Dwarkadhishद्वारकाधीश

Dwarkadhish (द्वारकाधीश), the lord of Dwārkā, is Krishna in his royal aspect: the statesman-king who left Mathurā, led his people west to the coast of Saurashtra, and founded a fortified city in the sea. Where Gopāla is Krishna the cowherd and Pārtha-sārathi the charioteer, Dwarkadhish is Krishna crowned — ruler, householder and diplomat of the Mahābhārata age.

The story

The epics and Purāṇas relate that Krishna withdrew the Yādavas from Mathurā under the repeated assaults of Jarāsandha, an act of strategic retreat that earned him in Gujarat the affectionate title Raṇchhoḍ, he who left the battlefield — worshipped as Raṇchhoḍrāy at Dakor. At Dwārkā he reigned through the events of the epic, and after his departure from the world, tradition holds, the sea rose and swallowed the golden city. The submerged Dwārkā has haunted Indian imagination since; marine explorations off the modern town have kept the question alive without settling it. Temple tradition ascribes the original shrine on the site to Vajranābha, Krishna's great-grandson, raised over the god's own residence.

Worship

The Dwarkadhish temple at Dwarka in Gujarat, called the Jagat Mandir, rises in tiers above the Gomti creek and is counted among the four dhāms, the cardinal pilgrimage seats of India, as well as among the sapta-purīs, the seven liberating cities. A second famous Dwarkadhish temple stands in Mathurā, closing the circle of Krishna's life. In the royal form the tradition preserves a truth about its most beloved god: the flute-player of Vṛndāvana was also a founder of cities and a keeper of alliances, and devotion has never needed to choose between the two.