Alternative Krishnas: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

Although there is no real conceptual unity to this work—apart from the term “alternative” itself, which some of the contributors are at
pains to dismiss—the individual essays themselves at times present interesting new information that does enhance the reader’s understanding of the variety of presentations of Krishna within different approaches in Indian religions. What would have been helpful would have been some sort of schematization of the differences so that one would have had a whole image or rationalization of the Krishna that emerges from this reductionist alterity. After reading the text one is left with the question, “Which Krishna is it, really, to which other Krishnas are supposed to be the alternatives?”