3. The Miraculous

The Birth of a Shrine

shrivatsa goswami

andmargaret h. case

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This essay was previously published as “The Birth of a Shrine,” Parabola,Summer 1993, 31–36.

Some seventy-five miles south of Delhi, as the Yamuna River flows south from the
foothills of the Himalayas and just before it passes the ancient and holy city of
Mathura, it makes a loop to the east. This loop encircles the temple town of Vrind-
aban, where residents and pilgrims alike believe the god Krishna lived and played as
a boy.
On the north side of Vrindaban, there is a stretch of the riverbank that is partic-
ularly rich with stories about Krishna. Here, in November 1992, a gathering of his
devotees witnessed his appearance in the form of a bhramara—a large insect re-
sembling a bumblebee—on three separate evenings. The event was unanticipated,
and yet painstakingly prepared for. It occurred at a conjunction of time and space
in the spiral of remembered history; and it appeared as an opening to a different di-
mension made possible by the attentive efforts of the devotees.
There were many layers to the event, which contributed to the richness of its
meaning: the feelings evoked by remembering the life of Krishna, said to have lived
here some 5,000 years ago, and to be living here still; the places associated with the
sixteenth-century saint Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu; the buildings erected here in the
early eighteenth century by the chief lieutenant of the last great Mughal emperor; and
the preparations made by the present generation to express their devotion to Krishna.