Vasudevaवासुदेव

Vasudeva — properly Vāsudeva (वासुदेव), the son of Vasudeva — is Krishna under his most theological name: the supreme deity of the early Bhāgavata religion, the god of the Vṛṣṇi clan of Mathurā who came to be identified with Vishnu-Narayana and with the indwelling spirit of all things. The Bhagavad Gītā's declaration that the rare soul of wisdom sees Vāsudeva as everything marks the name's reach: not merely a hero deified, but Being itself given a clan and a face.

The evidence

Vāsudeva worship is among the earliest forms of Hindu devotion that can be documented. The grammarian Pāṇini appears to know devotees of Vāsudeva; and the Heliodorus pillar at Besnagar in central India, erected around 113 BCE by a Greek ambassador who styles himself a Bhāgavata, is dedicated to Vāsudeva, god of gods. A Greek convert raising a Garuḍa column to the Vṛṣṇi deity is striking testimony to the cult's prestige two centuries before the common era. Early inscriptions from the Mathurā region likewise record shrines to the Vṛṣṇi heroes, Vāsudeva chief among them — a hero cult already crossing into full divinity. The fusion of this Vāsudeva with Vishnu, Narayana and the pastoral Krishna of Braj produced the composite Krishna of classical Hinduism.

In Pāñcarātra theology

The Pāñcarātra system made Vāsudeva the apex of its doctrine of vyūhas, divine emanations: from Vāsudeva, the supreme, proceed Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha — names drawn from Krishna's own family circle of brother, son and grandson — each governing aspects of cosmic function. The scheme shaped Vaishnava temple liturgy and image-making for centuries. In the twelve-syllable mantra oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, still among the most widely recited in Hindu practice, the old clan-god's name remains the everyday address of the absolute.