KANIYA, a name of Krishna, who is also known as Nonita. The infantine appellation of Kaniya, when he pastured the kine of Cesana in the woods of Vindra, whence the ceremony of the sons of Hindu princes assuming the crook, and on particular days tending the flocks. As Muralidliara, or the flute-holder,' Kaniya is the god of music. When Aurangzeb proscribed Kaniya, and ren dered his shrines impure throughout Vrij, rana Raj Singh offered the heads of 100,000 Rajputs for his service, and the god was conducted by the route of Kotah and Rampura to Mewar. An omen decided the spot of his future residence. As he journeyed to gain the capital of the Sesodia, the chariot-wheel sank deep into the earth, and defied extrication ; upon which the Sookuni (Augur) interpreted the pleasure of the god, that he desired to dwell there. This circumstance occurred at an inconsiderable village called Siarh, in the fief of Dailwara, one of the sixteen nobles of Mewar. Rejoiced at this decided manifestation of favour, the chief hastened to make a perpetual gift of the village and its lands, which was speedily confirmed by the patent of the rana. Nat'h-ji (the god) was removed from his car, and in due time a temple was erected for his reception, when the hamlet of Siarh became the town of Nat'hdwara, which now contains many thousand inhabitants of all de nominations, who, reposing under the especial protection of the god, are exempt from every mortal tribunal. The site to the east is shut in by a cluster of hills, and to the westward flows the Banes, which nearly bathes the extreme points of the hills. There are seven celebrated images in Rajputana, viz. Nonita or Nonanda, the juvenile Kaniya, his altar separate, though close to Nat'h ji. He is also styled Bila-mokund, the blessed child,' and is depicted as an infant with a pera, or comfit-ball in his hand. This image, which was one of the penates of a former age, and which, since the destruction of a shrine of Krishna by the 3Inhammadans, had lain in the Yarmma, attached itself to the sacerdotal zone (mum) of the high priest Balba, while he was performing his ablu tions, who, carrying it home, placed it in a niche of the temple, and worshipped it ; and Nonanda yet receives the peculiar homage of the high priest and his family as their household divinity.
Of the second image, Mathura Nath, there is no particular mention ; it was at one time at Kamnorh in Mewar, but is now at Kotah. The pdra of Mathura can only be made from the waters of the Yaniuna, from whence it is still conveyed to Nonanda at Nat'hdwara, and with curds forms his evening repast. The fourth statue, that of Gokul
Nath or Gokul Chandrama (i.e. the moon of Gokul), had an equally mysterious origin, having been discovered in a deep ravine on the banks of the river ; Balba assigned it to his brother-in-law. Gokul is an island on the Jumna, a few miles below Mathura, and celebrated in the early history of the pastoral divinity. The residence of this image of Joypore does not deprive the little island of its honours as a place of pilgrimage ; for ' the god of Gokul' has an altar on the original site. The fifth, Yadu-Nath, is the deified ancestor of the whole Yadu race. This image, now at Surat, formerly adorned the shrine of Mahavan near Mathura, which was destroyed by Mahmud. The sixth, Vitul-Nath or Pandnrang, was found in the Ganges at Benares, Samvat 1572. The seventh, Illadhan .Mollana, ho who intoxicates with desire,' the seductive lover of Radha and the Gopi, has his rites performed by a woman.
The precise period of Balba Acharya, who collected the seven images of Krishna now in Rajasthan, is not known ; but he must have lived about the time of the last of the Lodi kings, at the period of the conquest of India by the Moghuls. Damodra, the pontiff, at the beginning of the 19th century, was his lineal descendant ; and whether in addressing him verbally, or by letter, was styled maharaja or great prince. As the supreme head of the Vishnu sect, his person was held to be Ansa, or a portion of the divinity ; and it was maintained that so late as the father of the then incumbent, the god manifested him self and conversed with the high priest. What effect the milder rites of the shepherd god has produced on the adorers of Siva cannot be ascertained, but assuredly Eklinga, the tutelary divinity of Mewar, has to complain of being defrauded of half his dues since Kaniya trans ferred his abode from the Yamuna to the Banas ; for the revenues assigned to Kaniya, who, under the epithet of yellow mantle, has a distinguished niche in the domestic chapel of the rana, far exceed those of Siva. Tod says that the priests of Kaniya are called Chobi, from the chob or club with which, on the annual festival, they assault the castle of Kansa, the tyrant usurper of Krishna's birthright, who, like Herod, ordered the slaughter of all the youth of Vrij, that Krishna might not cscape.—Tod's Rajasthan.