UDupi kRShNa image origins

Iconographic similarities

Similar images

• An image of skanda from the hamlet of Dhank in Gujarat from the 300s of CE: TW
• A skanda from the temple built in what’s now the NWFP of TSP by the Kabul shAhIya-s in 700s. TW

The image at Udupi while today worshiped as a kR^iShNa is rather transparently an old repurposed kaumAra idol.

karNATaka decline

Source: TW

The association of nAga-s with kumAra is common in the karNATa country & adjoining regions of the andhra country. Of course in the old kaumAra ritual 1 of the mothers receiving bali is kadru: kadrave nAgamAtre svAhA |

While the kaumAra cult has greatly declined in the karNATa country that it was 1ce popular is indicated by a subset of madhva-s remembering their kaumAra origins& maintaining a kaumAra maTha with pristine rituals.

In the vicinity of one of the coastal madhva shrines there was stone called the subbarAya kallu which was apparently placed aside in the shed adjacent to the shrine & was once the main deity.

Thus, there appears to have been a break memory of the old connection to the mathuran complex with these later changes in the region.