Canto Ten - Chapter 7

The noble king said: My lord, in every form in which Bhagavān Hari, the Supreme Ruler, descends, He performs deeds that delight our ears and enchant our minds.

When a person hears of them, discontent and craving depart, the heart is quickly purified, devotion to Hari arises and friendship with His servants grows. If you consider it proper, please tell us of that captivating Lord.

Please tell us yet another wondrous childhood deed of Kṛṣṇa, who entered the human world and conformed to the ways of humankind.

Śrī Śuka said: Once, during the festive bathing that marked the child's first attempt to rise, His birth star was ascendant and many women had assembled. Accompanied by musical instruments, songs and brāhmaṇas reciting mantras, the virtuous mother bathed her son.

Nanda's wife completed His bathing and the other rites, and honored the brāhmaṇas who had pronounced auspicious blessings with food, clothing, garlands and the cows they desired. Seeing that the child's eyes were growing heavy with sleep, she gently laid Him down.

Noble Yaśodā was absorbed in the excitement of the festival and in honoring the residents of Vraja who had gathered. She did not hear her son crying. Wanting her breast, He wept and kicked up His feet.

The infant lay beneath a cart. Struck by His tender foot, soft as a tiny new leaf, the cart overturned. Its many vessels of milk products were smashed, its wheels and axle displaced and its shaft broken.

Yaśodā and the foremost women of Vraja who had gathered for the rising ceremony, as well as Nanda and the other men, were bewildered by the astonishing sight. They wondered, "How could the cart have overturned by itself?"

The children told the uncertain cowherd men and women, "The crying baby kicked it over with His foot. There is no doubt."

The cowherd men did not believe this childish account, for they did not know the immeasurable strength of that little child.

Fearing that an evil spirit had attacked Him, Yaśodā picked up her crying son. After the brāhmaṇas had recited Vedic hymns and performed rites for His welfare, she nursed Him.

The cowherd men restored the cart as before, together with its vessels and equipment. The brāhmaṇas offered oblations into the fire and performed worship with yogurt, unbroken rice, kuśa grass and water.

The blessings of truthful people who are free from envy, falsehood, hypocrisy, jealousy, violence and pride can never be rendered fruitless.

The foremost brāhmaṇas therefore took the child and bathed Him with water sanctified by pure herbs and by hymns from the Sāma, Ṛg and Yajur Vedas.

With concentrated attention, Nanda Gopa had auspicious benedictions recited, offered oblations into the fire and gave the brāhmaṇas excellent food.

For his son's flourishing, he gave cows endowed with every fine quality and adorned with cloth, garlands and golden necklaces. The brāhmaṇas then pronounced their blessings.

The brāhmaṇas were disciplined knowers of mantra. The blessings they spoke could plainly never become fruitless.

One day, while the virtuous mother fondled her son upon her lap, she could no longer bear the infant's weight, for He became as heavy as a mountain peak.

Astonished and oppressed by His weight, the cowherd woman placed Him upon the ground. She meditated upon the Supreme Person and then returned to her household duties.

A demon named Tṛṇāvarta, a servant sent by Kaṃsa, took the form of a whirlwind and carried away the infant seated there.

He covered all of Gokula, stole everyone's sight with clouds of dust and filled every direction and intermediate direction with a tremendously dreadful roar.

For a moment the cowherd settlement was enveloped in dust and darkness. Yaśodā could no longer see her son where she had set Him down.

Bewildered and assailed by the stones flung about by Tṛṇāvarta, no one could see either themselves or anyone else.

Unable to find her son's path amid that fierce revolving wind and shower of dust, the helpless mother remembered Him with piercing grief. She collapsed upon the ground and mourned like a cow whose calf has died.

Hearing her lament, the cowherd women came there with hearts deeply pained and faces filled with tears. When the wind subsided and the rain of dust ceased, they too wept because they could not find Nanda's son.

Tṛṇāvarta had carried Kṛṣṇa into the sky in his whirlwind form. When his violent speed abated, he could go no farther, for the child had become immensely heavy.

The demon thought the child had become a stone because of His crushing weight. But Kṛṣṇa had seized his throat, and Tṛṇāvarta could not cast off that wondrous infant.

Immobilized by the grip upon his throat, the demon's eyes bulged from their sockets and his voice was choked off. Lifeless, he fell into Vraja together with the child.

The assembled women saw his fearsome body fallen from the sky upon a rock, every limb shattered, like the city of Tripura pierced by Rudra's arrow.

Astonished, they recovered Kṛṣṇa, who was hanging safely upon the demon's chest, and returned Him to His mother. The man-eater had carried Him through the sky, yet He had been released from the mouth of death unharmed. When the cowherd women and men headed by Nanda regained Him, they attained the greatest joy.

They said, "How astonishing! This child was taken away by a demon and has returned to us. The cruel and wicked are destroyed by their own sin, while the virtuous, because of their even-heartedness, are freed from danger."

What austerity have we performed, what worship of Adhokṣaja, what works for the public good, sacrifices or gifts? What friendship have we shown to living beings, that this child, though nearly dead, has by good fortune returned to delight His own relatives once again?

Having repeatedly witnessed these wonders in Bṛhadvana, Nanda Gopa was amazed and came to honor Vasudeva's words more and more.

One day the radiant mother took the infant and placed Him upon her lap. Overflowing with affection, she nursed Him from her breast, which had begun to flow with milk.

O King, when her son had nearly finished drinking, His mother caressed His lovely smiling face. As He yawned, she saw the following within His mouth:

the sky, earth and heavens, the hosts of stars and every direction; the sun, moon, fire, wind and oceans; the islands, mountains and their daughter rivers, forests, and all beings moving and unmoving.

O King, when the doe-eyed mother suddenly beheld the universe, she began to tremble. Utterly astonished, she closed her eyes.