Canto Ten - Chapter 9

Śrī Śuka said: One day, while the household servants were engaged in other work, Yaśodā, Nanda's queen, personally began churning yogurt.

As she churned, she remembered the songs about her son's childhood deeds and sang them aloud.

A linen cloth, fastened with a cord, covered her broad hips. Her beautiful brows framed her face, and her two breasts, flowing with milk from love for her son, trembled as she churned. From the labor of pulling the rope, the bracelets upon her moving arms and her earrings swung. Sweat covered her face, and jasmine flowers slipped from her loosened hair.

Wanting her milk, Hari approached His mother as she churned. He caught hold of the churning rod and stopped her, filling her with delight.

She lifted Him onto her lap and nursed Him from her breast, which flowed with affection, while gazing upon His face with a smile. Before He was satisfied, however, she put Him down and hurried away, for the milk heating upon the stove was boiling over.

Anger arose within Him. His reddened lips quivered and He bit them with His teeth. With a stone He broke the yogurt-churning pot, shed feigned tears and went into a secluded inner room to eat freshly churned butter.

The cowherd woman took the well-boiled milk from the fire and returned. Seeing the yogurt pot broken, she recognized her son's handiwork and laughed, though she could not find Him there.

Then she saw her son standing upon the base of an overturned mortar and freely feeding butter from a hanging pot to a monkey. His eyes darted about with fear of being caught in His theft. She slowly approached Him from behind.

Seeing her carrying a stick, He quickly climbed down and fled as though afraid. The cowherd woman chased the Lord whom the minds of yogīs, propelled by austerity, cannot approach.

His mother pursued Him, though her slender waist and the burden of her large, swaying hips slowed her pace. As she ran, her bound hair came loose and the falling flowers followed behind her. At last she caught Him.

The guilty child wept and rubbed His eyes with His own hands, smearing the dark collyrium around them. He looked up at her with eyes overwhelmed by fear. Taking Him by the hand, she threatened Him with the raised stick.

Affectionate toward her little child, she saw that her son was frightened and threw the stick aside. Not knowing His true power, she then decided to bind Him with a rope.

He has neither inside nor outside, neither before nor after. He is what precedes and follows the universe, what is outside and within it, and He is the universe itself.

Yet the cowherd woman regarded the unmanifest Adhokṣaja, who had assumed a mortal form, as her own son and bound Him to a mortar with rope as though He were an ordinary child.

When she tried to bind her mischievous little son, the rope proved two fingers too short, so the cowherd woman joined another length to it.

That rope was still too short, so she joined another. But every length of rope she brought remained two fingers short of binding Him.

In this way Yaśodā joined together all the ropes in her house. The cowherd women smiled, and Yaśodā smiled with them, yet she was astonished.

Kṛṣṇa saw His mother's body covered with sweat, the garland fallen from her loosened hair, and the great effort she had made. Out of compassion, He allowed Himself to be bound.

Thus, dear king, Hari revealed that He becomes subject to His servants. Though Kṛṣṇa is entirely self-governed, this universe together with its rulers remains under His control.

Neither Brahmā nor Bhava, nor even Śrī who always rests upon His body, received from the giver of liberation the grace that this cowherd woman attained.

Bhagavān, the son of the cowherd woman, is not as easily attained in this world by those identified with the body or even by self-realized knowers as He is by those filled with devotion.

While His mother was occupied with household work, Lord Kṛṣṇa saw the two arjuna trees. Formerly they had been guhyakas, sons of the lord of wealth.

Intoxicated by their prosperity, Nalakūvara and Maṇigrīva had long before been transformed into trees by Nārada's curse.