Greek vs. Hindu Religion: Satyr 'Pan' is Europe's Version of Krishna in Childhood

“The Homeric Hymn also states that Pan is a god beloved of both the shepherd and his flock and, adding even further to the mysterious and enigmatic nature of this divinity, that he is a fierce and terrifying hunter as well as a gifted musician and nimble dancer.” [On the Death and Rebirth of the Great God Pan, by Richard Stromer]

“Pan is represented in Egypt by the painters and the sculptors, just as he is in Greece, with the face and legs of a goat. They do NOT, however, believe this to be his shape, or consider him in any respect unlike the other gods; but they represent him thus for a reason which I prefer not to relate.” [Histories of Herodotus (440 BC), Book II, Chapter 46]

Lord Krishna's childhood pranks and pastimes are distorted in the Greek religion with Pan, "god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs" (Wikipedia). Krishna is the companion of milkmaids (Gopis) or 'nymphs', whom he delights by playing his bamboo flute, or 'rustic music'. Pan's original home is Arcadia, acclaimed as an "unspoiled, harmonious wilderness" in European Renaissance art. Vrindaban (forest or grove of Vrinda or Tulsi, i.e. Holy Basil) was ancient India's Arcadia. In Braj-bhoomi, a region in northern India which encompasses Mathura and Vrindaban, Krishna is famous for dancing with the Gopis (Rasa-Lila), tending cows, and playing the flute in dense forests surrounded by simple creatures such as peacocks and monkeys. All these personal characteristics of this adorable Hindu God were diluted to help form the features of some of the most obscure and often grotesque beings called satyrs, who were sometimes fully human or partly human with horse or goat-like features (e.g. tails), mainly from the waist downwards. Most examples I am going to display are completely human, because in my opinion they represent the earliest forms of Krishna worship in ancient Greece and Rome.

Each one of these statues is titled, "Young Satyr Playing the Flute", without explaining who this satyr was, including his name, lineage, and role among other gods. Both are Roman copies produced in the 1st-2nd century A.D. of Hellenistic sculptures inspired by artists such as Praxiteles (4th century BC). The left statue was found in Domitian's Villa (A.D. 81-96), and is seen here at the Vatican Museum. The other marble statue on the right is from the Louvre, which you can also view at the Harvard University Library website. The Louvre's example is better preserved, but both demonstrate the Greeks' familiarity with Lord Krishna, including his childhood. His vintage cross-legged, leaning stance next to a tree trunk while delicately sounding beautiful melodies from his flute is synonymous with Krishna's Murali-dhara (flute holder) form in Vedic tradition. These two sculptures may not have even been "satyrs" originally, but later this terminology got ignorantly planted onto them as generic labels.

The satyrs in Greek mythology were salacious companions of Dionysus, another Greek god whose parallels to certain facets of Lord Shiva will be discussed in another post. Much like Krishna's childhood and adulthood, Shiva's sexual and destructive natures were separated to create multiple deities (Dionysus and Poseidon) in ancient Europe's endless desire to have as many pagan gods and goddesses as possible in its pantheon. The warrior and prince Krishna, as opposed to the child Krishna, has frequently been cited by contemporary Greek and Roman scholars before the common era as Heracles, including Megasthenes and Quintus Curtius. Also, "To the Etruscans, Hercle (Heracles) was always considered divine, not a hero who became divine only after his death. This popular figure, worshiped in numerous Etruscan sanctuaries, functioned as an oracular and healing god, qualities less important for the Greek Herakles" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, Etruscan Religion and Pantheon exhibit). Therefore, Krishna may have exercised an even more powerful impact on Etruscans than Greeks or Romans. American indologist Edwin Francis Bryant equates Hari-Krishna with Greece's adult hero Herakles, but not many to my knowledge have correlated the flute playing satyr (which devolved into Pan) with Krishna in his youth.

Chief among these curious entertainers, "Pan spends his time among the mountain nymphs of Arcadia, playing the panpipe," because "true to his satyr nature, Pan was lascivious" (pg. 385, Encyclopedia of Greek & Roman Mythology by Luke Roman, 2010). Yet despite his lusty desires, Pan has been described as the 'preeminent pastoral deity' by Yves Bonnefoy, who further adds that this god was already present in Greek religious life by the sixth century B.C. and probably earlier. Although Lord Krishna's pranks and Rasa-Lila dance with the Gopis were misinterpreted as sexual escapades and orgies, still Pan retained the status of a universal pastoral deity like Krishna. The graphics below fittingly illustrate the contrast between Pan holding hands with naked women and Krishna (blue color) expanding himself into multiple, identical males to please each of the milkmaids wearing saris (traditional Indian dress), especially his favorite Gopi and consort Radha in the center of the dance circle.

