In the coastal town of Udupi in Karnataka stands the celebrated Sri Krishna Matha, founded in the thirteenth century by the great philosopher-saint Madhvacharya, propounder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta. The temple enshrines a beautiful image of the child Krishna holding a churning rod, which Madhvacharya is said to have received from the sea and installed here; its worship is conducted in turn by the eight monasteries (ashta mathas) he established.
Uniquely, the Lord is beheld not through the main door but through a silver window of nine holes, the Navagraha Kindi — for tradition holds that Krishna himself turned to face the devotee-poet Kanakadasa, kept outside for his humble birth, and a window opened in the wall so that he could have darshan. Udupi is a supreme centre of Krishna devotion and Madhva Vaishnavism in the South.
