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God’s accessibility

CHENNAI: If it had not been for God’s incarnations in the world it would not have been possible for His devotees to experience His grace and His easy accessible nature as His transcendental form is beyond human grasp. Of the Lord’s descents it is in His Krishna incarnation that His accessibility came to the fore in full measure. Krishna thus inspires mystics and the laity alike and His very name conjures up imageries of His several acts of grace towards those who were blessed to have experienced it during His manifestation.

In their discourse, Damal Sri Ramakrishnan and Srimathi Perundevi Seshadri said Krishna as the butter-thief had become the leitmotif of His abounding grace. Though His childhood divine deeds are legion it was this act which endeared Him to the cowherd community as He raided the larders of all without discrimination and distributed the booty among His friends. Despite the fact that they complained endlessly about His pranks to Yashoda it was only a pretence for they had willingly allowed Krishna to steal their hearts too. Sometimes they would make Him sing and dance in lieu of His demand for milk, curd and butter. Vedanta Desika, who waxes eloquent on Krishna’s childhood deeds in his hymn Gopalavimsati, has named this “butter dance”. How fortunate indeed were Yashoda and the Gopis that the Almighty Lord of the entire creation deigned to dance to their tune for a morsel of butter!

The Narayaneeyam of Bhattatiri, which is a condensation of the Bhagavata Purana, is exceptional in the devotional genre because it was not only composed before Krishna, the deity of Guruvayur, but also acknowledged by Him when the poet sought His approval after describing His every deed. Tradition avers that two of His childhood deeds — Krishna dancing on the serpent Kaliya’s head and the Rasakrida (sport with the Gopis) — were revealed to Bhattatiri in the sanctum of the shrine there when he composed them. The hymn thus is revered in devotional tradition as a veritable proof of the Lord’s graciousness towards His devotees during His descents because those of us who are far removed in time can only turn to such works for inspiration.

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