Krishna's name simply means dark, which is why his statues are painted blue
Few gods wear as many faces as Krishna: a toddler stealing butter, a flute-playing youth, a lover, a warrior's charioteer and the supreme being himself. Even his name carries meaning. In Sanskrit it means black or dark blue, and devotional images of him usually show exactly that colour of skin.
Hindus worship Krishna as the eighth avatar of Vishnu, and some traditions go further, treating him as God in his own right. The Sanskrit word krishna also names the waning half of the lunar month, the darkening moon. He appears as the 57th name in the Vishnu Sahasranama, and he collects many other titles: Govinda, one who gives joy to cows; Giridhari, the lifter of the mountain; Ghanashyam, dark as a rain cloud. His birthday, Janmashtami, falls in late August or early September.
The stories of his life, known as Krishna Lila, begin in Mathura, where he was born to Devaki and Vasudeva. To escape his tyrannical uncle, King Kamsa, he was raised by foster parents, Nanda and Yashoda, in Gokul. There he charmed the cowherd women with his flute and lifted Govardhan Hill to shelter his people from torrential rain. He later overthrew Kamsa, founded the city of Dvaraka and, during the Kurukshetra War, served as Arjuna's charioteer, delivering the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
His name and cult can be traced to literature of the 1st millennium BCE. Traditions such as Krishnaism, which grew out of the medieval Bhakti movement, honour him as Svayam Bhagavan, God himself, and credit him with mastery of all 64 arts. Tales about him have inspired classical dance forms including Kathakali and Odissi.
Although revered across India, he has special centres of devotion: Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, Dwarka in Gujarat, the Jagannatha temple tradition of Odisha and Mayapur in West Bengal. Since the 1960s his worship has spread to the West, largely through Bhaktivedanta Swami and the organisation he founded, ISKCON.
Source: Krishna