  "Pan with Wood Nymphs Statue"

Lord Krishna dances with Gopis in Rasa-Lila

Bagore ki Haveli, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

The Homeric Hymn to Pan is more or less an exact description of Rasa-Lila: "Only at evening... he sounds his note, playing sweet and low on his pipes of reed... At that hour the clear-voiced nymphs are with him and move with nimble feet, singing by some spring of dark water." The dark water probably refers to the Yamuna river, which is united with Krishna, who is also known as Shyama-sundara (beautiful dark person), in Vaishnava spiritual beliefs.

Speaking of Radha, she is cherished by the residents of Vrindaban because she is the eternal companion and wife of Lord Krishna. To paraphrase author Sharon Rose Yang, the striking closeness between Pan and the Roman Pales is due to the fact that they complement each other like Chinese yin and yang, or male and female, much as Radha and Krishna are glorified as one divine couple. This divinity Pales is sometimes defined as male and other times as female, exemplifying the confusion resulting from this dual role. Even though Pan is usually equated with Roman Faunus, this correspondence is deceiving because it ignores the similarities between Pan and Pales, which would also account for why the Roman festival Parilia was celebrated with such exuberance on April 21. The ancient Romans probably mixed up or matched Rama with Krishna on the same date. They also held another festival on July 7 for 'the two Pales' (Palibus-duobus), possibly to mark the dedication of a new temple to Pales by Marcus Atilius Regulus. Therefore, "Pales can be either singular or plural in Latin, and refers at least once to a pair of deities," according to Wikipedia. Yang's book clearly describes the basic relationship between Krishna (masculine Pan) and Radha (feminine Pales) in Hindu religious belief:

A revered shepherd goddess who presided over pastoral life, Sharon Yang explains, "Pales is purely an object of worship not a participant in the action... Pan is the main god who brings bounty and content, while Pales is only his assistant... Pan's exploits in love are recounted by the shepherds, while Pales, whose feast seems to link her to fertility, is, ironically, never mentioned in terms of sexuality and requires the purification of those who celebrate her." (Goddesses, Mages, and Wise Women, 2011, pg. 87)

Top: Lord Krishna playing his flute among gathered cows attracted to him

Bottom: Terracotta sculpture of Pan ("Rites of Spring") by Milton Horn

Milton Horn, a Russian immigrant who became a naturalized citizen in America, gives his own interpretation above of Pan sitting with normal human legs and feet next to a ram, or male sheep. This is very close to the familiar imagery of Krishna playing music to enchant his favorite pets, cows. Domesticated animals are essential for the sustenance of any rural society, and while Greece and Rome depended on sheep, India relied on cows. As Pan's activities and functions revolve around protecting shepherds and their livestock, Krishna is the protector of cowherd boys (Gopas) and girls (Gopis). He is known as Gopala ("one who tends cows") because he is one of the cowherd boys himself and also the most prominent one. 

In the ancient Greek language, 'paein' means 'to pasture', but this is not the only meaning associated with Pan, and it may not be its original etymology. In A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Ernest Klein speculates that Pan could be cognate to Sanskrit Pushan, a Vedic solar deity who is a "guardian and multiplier of cattle and other human possessions." Pushan literally means nourishment or growth. This agreement between Pan-Pushan would be analogous to the Poseidon-Poshayitnu relation previously suggested by me when comparing Shiva to Poseidon. Whether these words are related or not, Klein's guess demonstrates that scholars are often left with no other avenue than recourse to Sanskrit, the mother of European languages, which American historian William Durant has recognized.

The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion (2003) postulates another popular theory about Pan:
"The ancients quite early associated Pan with the word pan, 'all'. From this word-play leads to the association which made Pan in the Roman period into a universal god, the All. It is in this context that we should see the well-known story in Plutarch, which has sometimes been linked with the rise of Christianity, of a mysterious voice announcing the death of 'great Pan'." (pg. 402)

Like Rama's devotees, Krishna's followers also worship him as the supreme God, and so it is not surprising that Pan became known as a universal god during the Roman period of dominance. When Christianity emerged shortly after that age, Pan was declared dead, and Plutarch cried, "the air immediately became filled with a terrible lamentation" (On the Death and Rebirth of the Great God Pan, by Richard Stromer). This statement reminds one of the Bhagavata Purana's declaration that Kali Yuga (iron age of quarrel) began when Krishna departed from this world after the hunter Jara struck his foot with an arrow (Canto 12.2.29). Pan and Herakles, whom we have mapped to young Krishna and mature Krishna respectively, are both Greek divine heroes whose unexpected death is suddenly announced too. Herakles returns to Olympus after dying in apotheosis and Krishna rises to his divine abode after the completion of his leela (pastimes). Furthermore, the crucifixion of Jesus and his life story may be linked to Krishna's biography, but this is a whole new topic that deserves treatment for another day. 

