Janmashtami Special | Shree Krishna

Wish you a very happy Krishna Janmashtami!! ❤🙏

With the motivation I have got from the love from you all on the last blog, I am here with the " Janmashtami special blog" with some lesser known and spiritual facts about shree krishna and and some shotsrelated to shri krishna  by me. So, this one is gonna be a mixture of science, spirituality, religion and art ( photography).

( Janmashtami darshan of Sri Sri Radharasbihari ji, ISKCON Raipur 🙏 )

So, do you think that krishna is only there in Hinduism or is he there in other religions or cultures too? Let's find out....

Jainism

The Jainism tradition lists 63 Śalākāpuruṣa or notable figures which, amongst others, includes the twenty-four Tirthankaras (spiritual teachers) and nine sets of triads. One of these triads is Krishna as the Vasudeva, Balarama as the Baladeva, and Jarasandha as the Prati-Vasudeva. In each age of the Jain cyclic time is born a Vasudeva with an elder brother termed the Baladeva. Between the triads, Baladeva upholds the principle of non-violence, a central idea of Jainism. The villain is the Prati-vasudeva, who attempts to destroy the world. To save the world, Vasudeva-Krishna has to forsake the non-violence principle and kill the Prati-Vasudeva.

Buddhism

The story of Krishna occurs in the Jataka tales in Buddhism.^[252] The Vidhurapandita Jataka mentions Madhura (Sanskrit: Mathura), the Ghata Jataka mentions Kamsa, Devagabbha (Sk: Devaki), Upasagara or Vasudeva, Govaddhana (Sk: Govardhana), Baladeva (Balarama), and Kanha or Kesava (Sk: Krishna, Keshava).^[253][254]

Like the Jaina versions of the Krishna legends, the Buddhist versions such as one in Ghata Jataka follow the general outline of the story,^[255] but are different from the Hindu versions as well.^[253][78]

^Other

• Krishna is mentioned as Krishna Avtar in the Chaubis Avtar, a composition in Dasam Granth traditionally and historically attributed to Guru Gobind Singh.^[263]
• Baháʼís believe that Krishna was a "Manifestation of God", or one in a line of prophets who have revealed the Word of God progressively for a gradually maturing humanity. In this way, Krishna shares an exalted station with Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus, the Báb, and the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, Bahá'u'lláh.^[264][265]
• Ahmadiyya, a 20th-century Islamic movement, consider Krishna as one of their ancient prophets.^{[266][267][268]} Ghulam Ahmad stated that he was himself a prophet in the likeness of prophets such as Krishna, Jesus, and Muhammad,^[269] who had come to earth as a latter-day reviver of religion and morality.
• Krishna was canonised by Aleister Crowley and is recognised as a saint of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica in the Gnostic Mass of Ordo Templi Orientis.^[273][274]
• Chinese Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese folk religion, the figure of Krishna has been amalgamated and merged with that of Nalakuvara to influence the formation of the god Nezha, who has taken on iconographic characteristics of Krishna such as being presented as a divine god-child and slaying a nāga in his youth.^[261][262]

 

                                                   

( Janmashtami darshan of Sri Sri Radha Vrindavan Chandra, NVCC (ISKCON) Pune 🙏 )

Why is he blue or blue skinned??

 Blue is the color of all-inclusiveness. You will see in the existence, anything that is vast and beyond your perception generally tends to be blue, whether it is the ocean or the sky. Anything which is larger than your perception tends to be blue because blue is the basis of all-inclusiveness. It is based on this that so many gods in India are shown as blue-skinned. Shiva has a blue skin, Krishna has a blue skin, Rama has a blue skin. It is not that their skin was blue. They were referred to as blue gods because they had a blue aura. 

 The bluish tinge in Lord Krishna’s skin is not the colour of the material body but the eternal spiritual body of the Lord that emits blue aura. According to Bhagavad Gita, the blissful form of Lord Krishna is visible only to pure devotees. He may have bewildered the non-devotees, but those who offered pure devotional service to Him had always seen Him in his blue blissful form.

What does peacock feathers on his crown signify?

Even though Lord Krishna also manifested inside His own 'Maya', He was never controlled or disturbed by its powers.

The feathers of peacock exemplify Lord's Maya in a manner which human mind can try to grasp. The brilliant colors of peacock do not arise from the correspondingly colored pigments. Instead, they arise from the phenomenon called 'structural coloration'. The light waves entering the different thickness of keratin layers on peacock feathers get out of phase and undergo interference. The resulting light wave patterns give the beautiful play of colors which the human eyes see. The 'actual' color is just deep brown pigment which occurs in the background of these keratin layers.

