is an incarnation): the war discus and conch shell. Here these implements are shown jetting flames, which suggests their supernatural power. The women of Krishna’s village were enchanted by the beautiful young man and his music. Their love, symbolic of the devotee’s longing for spiritual union with the divine, became the subject of much Hindu poetry:

How can I describe his relentless flute, which pulls virtuous women from their homes and drags them by their hair… as thirst and hunger pull the doe to the snare? Chaste ladies forget their lords, wise men forget their wisdom… hearing that music. Then how shall a simple dairymaid withstand its call?

Excerpted from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali, translated by Edward C. Dimock Jr. and Denise Levertov, 1967.