Canto Ten - Chapter 24

Śrī Śuka said: While staying there with Baladeva, Bhagavān saw the cowherds busily preparing to perform a sacrifice for Indra.

Although Bhagavān, the Self of all and seer of everything, already understood, He bowed respectfully and questioned the elders headed by Nanda.

Father, please tell Me: What is the purpose of all this activity that has arisen among you? What result is sought, for whom is the sacrifice intended, and by what means is it performed?

Father, I am very eager to hear, so please explain it to Me. Saintly people who regard everyone as their own self keep none of their acts secret in this world.

Secrecy may exist among those who distinguish between their own and others and classify people as friends, neutral parties and enemies. A neutral person may be avoided like an enemy, while a friend is regarded like one's own self.

People perform actions either with knowledge or without it. The work of one who understands succeeds in a way that the work of an ignorant person does not.

So is this undertaking of yours a rite considered and prescribed by scripture, or is it merely a worldly custom? Please explain it clearly to Me, for I am asking.

Śrī Nanda said: Bhagavān Indra is the lord of rain, and the clouds are his own manifest forms. They pour down water, which gives life and satisfaction to all beings.

My child, we and other people worship that mighty lord of the rain clouds through sacrifices made with produce brought to perfection by his own seed, the rain.

People sustain their lives upon the remnants of that sacrifice so that they may attain the three goals of life. Rain is the agency that brings the efforts of human beings to fruition.

A person who abandons this dharma received through ancestral tradition because of desire, hatred, fear or greed certainly does not attain good fortune.

Śrī Śuka said: Hearing these words from Nanda and the other residents of Vraja, Keśava, intending to provoke Indra's anger, addressed His father.

Śrī Bhagavān said: A living being is born through karma and through karma alone perishes. Happiness, sorrow, fear and security all arise through karma.

If there is some Lord who dispenses the fruits of other beings' actions, He too must respond to the performer of action, for He has no power over one who does not act.

What need have beings in this world for Indra when each follows the results of his own karma? Indra has no power to alter the destiny human beings receive according to their nature.

A person is governed by his own nature and follows that nature. This entire world, including gods, demons and human beings, is established in its own nature.

Through karma a living being receives and relinquishes bodies high and low. Karma itself is one's enemy, friend and neutral party; it is one's teacher and lord.

Therefore one should remain true to one's nature, perform one's own work and honor that work. Whatever enables a person to live directly is indeed that person's worshipful deity.

One who depends upon one means of livelihood but resorts to another gains no well-being from it, just as an unchaste woman gains none from her paramour.

A brāhmaṇa should live by sacred learning, a kṣatriya by protecting the earth, a vaiśya by productive enterprise and a śūdra by serving the twice-born.

Agriculture, commerce, cow protection and moneylending are named as the four kinds of vaiśya enterprise. Among these, we always live by tending cows.

Goodness, passion and darkness are the causes of maintenance, creation and dissolution. Impelled by passion, this mutually interdependent and diverse universe arises.

Driven by the mode of passion, the clouds shower water everywhere, and by that rain alone creatures flourish. What, then, does mighty Indra accomplish?

We possess no cities, settled territories, villages or houses. Father, we are forest dwellers, always living in the forests and upon the hills.

Therefore begin a sacrifice for the cows, the brāhmaṇas and the hill. Let this rite be performed with the provisions gathered for Indra's sacrifice.

Prepare many kinds of cooked food, beginning with soups and rice pudding. Make saṃyāva, cakes and śaṣkulī pastries, and gather every kind of milk preparation.

Let brāhmaṇas learned in the Vedas properly offer oblations into the sacred fires. Give them abundant, excellent food, and present cows as their sacrificial gifts.

Give suitable food to others also, even dogs, outcastes and fallen persons. Then provide grass for the cows and present an offering to the hill.

After eating well, adorning yourselves, applying fragrant ointments and dressing in fine garments, circumambulate the cows, brāhmaṇas, sacred fires and the hill.

This is My opinion, Father. If it pleases you, please carry it out. This sacrifice for the cows, brāhmaṇas and the hill is dear to Me as well.

Śrī Śuka said: Bhagavān, appearing in the form of time and desiring to crush Indra's pride, spoke in this way. Hearing Him, Nanda and the others approved His words as excellent.

They then carried out everything exactly as Madhusūdana had instructed. They had brāhmaṇas recite auspicious benedictions and used the gathered provisions to worship the hill and the brāhmaṇas.

With reverence they duly presented offerings and gave grass to the cows. Placing their herds before them, they circumambulated the hill.

The cowherd men and their beautifully adorned wives mounted carts yoked with oxen. Accompanied by the brāhmaṇas' blessings, the gopīs sang of Kṛṣṇa's heroic deeds.

To inspire the cowherds' confidence, Kṛṣṇa assumed another form. Declaring, 'I am the hill,' that vast form consumed the abundant offerings.

Together with the people of Vraja, Kṛṣṇa offered obeisance to that form, which was His own Self. He said, 'Just see! This hill has manifested a personal form and bestowed its grace upon us.'

This hill can assume any form it desires and kills forest dwellers who disrespect it. Let us therefore bow to it for the well-being of ourselves and our cows.

Thus inspired by Vāsudeva, the cowherds properly completed the sacrifice for the hill, the cows and the brāhmaṇas. Then they returned to Vraja together with Kṛṣṇa.