Krishna’s childhood home, against the
followers of Chaitanya.
Krishnadas Kaviraj
Author of the most influential version of
the Chaitanya-Charitramrta (“Nectar
of Chaitanya’s Deeds”), an account of
the life of the Bengali poet-saint
Chaitanya, written about ninety years
after Chaitanya’s death. Krishnadas’s
text is the latest and most developed
biography of Chaitanya and focuses
mainly on Chaitanya’s later life, particu-
larly his visit to Brindavan, the northern
Indian village were the god Krishna
is supposed to have spent his
childhood. This text is marked by the
philosophical influence of the three
Goswamis—Rupa, Sanatana, and
Jiva—whose ideas played a major role in
shaping Chaitanya’s religious followers,
the Gaudiya Vaishnavas. As with the
other traditional accounts of Chaitanya’s
life, this text does not purport to give
an “objective” biography, it is rather
a hagiography (an idealizing and
idolizing portrait) written by a
passionate devotee (bhakta).
Krishna Deva Raya
(r. 1509–1530) Most important ruler in
the Vijayanagar dynasty, the last of the
great southern Hindu kingdoms.
During his rule, Vijayanagar reached its
zenith. Krishna Deva Raya defeated the
Deccani sultans to the north, although
he reinstated them as vassals. He con-
quered the eastern coast all the way to
Orissa and maintained good trading
relationships with the newly-arrived
Portuguese, although he refused to
become involved in their politics. His
reign was a time of artistic achieve-
ment and general prosperity, evident
in the artifacts of the time. His succes-
sors were not as successful, however.
Less than forty years after his death,
the coalition of the Deccani sultans
defeated Rama Raja at the battle of
Talikota. The Vijayanagar kingdom was
completely destroyed.
Krishna Janam Bhumi
Site in the city of Mathurabelieved to
mark the spot where the god Krishna
was born. The present temple was com-
pleted in the 1960s, but the site itself is
very old. One of the most religiously
volatile sites in all of India, the new tem-
ple abuts the Shahi Idgah, a mosque
built on the base of an earlier Krishna
temple. According to one tradition,
Muslim iconoclasts destroyed four suc-
cessive temples at the spot now occu-
pied by the mosque, marking the exact
location of Krishna’s birth. This claim
seems doubtful since the mosque was
built in 1661, and the temple it is said to
have replaced was destroyed by the
Moghul emperor Aurangzebin 1669. In
the 1980s the Krishna Janam Bhumi was
one of the three sites selected by the
activist Vishva Hindu Parishadto be
reclaimed as a Hindu holy place, along
with the Vishvanathtemple in Benares,
and Ayodhya’s Ram Janam Bhumi. In
all of these places, mosques were
claimed to have been built on the site of
an important Hindu temple, although
only the first two have historical evi-
dence that this occurred. During the
1990s there have been several cam-
paigns to reclaim the Krishna Janam
Bhumi, but to this point the campaigns
have generated little support. Given the
popular backlash after the 1992 destruc-
tion of the Babri Masjidin Ayodhya, the
government has been far more restric-
tive on the activities it allows at such dis-
puted sites. For further information see
Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu
Nationalist Movement in India, 1996.
See also Moghul dynasty.Krishnamishra
(late 11th c.) Author of the Sanskrit
drama Prabodhachandrodaya(“Rising
of the moonof wisdom”), an allegory
celebrating the triumph of Vaishnava
piety. The play is noted for the third act,
in which four representatives of non-
Vaishnava sects appear: a materialist; a
Jain monk; a Buddhist monk; and a
Kapalika, a member of an asceticKrishnamishra