HV 65.1
कृष्णं व्रजगतं श्रुत्वा वर्धमानम् इवानलम् । उद्वेगम् अगमत् कंसः शङ्कमानस् ततो भयम् ॥
kṛṣṇaṃ vrajagataṃ śrutvā vardhamānam ivānalam | udvegam agamat kaṃsaḥ śaṅkamānas tato bhayam
Hearing of Kṛṣṇa in Vraja increasing like a fire, Kaṃsa fell into agitation and then into fear.
The Living Words
*Vardhamānam ivānalam*, 'increasing like a fire', is the simile that governs the whole chapter's first third. Kaṃsa sees the boy's growth in exactly the right way — as a fire adding fuel to itself. *Udvega*, 'agitation', is named first; *bhaya*, 'fear', follows. The verse is careful: the king's response is not rage, it is anxiety passing into terror. The sequence matters because it forecasts how Kaṃsa will now operate — not from calm evil but from panic.
The Heart of It
The scripture gives the tyrant his psychological precision. Kaṃsa is not a schematic villain; he is a man watching his own destruction grow in another country, helpless against it in exactly the way a house is helpless when a fire starts in the rafters. The Varkari understanding that tyranny is a condition of fear more than a condition of strength is older than the Varkari tradition. It is in this opening line. The god grows; the tyrant watches; the fire compounds.