Lifting the Meanings of Govardhana Mountain: A Review Essay: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

In several years of teaching Hinduism I have found quite consistently that one episode intrigues the class more than any other. Although very few of my students have any starting knowledge of Hinduism, when we arrive at Kṛṣṇa’s lifting the Govardhana mountain, a vigorous debate usually erupts over its precise meaning and significance. In the Hindu tradition as well, the story of Kṛṣṇa’s supernatural feat has always been one of his most popular, and together with the episode of the subduing of the water-snake Kāliya, is depicted more than any other of the scenes of his life in early Indian art (Hawley 1979: 203- 208). I propose here no revolutionary rethinking of the narrative’s significance for the Hindu tradition. Rather I propose a short review of some of the principal frames of interpretation within which the scene has been cast by scholars who have sought to understand its significance.