Abstract

Śrī Kṛṣṇa's flute is one of the most recognisable and symbolically powerful objects in the religious imagination of Vṛndāvana. Although commonly represented simply as a bamboo flute held against Kṛṣṇa's lips, Vaiṣṇava literature preserves a considerably richer tradition concerning its different forms, dimensions, materials, apertures, names and devotional meanings. The principal flute forms are traditionally identified as veṇu, muralī and vaṁśī, while the longer forms are associated with names such as Mahānandā, Sammohinī, Ākarṣiṇī and Ānandinī, the last also being called Vaṁśulī. Traditional accounts give different measurements for these instruments, including approximately six inches for the veṇu, eighteen inches for one description of the muralī and fifteen inches for one description of the vaṁśī, while another technical tradition based on Rūpa Gosvāmin's Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu provides different measurements in traditional units and describes the longer flutes in greater detail.[1][2] The central purpose of this paper, however, is to examine an unusual devotional tradition concerning a gopī named Trūṇa, sometimes connected in later retellings with Candrāvalī, whose bones are said to have become the material of Kṛṣṇa's flute after her death. The account presents a striking transformation in which the devotee does not merely listen to Kṛṣṇa's flute but becomes the substance through which Kṛṣṇa's breath produces music. The study argues that this tradition can be interpreted through the concept of embodied flute theology, in which the hollow flute becomes the supreme metaphor for ego-less surrender and the bone flute represents an even more radical form of devotional transformation. At the same time, the paper distinguishes carefully between material demonstrable from accessible Purāṇic texts and a later devotional attribution, because the precise Trūṇa bone-flute episode has not been located in a verifiable Sanskrit passage of the accessible Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa editions consulted. This distinction is essential for presenting the subject as serious research rather than as an unsupported textual claim.

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