Canto Ten - Chapter 13

Śrī Śuka said: O greatly fortunate one, best of the Bhāgavatas, you have asked well. Although you hear the Lord's pastimes again and again, you make them ever new by your questions.

This is the natural disposition of saints who seek the essence: even though their speech, ears and minds are devoted to the Lord's narrations, every account of Acyuta seems fresh at each moment, just as talk of women seems ever fresh to sensual men.

Listen attentively, O King. Though this subject is confidential, I shall tell it to you, for teachers reveal even secrets to an affectionate disciple.

After Bhagavān had saved the calf-herding boys from death within Aghāsura's mouth, He brought them to the riverbank and spoke as follows.

Friends, just see this exceedingly delightful riverbank, perfectly suited to our play. Its sand is soft and spotless; the fragrance of blooming lotuses draws the bees and birds, whose calls and answering echoes enliven the surrounding trees.

It is already midday and we are afflicted by hunger, so let us eat here. The calves can drink water nearby and then slowly graze upon the grass.

Agreeing, the boys let the calves drink, released them upon the meadow and joyfully ate their meal together with Bhagavān.

The boys of Vraja sat in the forest facing Kṛṣṇa, their eyes blossoming with delight. Arranged in many concentric rows all around Him, they shone like the petals of a lotus surrounding its pericarp.

Some made plates from flowers, some from leaves, and others from shoots, fruits, lunch-bag wrappings, bark or stones, and upon these they ate.

Each showed the others the special delicacies in his meal. Laughing and making one another laugh, they enjoyed their picnic together with the Lord.

His flute tucked into the cloth at His waist, His horn and herding stick beneath His arm, a tender morsel in His left hand and fruits held between His fingers, Kṛṣṇa stood amid His intimate friends, delighting them with His own jokes. While the inhabitants of heaven looked on, He who receives the offerings of every sacrifice enjoyed His meal in the play of a child.

O descendant of Bharata, while the calf-herding boys, whose very life was Acyuta, were eating in this way, the calves, enticed by grass, wandered far into the forest.

Seeing His friends alarmed by the calves' disappearance, Kṛṣṇa, the destroyer of fear, said, 'Friends, do not interrupt your meal. I shall bring the calves back.'

Having spoken thus, Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa went searching for His own calves among the mountain caves, bowers and hollows, still holding the morsel of food in His hand.

O foremost of the Kurus, Brahmā, who was born from the lotus, had already been profoundly amazed on seeing the powerful Lord liberate Aghāsura. Now, desiring to witness another charming display of the child Lord's māyā, he took the calves and then the calf-herding boys elsewhere, concealed them, and remained hidden in the sky.

When Kṛṣṇa could not find the calves, He returned to the riverbank, but the calf-herding boys were also gone. He searched everywhere throughout the forest for both groups.

Finding neither the calves nor their keepers anywhere in the forest, Kṛṣṇa, the knower of the whole universe, at once understood that this was Brahmā's doing.

Then Kṛṣṇa, the Lord and maker of the universe, assumed the forms of both calves and boys in order to bring joy to their mothers and also to Brahmā.

However many calves and calf-herding boys there were, whatever their small bodies, hands, feet and other limbs, whatever their sticks, horns, flutes, leaf plates and lunch bags, whatever their ornaments and clothes, and whatever their dispositions, qualities, names, forms, ages and games, the unborn Lord, the form of everything, manifested all of them exactly, so that everything was pervaded by Viṣṇu.

The Self of all personally turned back Himself as the calves by means of Himself as the calf herders. Playing through these manifestations of His own being, He entered Vraja.

O King, He took each calf separately to its own cowshed and then, becoming each individual boy, entered each boy's home.

Hearing the sound of their sons' flutes, the mothers rose in haste, lifted the boys in their arms and embraced them tightly. Their breasts flowed with the nectar of milk born of affection, and, taking the Supreme Brahman to be their sons, they nursed Him.

O King, Mādhava spent each evening being lovingly tended through the mothers' customary acts of massaging, bathing, anointing, ornamenting, protecting, applying tilaka and feeding, thereby filling them with delight.

The cows then hurried back to the pasture enclosure, loudly calling their own calves with deep lowing. Milk streaming from their udders, they repeatedly nursed and licked their calves.

The maternal affection of the cows and cowherd women for these calves and boys increased beyond what it had been before. Apart from this increase of love, the calves and boys appeared to them just as before, for Hari's māyā concealed the truth.

Throughout that year, the vine of affection in the people of Vraja for their own children grew gradually and without limit, just as their unprecedented love for Kṛṣṇa had grown.

In this way, the Self of all maintained Himself by Himself under the guise of calves and calf herders, and for one full year He played in the forest and the cow pastures.

One day, when only five or six nights remained before the completion of the year, the unborn Lord entered the forest with Balarāma while grazing the calves.

The cows, grazing upon the summit of Govardhana, then saw from afar their calves grazing near Vraja below.

At the sight, the whole herd came under the sway of affection and forgot itself. Though the path was extremely rough and difficult, the cows ran on two legs at a time, their humps and necks thrust forward and their tails raised, rushing ahead with loud lowing as tears and milk flowed from them.

Reaching the calves below, even though those calves had already been weaned, the cows nursed them, licking their bodies as if they would swallow them, while milk flowed from their own udders.

