Lord Venugopala And The Cow, The Very Picture Of Bhakti

Off the flute of the young and handsome Lord Venugopala, emerges divine music. The kind that perpetrated the woods and alleyways of Vrindavan not so long ago. The kind that uplifts and cleanses and elevates, makes space in the heart for bhakti. The desi cow that supports the figure of Lord Krishna in this composition is the very picture of bhakti. He looks up at his friend, the neck at a sharp angle upwards, reaching out to Him with His whole being.

The Sanskrt word ‘bhakti’ is often translated to devotion, but the feeling of bhakti is so much more than that. Bhakti is love; bhakti is unconditional; bhakti is what is left of the heart after the washing away of all that clogs the so-inclined citta (psyche). The cow is the bhakta of Lord Venugopala Krishna, the Lord in turn its paternal lover and protector. This gorgeously coloured composition depicts the two in their togetherness, the beauty of their unconditional friendship captured by the prevailing dynamism and symmetry.

From the adornments of the azure-skinned Lord to the halo and the crown of the head-region, each iconographic detail has been sculpted with precision and attention, no matter how miniscule. Some hallmarks of South Indian temple architecture - the homegrown wood medium, the flower down the pedestal midline, and the majestic aureole gathered in the Shaivite Kirtimukham motif at the zenith