ABSTRACT
The well-known and popular stories around Bala Krishna offer a rich resource for the study of child and childhood in the Indian context. In the expanding interdisciplinary studies of Childhood a rereading of mythology potentially brings another perspective to the field. This chapter endeavours to open a view of childhood that is particular to the Indian context and outside the Eurocentric experience. At the same time it uses the lens of childhood studies that have added depth and complexity to a view of childhood that crosses the boundaries of philosophy, critical literacy and cultural anthropology. This chapter traces some aspects of Krishna’s early childhood through a wide range of images and texts – classical and folk, ancient and contemporary – that continue to be a vibrant part of a living culture. It looks at the radical nature of Krishna’s childhood as someone who is autonomous, powerful, independent, indifferent to adult competence and reason and beyond the reach of institutionalisation. The stories of the young Krishna imaginatively and poetically represent a view of power in childhood that is not contained or produced by socialising forces.