Heliodorus, a Greek votary of Krishna, hails Vasudeva (another name for Lord Krishna) as "the God of Gods" on his Garuda pillar constructed in 113 B.C. Still present in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh (central India), this stone column also contains the inscription: "Three immortal precepts (footsteps), when practiced lead to heaven: self-restraint, charity, consciousness." These are certainly not the qualities you would attribute to a follower of a sex-crazed maniac like Pan, because even the so-called satyr playing the flute has no obvious sexual connotations attached to it except trivial nudity. Agathocles, an Indo-Greek king of ancient Bactria (present-day northern Afghanistan), coined silver drachmas around 185 B.C. displaying Balarama and Krishna, the two heroic brothers of the Yadava clan. Therefore, the knowledge of Krishna and scriptures like Bhagavad Gita (where he reveals himself as the Supreme Lord) already permeated the consciousness of Greeks centuries before Christ. 

For the incredulous skeptics, I ask them: Were the ancients of Europe randomly erecting statues of Krishna, such as the ones below, in Italy and Greece just for amusement? While most of them are kept hidden in museums spread across Europe, including the "Resting Satyr" in Saint Petersburg, Russia and another "Satyr playing a flute" in Paris, France, there are also some that stand outside in public areas where Greek influence is strong. Campania, colonized by ancient Greeks, and Copenhagen, of all cities, are two examples I have come across:

Satyr Playing Flute at Ørstedsparken in Copenhagen, Denmark

Greek statue of Lord Krishna at public square in Naples, Campania, Italy

Lord Krishna playing his divine flute among peacocks under a tree 
Courtesy of krsna-art.com

Richard Stromer's article, "On the Death and Rebirth of the Great God Pan", is full of interesting tidbits of information collected from numerous sources - novels, poems, dictionaries, essays, and academic research - which should serve as a brief primer on the ubiquitous nature of Pan, or Krishna. In one excerpt, he comments on a children's novel (The Wind in the Willows) by Kenneth Grahame where a rat and mole are irresistibly drawn to Pan's melodious piping: "They instinctively know that when they arrive at the source of that mystical music they will be in the 'holy place' (Vrindaban) where they shall find 'Him' (Krishna)." In James Hillman's essay, Pan is a "sacred manifestation of the psychic energy of the natural world," who "served as a mediator for the ancient Greeks," in Stromer's words. 
 
In James Hillman's own esoteric words, Pan was 'an ether who invisibly enveloped all natural things with personal meaning.' Intriguingly, the apostle Saint Paul made a similar declaration ages ago in his Epistle to the Romans (1:20): “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people have no excuse for not knowing God.” Indirectly the Christian Saint Paul is claiming that God has a personal form that is invisible to our eyes, but can be analyzed or understood through his creation, especially human beings. Genesis 1:27 therefore declares that God created man in His own image, or after His likeness. Thus, Stromer proposes that Pan's enduring legacy is "reflective perhaps of the personal relationship Hillman advocates between each human soul and this powerful nature archetype." The Bhagavad Gita spoken by Krishna emphasizes the necessity of these same processes - jnana (knowledge of God) and bhakti (personal devotion to God) - so this timeless wisdom likely filtered into pagan and Christian philosophies.

"Pan is also the Greek divinity most associated with the demise of the polytheistic and pagan sacred traditions of the classical world," Stromer writes, and Plutarch's story of Pan's demise was "used as a rallying cry in the ruthless destruction of classical paganism that followed Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as the empire's only lawful religion." This explains why we find very few traces of Vedic gods in Europe's pagan artifacts, and when we do we tend to shrug them off as anomalies. Nonetheless, the significance of Krishna being venerated as the god of all nature's creatures by Greeks should be our main focus. Since Krishna was a universal deity in Rome and Greece, it becomes easier for us to comprehend why Rama was an esteemed personality in Etruscan civilization.