Thus, Lord Krishna wears a brilliant example of His own Maya in His crown and stimulates our intelligence to understand the fact that the whole universe is a diverse manifestation of one single divinity. Thus, we are also supposed to understand the nature of Maya continuously during our life so that we do not get carried away and suffer due to its influence. If we also start wearing this idea in our mind, like Krishna wears its symbolically in His crown, then we can also enjoy this life in the manner Lord Krishna wants us to live.

Sources : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishna , https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/why-is-krishna-blue , https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/did-lord-krishna-really-have-blue-skin--55392 

Photographist : Kamya 🌸

I think you have loved these shots and the knowledge given if you have scrolled till here. I'd be much grateful for any comments, feed backs or suggestions you might have for me. And I would love to know which shot  or fact you liked the most :)

See you in the next blog soon, till then,

Have a wonderful day, take care and....

always remember to love yourself first!! ❤

 Let there be love, light, happiness and laughter in your life with Lord Krishna’s blessings.

Jai shree Krishna 🙏❤

Buddh Purnima Special Blog

 

What does "Buddha" mean?

Buddha is not a name, but a title. It is a Sanskrit word that means “a person who is awake.” What a buddha is awake to is the true nature of reality.

Simply put, Buddhism teaches that we all live in a fog of illusions created by mistaken perceptions and “impurities” — hate, greed, ignorance. A buddha is one who is freed from the fog. It is said that when a buddha dies he or she is not reborn but passes into the peace of Nirvana, which is not a “heaven” but a transformed state of existence.

Most of the time, when someone says the Buddha, it’s in reference to the historical person who founded Buddhism. This was a man originally named Siddhartha Gautama who lived in what is now northern India and Nepal about twenty-five centuries ago.

The Universe according to Buddhism...

According to Buddhist doctrine, the universe is the product of karma, the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and nonvirtuous actions create pain. The beings of the universe are reborn without beginning in six realms: as gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The actions of these beings create not only their individual experiences but the domains in which they dwell. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from that suffering. The means of escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes, a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the path out of samsara and then compassionately revealing that path to the world.

Who exactly "Buddha" is?

A person who has set out on the long journey to discover the path to freedom from suffering, and then to teach it to others, is called a bodhisattva. A person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally “passing away”). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of time and because only they reveal the path to liberation (moksha) from suffering (dukkha), the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event in the history of the universe.

The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the bodhisattva path before the achievement of buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha, in the form of both his teachings and his relics, after he has passed into nirvana. The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the 7th buddha; according to another he is the 25th; according to yet another he is the 4th. The next buddha, named Maitreya, will appear after Shakyamuni’s teachings and relics have disappeared from the world.

Have there been other Buddhas?

In Theravada Buddhism ― the dominant school of southeast Asia ― it is thought there is only one buddha per age of humankind; each age is an unimaginably long time. The buddha of the current age is our historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. Another person who realizes enlightenment within this age is not called buddha. Instead, he or she is an arhat (Sanskrit) or arahant (Pali) — “worthy one” or “perfected one.” The principal difference between an arhat and a buddha is that only a buddha is a world teacher, the one who opens the door for all others.

Early scriptures name other buddhas who lived in the unimaginably long-ago earlier ages. There is also Maitreya, the future Buddha who will appear when all memory of our Buddha’s teachings has been lost.

There are other major traditions of Buddhism, called Mahayana and Vajrayana, and these traditions put no limits on the number of buddhas there can be. However, for practitioners of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism the ideal is to be a bodhisattva, one who vows to remain in the world until all beings are enlightened.

Gautama Buddha and Sanchi Stupa...

The Great Stupa at Sanchi, also known as Stupa No.1, was commissioned by none other than the Mauryan Emperor, Ashoka, in the 3rd century BCE and is believed to house ashes of the Buddha, and as a result, the stupa began to be associated with the body of the Buddha. Adding the Buddha's ashes to the mound of dirt activated it with the energy of the Buddha himself. It is believed that his intention behind constructing this Stupa was to preserve and spread the Buddhist philosophy and way of life. The Great Stupa is the oldest and largest Stupa at the Sanchi Buddhist Monument Complex.

The stupas and monasteries at Sanchi created a thriving Buddhist community of monks and supporters. As more people came over the centuries, other settlements were founded nearby, and the region became a hub of spiritual activity.

( Photos by : Alok kumar Sahu)

“Conquer anger with non-anger. Conquer badness with goodness. Conquer meanness with generosity. Conquer dishonesty with truth.”

                                                                    - Gautam Buddha

I konw, this blog was a bit more inclined toward Buddhism and I hope you got something new from this blog and if so, don't hesitate to give me credit. Till then..

Take Care❤