Devalok
Temple legend · 1 telling · West India

Shrinathji from Govardhan to Nathdwara

Krishna's arm and then his face emerge from Govardhan hill; the image is carried away from Braj in 1672 and stops where its cart wheels sink in Mewar.

Who is in it

Places: Govardhan, Nathdwara, Vrindavan

The story, beat by beat

  1. A raised arm appears out of Govardhan hill and the herders begin to worship it.
  2. Seventy years later the face emerges, and the local people feed the image with milk.
  3. Vallabhacharya comes to Govardhan, recognises the form as Krishna lifting the hill, and establishes his worship.
  4. His son Vitthalnathji orders the eight daily viewings that dress and feed the image through the day.
  5. During Aurangzeb's reign the image is carried out of Braj along the Yamuna for safety.
  6. In Mewar the cart's wheels sink into the mud and cannot be moved; Maharana Raj Singh gives the land, and the town of Nathdwara grows around the shrine.

self manifestation migration hill cart

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Temple tradition

Pushtimarg tradition

West India · Nathdwara, Rajasthan; Govardhan, Uttar Pradesh Vaishnava

The Pushtimarg tells that its god was not carved but found. Out of Govardhan hill, near Mathura, a stone arm rose, then decades later a face, and the cowherds of the hill gave it milk and worship. Vallabhacharya, arriving in the last years of the fifteenth century, saw in the raised arm Krishna holding the hill above Braj and set up a regular service, which his son Vitthalnathji shaped into the eight daily darshans that still order the temple's day. In 1672, in Aurangzeb's time, the image was taken from Braj in a cart along the Yamuna toward safety in Rajasthan. At a place in Mewar the wheels went down into the mud and would not come out, and the Maharana Raj Singh granted the ground. The image was installed where it stopped, and the town that grew there is Nathdwara — the gate of the Lord. Gujarati and Rajasthani merchant communities are its chief following.

Shrinathji — Wikipedia

Sources: Shrinathji — Wikipedia

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