The cowherd men had labored in vain to stop the cows and felt ashamed and intensely angry. After struggling down the difficult path, however, they saw their sons together with the calves.

At that sight their hearts flooded with the nectar of heightened love. Their anger vanished and deep affection arose. Lifting the boys in their arms, they embraced them and smelled their heads, attaining the highest joy.

The older cowherd men were completely satisfied by embracing their children. Only with difficulty did they slowly depart, their eyes filling with tears as they continued to remember the boys.

Seeing the love of Vraja increase at every moment for sons who had long since been weaned, Balarāma, who understood that there was no ordinary cause, began to reflect.

What is this astonishing thing? The unprecedented love of all Vraja, including Me, is growing for these children just as it does for Vāsudeva, the Self of all.

Who is this power, and where has it come from? Is it divine, human or demonic? It is most likely the māyā of My Lord, for no other power could bewilder even Me.

Reflecting thus, the descendant of Daśārha used the eye of spiritual insight and saw that every calf and every companion was Vaikuṇṭha Himself.

These are not the rulers of the gods, nor are they sages. O Lord, though appearing in many separate forms, You alone shine here. Since the Vedas declare that everything is You, how could it be otherwise? From what the Lord had shown, Balarāma understood what had occurred.

Then Brahmā returned. Though only a moment had passed by his own measure of time, he saw Hari still playing just as before, together with all the boys and calves, although a full year had elapsed on earth.

Brahmā thought, 'All the boys and calves of Gokula are still sleeping in the bed of my mystic power and have not yet risen.'

'Then where have these others here come from? There are exactly as many, and, untouched by my bewildering power, they have been playing with Viṣṇu for an entire year.'

For a long time the self-born Brahmā contemplated the difference between the two groups, trying to determine which were real and which were not, but he could not understand it in any way.

Thus Brahmā tried to bewilder Viṣṇu, who bewilders the entire universe, but although unborn, Brahmā was himself bewildered by his own mystic power.

A lesser mystic power is nullified when directed against a greater one, just as fog disappears in darkness, a firefly's light in daylight, or darkness before the light.

Then, in that very moment before Brahmā's eyes, all the calves and calf herders appeared with complexions like dark rainclouds and garments of yellow silk.

They had four arms holding conch, discus, mace and lotus. They wore crowns, earrings, necklaces and forest-flower garlands.

They shone with the Śrīvatsa mark, armlets and jewels upon Their arms, conch-shaped necks, bracelets upon Their hands, anklets, bangles, waist cords and rings upon Their fingers.

From Their feet to the crowns of Their heads, They were covered with fresh, tender garlands of tulasī offered upon every limb by greatly meritorious devotees.

Their smiles were pure and radiant like moonlight, and Their sidelong glances were tinged red. Through the modes of passion and goodness, They seemed to create and protect the desires of Their own devotees.

Each form was worshiped separately, with many offerings such as dance and song, by all embodied beings, moving and unmoving, from Brahmā himself down to the smallest clump of grass.

They were surrounded by the mystic perfections beginning with aṇimā, by potencies headed by Ajā, and by the twenty-four principles beginning with the mahat-tattva, all present in personal forms.

Time, inherent nature, latent impressions, desire, action, the modes and other powers also worshiped Them in embodied forms, their own greatness subdued by the Lord's majesty.

Those forms were the one undivided essence of pure being, knowledge, infinity and bliss. Their abundant glory remains untouched even by the vision of the Upaniṣads.

Thus, all at once, the unborn Brahmā saw those forms as manifestations of the Supreme Brahman, the Self, by whose radiance this entire universe of moving and unmoving beings shines.

Overwhelmed by an extraordinary surge of wonder, Brahmā's eleven senses became motionless. Silenced by that divine splendor, he stood like a village child's clay doll before the village deity.

As Brahmā remained bewildered, unable even to see or determine what this was, the immeasurable Lord stood revealed in His own inconceivable majesty. Brahmā's intellect, which sought to measure the Absolute by rejecting everything unlike it, was powerless there. Knowing this, the Supreme Lord at once drew the curtain of His māyā over the vision of the unborn Brahmā.

Then Brahmā regained ordinary awareness and recovered his senses, rising as if from death. With great difficulty he opened his eyes and looked upon the universe together with himself.

Looking immediately in every direction, he saw before him Vṛndāvana, filled with trees that sustained its inhabitants and remained delightful in every season.

There, creatures naturally hostile to one another, humans and animals alike, lived together as friends, for in the abode of the unconquered Lord anger, thirst and other afflictions had melted away.

There Brahmā saw the one nondual, supreme, infinite Brahman of unfathomable awareness performing the drama of birth in a cowherd family. Still holding a morsel of food in His hand, He searched all around for the calves and friends just as before.

Seeing Him, Brahmā hurriedly descended from his own swan carrier and fell upon the earth like a golden staff. Touching the Lord's two feet with the tips of his four crowns, he bowed down and bathed them with abundant tears of joy.

Rising again and again, Brahmā repeatedly fell at Kṛṣṇa's feet. Remembering over and over the majesty he had witnessed, he remained there for a long time.

Then Brahmā slowly rose, wiped his eyes and looked up at Mukunda. Bowing his head, he joined his palms with humility and composed himself. Trembling, he began to praise the Lord in a voice choked with emotion.