The Hindu deities Vishnu and Krishna

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About this video

Vishnu is the preserver of the universe in Hinduism, watching over the world and taking on avatars to come down to earth in a crisis. His popular avatar Krishna is shown in stories and paintings playing the flute, with cows and demonstrating great strength, often painted blue because his name means 'the dark one'. The video ends with the story of young Krishna dancing on the serpent Kalia.

You'll be able to

  • explain Vishnu's role as preserver and why he takes avatars.
  • recognize Krishna in art and explain why he is often shown blue.
  • retell the story of Krishna and the serpent Kalia.

Key words

preserver
One who protects and keeps the universe going; Vishnu's traditional role.
avatar
A form a god takes to come down to earth, also called an incarnation.
incarnation
A god appearing in a living body, such as Krishna for Vishnu.
manuscript
A hand-written and often hand-painted book.
Transcript

you you mission is traditional wall in Hinduism is as the preserver of the universe as a world passes through cycle after cycle he keeps an observant eye on what's going on and he assumes these avatars as a way to descend down to earth and intercede when there is a crisis Vishnu's incarnations include the popular forms of Rama and Krishna but they also include half-animal half-human forms such as varaha and not a simple the people still choose one deity that they feel are more comfortable and in my family it was Krishna which is the incarnation of Vishnu Krishna is easily represented by stories so you can see him playing flute and maybe he is also shown with cows and maybe the cowherd is Krishna's life story was a very popular

subject for manuscripts in India and we see a number of painted versions of his life and many of these scenes will depict him demonstrating his strength and this is something that he demonstrates from the time he's an infant through adulthood Krishna and many of these paintings is blue in color is a reference to his name because Krishna means the dark one and this dark color is an aspect that's associated with Vishnu it represents infinity and eternity there was a snake serpent called Kalia and he had become very powerful and he used to hiss and frighten the people of who lived on the banks of the Yamuna River and the people were afraid to go for their bath in the river so Krishna was a mere boy at that

time so he climbed a tree on the bank of the river and from there he jumped on the head of the serpent and performed a dance there subdued him and then this happened beg for mercy and the Serpent's wives came and pleaded with Krishna to let him go not destroy him so Krishna said well it's not very nice to frighten people like that go and live peacefully somewhere else do not bother us here you

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