The 64 qualities of Krishna who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and cause of all causes.
Krishna is like an original candle that lights all other candles, Krsna is that original candle.
Krishna has 64 qualities that are the full expression and potential of His Personality.
However, the Visnu-tattva expansions (also God) have 60 of those qualities out of the full 64, which is 93.75% of Krsna’s qualities.
Some cannot understand why Krishna has more qualities than Visnu or Narayana, and why Krsna is the original Supreme Personality of Godhead and cause of all causes. As said above, like an original candle that lights all other candles, Krishna is that original candle. This means all Visnu/Narayana 4 armed forms are expansions of Krishna, meaning Krishna is NOT an expansion of Visnu as many Hindus wrongly believe today.
The fact is Krishna is NOT an expansion of Visnu/Narayana, all other forms of God originate from Krishna who is the original Supreme Personality of Godhead and cause of all causes.
Krishna has 4 qualities or attributes that Visnu/Narayana do not have always in full like Krishna does, they are the following–
(1) Krishna is the performer of wonderful varieties of pastimes (especially His childhood pastimes).
(2) Krishna is surrounded by devotees endowed with wonderful love of Godhead.
(3) Krishna can attract all living entities all over the universes by playing on His flute.
(4) Krishna has a wonderful excellence of beauty which cannot be rivaled anywhere in the creation.
These four qualities Krishna ALWAYS has in full, while the Visnu/Narayana forms of God can only partially exhibit them.
It is important to understand that Visnu/Narayana forms of God only sometimes exhibited these 4 unique qualities of Krishna partially.
Other living entities like Siva-tattva have 55 of Krsna’s 64 qualities which is 84.375%.
Jiva-tattva (jiva-souls) have 50 of Krishna’s 64 qualities which is 78.125%.
So the difference between Krishna (64 qualities) and Visnu/Narayana (60 qualities), Siva (55 qualities), jiva-soul (50 qualities) are explained here.
Although Visnu can temporarily exhibit those ALL these qualities when He plays the part of Krsppna during Krishnalila in the material creation because the original Krishna never leaves Vrindavana.
In actual fact, the full extent of Krishna’s wonderful qualities or attributes are inconceivable.
The Absolute Truth is anandamaya (desiring to increase His joy), hence from His original form He expands and becomes many.
These emanations from the Supreme Person are of two categories: full expansions and partially manifested expansions.
The Lord’s various full and partial expansions and the Lord Himself simultaneously co-exist, only appearing to manifest under the influence of time.
These expansions of Krishna are known as Visnu-tattva Forms of God, and they are also the Supreme Absolute Truth.
While non-different from Lord Krishna, the Visnu-tattvas like
Balarama who is Krishna ’s first expansion,
Pradyumna,
Ramachandra,
Narsingadeva
Visnu,
Narayana,
Maha-Visnu,
GarbhodakashayiVisnu,
Paramatma, etc.
All accept their own role as Godhead in the mood of Servitor to the original Supreme Being Lord Krishna, for example Visnu and Narayana Forms, all with different names, are found on all Vaikuntha planets in the Spiritual sky.
This relationship is the foundation of Vedic monotheism, which encompasses the inconceivable, absolute personal nature of the original Godhead.
Lord Krishna possesses two other expansive qualities known as Siva-tattva and jiva-tattva.
Together with Visnu-tattva, these three qualities are representative of the Absolute Person’s internal, external and marginal energies.
The Lord has expanded Himself as Lord Siva and Lord Brahma, and we, the living entities, are also expansions.
Like us, Lord Brahma is also jiva-tattva.
Lord Siva is between Visnu-tattva and jiva-tattva and Lord Visnu is Visnu-tattva (God).
Visnu-tattva, Siva-tattva and jiva-tattva are all expansions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Krsna in different categories.
Therefore as a reminder we can summarize as follows
Lord Krishna has 64 qualities or 100% of His own qualities.
Visnu-tattva has 60 qualities or – 93.75% of Krsna’s 64 qualities.
Siva-tattva has 55 qualities or – 84.375% of Krishna’s 64 qualities.
Jiva-tattva has 50 qualities or–78.125% of Krishna’s 64 qualities.
This is the reason why Krishna is called ParamPurushottam, Purnavatar or Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Reference from SrimadBhagavatam Canto 1 Ch 3 text 29
Learned scholars in transcendental subjects have carefully analyzed the summumbonum Krishna to have sixty-four principal attributes.
All the expansions or categories of the Lord possess only some percentages of these attributes. But Sri Krishna is the possessor of the attributes cent percent.
And His personal expansions such as svayam-prakasa, tad-ekatma up to the categories of the avataras who
are all visnu-tattva, possess up to 93.75% of these transcendental attributes.
Lord Siva, who is neither avatara nor avesa nor in between them, possesses almost 84.375% of the attributes. But the jiva-tattva soulsindividual marginal living beings in different statuses of life, possess up to the limit of 78.125% of Krishna’s attributes.
In the conditioned state of material existence, the living being possesses these attributes in very minute quantity, varying in terms of the pious life of the living being.
The most perfect of living beings is Brahma, the supreme administrator of one universe.
He possesses 78.125% percent of the attributes in full.
All other demigods have the same attributes in less quantity, whereas human beings possess the attributes in very minute quantity.
The standard of perfection for a human being is to develop the attributes up to 78.125% in full.
The marginal living entities or jiva-tattvas can never possess attributes like Siva, Visnu or Lord Krsna.
The jiva-souls (jiva-tattva) can become godly by developing their full potential of 78.125% of their transcendental attributes but he can never become a God like Krishna or Visnu or Siva.
Although he can become a Brahma in due course.
The godly living beings who are all residents of the Vaikuntha planets in the spiritual sky, are eternal associates of Vishnu in different spiritual planets called Hari-dhama and Mahesa-dhama.
However, the abode of Lord Krishna is above all these Vaikuntha planets and is called Krsnaloka or GolokaVrndavana. The perfected jiva-soul, by developing 78.125% of their above attributes, can enter the planet of Krishna-loka or the Vaikuntha planets after leaving their the present material bodily vessel in the material creation.By reaching there full potential of 78.125%, the jiva-souls can AGAIN enter the planet of Krishna-loka (Goloka-Vrindavana), or a Vaikuntha planet of their choice, after leaving their present decaying material bodily vessel.
Gaurangasundar Das is Iskcon,Inc Communication Director and SM IT head.