Cult of Gods

Krishna

Hindu tradition. See the whole pantheon.

Domains
love, divine play, the Gita's teacher
Symbols and attributes
Flute; peacock feather
Vishnu: takes avatar as
Vishnu
Vishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.
Vishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.

Key myth

Eighth avatar of Vishnu in Vaishnava tradition, who teaches Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. For some traditions he is the highest God and not an avatar.

Primary sources

  • Bhagavad Gita
  • Bhagavata Purana Book 10

All sources for the Hindu pantheon

Place in the family graph

Choose a deity to see where it comes from. Dashed lines are links the sources describe that are not parent and child.

Dyaus PitarPrithviIndraAgniVarunaSuryaYamaUshasVishnuLakshmiShivaParvatiSaraswatiGaneshaKartikeyaDurgaKrishna

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.NorsePapyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.EgyptianA chaos monster and a sun god, drawn by L. Gruner for A. H. Layard's Monuments of Nineveh.MesopotamianFolio 309r of the Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin), c. 800.Celtic (Irish)

Elsewhere in the world

Deities in other traditions who share a theme with Krishna: love, desire and fertility, wisdom, writing and divination. This is overlap in one area only.

Norse

Odin

wisdom, poetry, war

Norse

Frigg

foresight, marriage, motherhood

Norse

Freyr

peace, fertility, sunshine

Norse

Freyja

love, desire, magic (seiðr)

Egyptian

Isis

magic, protection, motherhood

Egyptian

Thoth

writing, moon, wisdom

Egyptian

Maat

truth, order, justice

Compare across cultures