Brajesh

Name background

Lord Krishna has hundreds of names. For instance, the Hindu name Parthasarathi means Krishna. It means charioteer of Partha (Arjuna). In Mahabharata, it is Krishna who rides with Arjuna, the owner of the chariot. In the dictionary of Hindu names, Krishna is named Vrajpati, Vrajmohan (changed by usage to Brijmohan), Vrajnath, Vrajesh (changed to Brijesh or Brajesh), and so on.

The name of Brijesh essentially comes like this

Bra = Bra + pahen = Vraj + Ish

Vraj (childhood place of Lord Krishna, where he was known for all his Lila) Ish (Lord or God)

So Brijesh or Brajesh is an alias for Lord Krishna.

How does Krishna get connected with Vraj (Braj), a place in the country Mathura on the bank of river Jamuna near today’s Agra? Scholars think Krishna, which means black, was a pre-Aryan god who prevailed in the end by introducing cow-worship among Aryans( Some theory proves there are no aryan-dravidian theory). Mathura might mean a place where the cow-milk is made into butter. Robert Graves thought the Greek god Dionysus could be Krishna. The Aryans too held cow in special esteem. In Greek (Ge, Gaia) and Sanskrit (Go), cow is earth. In Persian, cow (gav) is ge(han) or earth.

More on vraj: vraj, in Sanskrit means a traveller and who likes to wander, and hence vraja is a road and not a destination. vrj means to twist, bend, turn, pluck, or gather (as in pluck grass for religious ceremonies) it's a type of grass also. On the other hand, vraj also means a stall or cattle-shed.

Now from this the vraj / braj (as called in northern India) came, this place is also called vrji, In north India it is called Braj today, and is in the region around Agra and Mathura, close to Delhi.

Ish means to possess and Isha means master. In fact it is an acronym for Ishita (durga/lakshmi).

The ancient Aryan-Vedic literature says that the Hindu roses some 5000 BC, some literature says it is beyond 10,000 BC. Krishna is the name of the lord (meaning dark coloured lord), who grew up amongst the herdsmen of Braj (Vraj), conquered a lot of demons as a very naughty kid, and saved the people from a tyrant called Kansa (brass or bell metal). Incidentally, Kansa was his maternal uncle (krishna's life is full of such actions which depicts that Karma is more important than anything and it's the sole reason for human being to exist). The stories of his dalliance with the local herds women who were not always proper or accepted by society, his pranks (mostly full with risk), and his love affair with one particular married lady (whom he finally left to go on with his life), Radha (prosperity), forms a large and very human part of the literature of North India. (Not all those stories are of the same time or place: the origin of the stories is probably far before the 7th century BC, Radha probably not much before 1000 AD).

Historical development

As a black baby born under threat from a local ruler, Krishna fled with his parents to a place called Gokul where every place-name is connected to the cow or herds of cows. The country was called Vraj and the nearby forest Vrindavan means herd-forest. There is another reference to Vraj or Braj that is important. Urdu is supposed to have grown in the region together with a sub-language spoken around Agra. It is called Braj Bhasha.

In the new Mughal capital at Agra, Braj Bhasha reigned supreme. Emperor Akbar’s patronage of Braj Bhasha quickened the pace of its growth and development. Akbar is himself said to have composed some lines in Braj. One of his queens, Taj, was a Braj poet.

Somehow the “b” version has remained current. Another variation is from braj to brij. You may find many pronouncing the linguistic version as Brij Bhasha. Names are no exception. Brijesh literally means the king of Braj. That makes him Krishna.