Dear Cecil,
I was reading an archive peice ‘Was there really a race of blue people?’, and Krishna was mentioned. Being the daughter of a ‘knowledge manager’, and a student of the Vaisnava tradition of India, I am aghast at your and others’ ignorance of Indian lore.
KRISHNA 101: The Vedic scriptures , like the Srimad Bhagavatam, describe the transcendental body of Lord Krishna as being like a dark-blue/blackish raincloud. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the cause of all causes, GOD for all intents and purposes. Then there are various powerful created beings, demigods, who manage the creation. The topmost of these is Lord Siva, who is the god described by --Paul-- who swallowed the deadly poison, thus his THROAT became permanently BLUE. It is true that poster artists have colored various gods a standard blue, thus confusing things. But this also exemplefies the large number of Indian people, what to speak of others, who do not understand their own scriptures.
Draupadi Devi Dasi. Welcome to the board and thanks for posting.
When posting to this forum, it’s helpful to link to Cecil’s column so that everyone can follow what’s being discussed.
It’s as easy as cutting and pasting the link. In this case, the one you are referencing is Is there really a race of blue people?.
I’ll add to the welcome. We’re a diverse bunch, but while we’ve had folks from a wide range of religious/spiritual persuasions drop into threads or start threads to teach the rest of us about stuff we don’t know, I don’t recall any Hindu dopers doing so.
I think there’s a smattering of western (especially American?) awareness of Hindu theology very heavily filtered through pop-western assumptions and oversimplifications. The God in Everything, God as a Participatory Meta-Self, that kind of thing. And yeah, we’ve seen the blue guy and the elephant-headed guy and the eight-armed smiling chick but I bet I’m not alone in having no more than comic-book level familiarity with them and what they represent.
Which Paul are you referring to? I was assuming you meant the Paul of the Christian tradition, but a quick “New testament” search on “Blue” at the Unbound Bible didn’t return any results.
I know very little about Hinduism excepting what I have read from Joseph Campbell. Hopefully you stick around and add your two cents. Welcome too btw.
If you read the linked column, you’ll notice that “Paul” posted a comment about Cecil’s answer.
Or that Paul, I guess. :smack: