Canto Ten - Chapter 6

Śrī Śuka said: As Nanda traveled along the road, he reflected that Śauri's warning could not be false. Fearing that calamities might be approaching, he took refuge in Hari.

The dreadful Pūtanā, a killer of children sent by Kaṃsa, roamed through cities, villages, cowherd settlements and other places, murdering infants.

Such demonesses find a place wherever people do not perform acts of hearing and the other practices concerning the Lord of the Sātvatas, practices that destroy malevolent beings.

One day Pūtanā, who traveled through the sky and could move wherever she wished, flew to Nanda's Gokula. By her magic she transformed herself into a woman and entered the settlement.

Jasmine flowers were woven into her bound hair. Her waist appeared strained by her broad hips and full breasts. She wore beautiful garments and fashioned earrings, while shining locks framed and adorned her face.

With her charming smile and sidelong glances, the woman captivated the minds of Vraja's residents. The cowherd women thought that the goddess of fortune herself, lotus in hand, had come in visible form to see her Lord.

That child-seizing spirit searched there for infants and happened to see, in Nanda's house, the baby who brings an end to the wicked. His immeasurable innate splendor was concealed, like fire covered by ashes as it rests upon a bed.

The Lord, the indwelling Self of all that moves and does not move, recognized her as a child-killing demon and closed His eyes. She placed the infinite Lord, her own destroyer, upon her lap, like a fool whose mind mistakes a sleeping snake for a rope.

Yaśodā and Rohiṇī saw that lovely woman, whose keen and cruel heart was hidden within her like a sword in its sheath. Overawed by her brilliance, the two mothers stood watching and did not stop her.

Then the dreadful woman took the infant upon her lap and offered Him her breast, which was smeared with powerful, deadly poison. The Lord angrily gripped it tightly with both hands and drank the poison together with her life-breath.

As the vital core of her entire being was crushed, she cried, "Release me! Release me! Enough!" Her eyes opened wide; she repeatedly flung out her feet and arms; sweat covered her body; and she screamed.

The terrible force of her deep roar made the earth with its mountains and the heavens with their planets tremble. The lower regions and every direction echoed, and people fell to the ground, fearing that a thunderbolt had struck.

Tormented at the breast and bereft of life, the night-roaming demon opened her mouth and stretched out her hair, feet and arms. Resuming her own form within the cowherd settlement, she fell, O King, like Vṛtra struck by the thunderbolt.

As that body fell, it crushed all the trees within a distance of three gavyūtis. O great king, this was an astonishing sight.

Her fearsome face had tusks as long as plow beams, nostrils like mountain caves and breasts like rocky hills. Tangled red hair spread about her head.

Her eyes were as deep as blind wells, her terrifying hips rose like riverbanks, her arms, thighs and feet resembled massive embankments, and her belly was like a lake emptied of water.

The cowherd men and women were terrified when they saw that corpse. Her earlier roar had already seemed to split their hearts, ears and heads.

Then they saw the infant fearlessly playing upon her breast. The cowherd women hurried forward in alarm and picked Him up.

Together with Yaśodā and Rohiṇī, they carefully protected the child on every side by waving a cow's tail around Him and performing other rites.

They bathed the infant in cow urine and then covered Him with dust raised by cows. With cow dung and the Lord's names, they placed protection upon His twelve limbs.

The cowherd women touched sanctified water and separately placed the sacred seed-syllables upon their own limbs and hands. Then they performed the same protective placement upon the child.

May Aja guard Your feet and Maṇimān Your knees; may Yajña protect Your thighs and Acyuta Your waist; may Hayāsya guard Your abdomen, Keśava Your heart, Īśa Your chest and Ina Your throat; may Viṣṇu protect Your arms, Urukrama Your face and Īśvara Your head.

May the wielder of the discus stand before You and Hari with His mace behind You. At Your two sides may the bow and sword stand guard, together with Madhuhā and Ajana. At the corners may Urugāya protect You with His conch; may Upendra guard above, Tārkṣya below, Haladhara and Puruṣa on every side.

May Hṛṣīkeśa protect Your senses and Nārāyaṇa Your vital breaths. May the Lord of Śvetadvīpa guard Your consciousness and Yogeśvara Your mind.

May Pṛśnigarbha protect Your intelligence and the Supreme Lord Your very self. May Govinda guard You while You play and Mādhava while You sleep.

May Vaikuṇṭha guard You while You walk, the Lord of Śrī while You sit and the enjoyer of sacrifice while You eat. May He who terrifies every evil spirit protect You.

May the ḍākinīs, demonesses, kūṣmāṇḍas and spirits that seize children, as well as ghosts, revenants, piśācas, yakṣas, rākṣasas and vināyakas,

Koṭarā, Revatī, Jyeṣṭhā, Pūtanā and the other mātṛkās, and those forces of madness and epilepsy that attack body, life and senses,

together with great portents seen in dreams and all the spirits that afflict young and old, be utterly destroyed, for they are terrified when Viṣṇu's name is uttered.

Śrī Śuka said: After the cowherd women, bound by affection, had thus protected the child, His mother nursed her son and laid Him down to sleep.

Meanwhile Nanda and the other cowherd men returned from Mathurā to Vraja. When they saw Pūtanā's body, they were utterly astonished.

They said, "Surely Ānakadundubhi has become a sage or a master of yoga. The very calamity he foretold has now appeared before us."

The residents of Vraja cut the corpse apart with axes, carried its limbs far away, surrounded them with wood and burned them.

As the body burned, its smoke rose with the fragrance of aguru, for Kṛṣṇa had sucked from her and instantly destroyed her sins.

Pūtanā was a child-killing rākṣasī who drank blood. Yet although she offered her breast to Hari with murderous intent, she attained an exalted destination.

How much more, then, will those devoted mothers who lovingly offer what is dearest to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Self, attain?

The Lord stepped upon her body with His feet, which abide in devotees' hearts and are worshiped by those whom the world itself worships, and then drank from her breast.

Though she was a demoness, Pūtanā attained heaven and the station of a mother. What, then, of the cows and the mothers whose breast milk Kṛṣṇa drank?

The Lord, Devakī's son and the giver of liberation and every other attainment, abundantly drank their milk as it flowed from maternal affection.

O King, for those women who constantly regarded Kṛṣṇa as their son, worldly rebirth born of ignorance could never arise again.

Smelling the fragrance of the funeral-pyre smoke, the residents of Vraja wondered aloud, "What is this, and where has it come from?" Then they returned to the settlement.

There the cowherd men told them all that had happened, beginning with Pūtanā's arrival. Hearing of her death and the child's safety, they were filled with wonder.

Noble-minded Nanda took up his son as though He had returned from death. Smelling His head, he attained supreme joy, O descendant of Kuru.

Any mortal who faithfully hears this wondrous childhood deed of Kṛṣṇa, the deliverance of Pūtanā, develops loving attachment to Govinda.