page_title: It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna)
section_title: Touring Vrindavan's temples
hierarchical_section_title: It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna) / Background and inspiration / Touring Vrindavan's temples
caption_attribution_description: en:Yamuna river, en:Vrindavan, India
context_page_description: "It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna)" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released as the final track of his 1974 album Dark Horse. Harrison was inspired to write the song while in the Hindu holy city of Vrindavan, in northern India, with his friend Ravi Shankar. The composition originated on a day that Harrison describes in his autobiography as "my most fantastic experience", during which his party and their ascetic guide toured the city's temples. The song's choruses were adapted from the Sanskrit chant they sang before visiting Seva Kunj, a park dedicated to Krishna's childhood. The same pilgrimage to India led to Harrison staging Shankar's Music Festival from India in September 1974 and undertaking a joint North American tour with Shankar at the end of that year.
  Despite the devotional nature of the song, Harrison wrote it part-way through a period of divergence from the spiritual goals he had espoused in his previous works, particularly Living in the Material World. "It Is 'He'" serves as a rare example of an overtly religious song on Dark Horse.
context_section_description: Shankar had arranged for an English-speaking ascetic named Sripad Maharaj to serve as their guide on a tour of the local temples. Despite the bedraggled appearance of Maharaj, Harrison noticed that throughout the tour, swamis and other passers-by would greet the guide by kissing his feet – a sign of the utmost reverence.
  The party slept for a few hours in rooms provided by one of the temples, during which Harrison heard "huge heavenly choirs" in his dreams and experienced "the deepest sleep I had ever had in my life". After they had attended morning puja at this temple, at 4 am, Maharaj began singing a bhajan, a Hindu musical prayer. In the tradition of communal chanting, or kirtana, Harrison and the others there sang in response, repeating Maharaj's lines, for a period lasting up to five hours.
  Late that morning, Harrison and Shankar accompanied Maharaj to Seva Kunj, a park that commemorates Krishna's love for all-night dancing with his gopis (cow-herd girls). Harrison later marvelled of Seva Kunj: "All the trees, which are so ancient, bow down and the branches touch the ground. Just to walk in that place is incredible." In I, Me, Mine, he describes the Vrinadavan tour as "my most fantastic experience" and says that, at Maharaj's suggestion, he turned the bhajan into a song, titled "It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna)".
caption: The Yamuna River at Vrindavan, at sunset – Harrison and Shankar stayed at a riverside ashram during their visit to the town.
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