Venu, Murali or Vamshi : The enchanting flute of Krishna

The flute, as an musical instrument, has existed for atleast 10,000 years. But for us Indians, the significance of the instrument is mostly associated with Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu whose flute tunes would drive Gopis crazy in love.

Every day little Krishna would set out from home with His flute tucked in at His waist. Krishna’s love for His flute is legendary. Many texts tell us stories about how all Gopikas of Vrindavan were jealous of Krishna’s flute. We find different references to name of Krishna’s flute. The most common names we find are Venu, Vamshi and Murali. And based on these names, Krishna is known with names such as Venugopal, the one with Flute and cows; Muralidhar, the one who holds Murali; Vanshidhar – the one who hlds Vanshi; Muralimanohar – the charmer with Murali.

There are many blogs and Quora answer that describe the appearance of these three flutes, including how many holes they had, how long the flutes were and how did they sound. But if we go through the ancient texts, we don’t find any references to the appearance of the flute. They only talk about how sweet the sound of Krishna’s flute was, and how the Gopis and Radha would feel enchanted by the music.

The Shrimad Bhagwat mostly uses the word Venu, while the Brahma Samhita uses the word Vamshi more often. The word Murali was made famous by the 16th century Bengali text Chaitanya Charitamrita. While excerpts in Srimad Bhagvatam describe that Krishna learned the flute by himself, other texts like Brahma Samhita narrate that the flute was given to Krishna by Lord Shiva and Goddess Saraswati and Shiva even taught Krishna how to play it.

But what does Krishna’s flute exactly tell you? What is its symbolic meaning?

Krishna is the ideal of divine love, the God of love. And the divine love expresses itself by entering into man and filling his whole being. Therefore the flute is the human heart, and a heart which is made hollow will become a flute for the God of love to play upon. When the heart is not empty, in other words, when there is no scope in the heart, there is no place for love.

The earliest representation of a flute appeared in reliefs from the 1st century AD at Sanchi and Amaravati from the 2nd–4th centuries AD. In later times, sculptures of Krishna playing flute can be seen in temples of all regions of India. Krishna is often depicted wearing a peacock-feather wreath or crown, and playing the bansuri (Indian flute). He is accompanied by either cows and calf, or by Gopikas.

Many storytellers associate Radha and Venu (Krishna’s flute) to be synonymous to each other. They say that Krishna loved both of them equally. For him, the flute was his way of expressing his love for Radha. So when Krishna left Gokul and Radha, and moved to Mathura; he left behind his flute too. Krishna is never depicted or mentioned with a flute in later life. Instead, he is depicted with Sudarshana. So Krishna in turn moves from flute and love, to weapon and warfare.