27 Then the whole community, with all the cowherd men and women, old and young, crowded round to see the great miracle that had happened among the cowherds. 28 The forest-roaming cowherds chattered away freely, saying:
What felled these two trees, the two tallest trees in the herding station? 29 There was no wind, no storm, no lightning strike, and the damage wasn’t caused by elephants, so what was it that felled these two trees? 30 Ah, what a shame, these two arjunas won’t look so handsome now they’re uprooted. They’ve fallen on the ground, like two clouds emptied of rain. 31 But even in these circumstances they’ve been good to you, cowherd Nanda, since your son’s escaped from the uprooted trees unharmed.
32 This is the third calamity that’s happened here at the cattle station. The cart was destroyed, and so was Pūtanā, and now the two trees. 33 Surely the herding community can’t stay in this place—for calamities occur here, indicating no good.
34 Cowherd Nanda quickly untied Krishna from the mortar and cradled him on his lap for a long long time, as if he’d come back from the dead. 35 Then cowherd Nanda went home, scolding Yashodā as he did so, and all the cowherd folk went back to the settlement as well.
36 As for Krishna, because he’d been tied up with a rope, the cowherd women in the settlement celebrated him by the name of Dāmodara Rope-Belly. 37 For this deed that the infant Krishna performed while living in the cattle station was a marvel, supreme Bhārata.
52. Wolves Appear
1 Vaishampāyana said:
In this way, Krishna and Sankarshana both lived out their infancy. While the cattle station remained at the same site, they reached the age of seven years old there.
2 They wore clothes of yellow and dark blue respectively, and unguents of white and yellow, and they both wore their hair in side-locks. And they became calf-herders. 3 Out in the forest, making tuneful music by blowing through leaves, those fine-faced boys looked as handsome as three-headed snakes. 4 With peacock-feather armbands on their arms, cowherd crowns on their heads, and forest garlands on their chests, they were like two saplings that had shot up. 5 Their crowns were made out of lotuses, their sacred threads were made out of rope,* they had gourd water-pots that hung from carrying-swings, and they played cowherd flutes. 6 They played games here, there, and everywhere. Sometimes they made fun of each other, and sometimes, seeking the opportunity for a sleep, they dozed off on beds of leaves. 7 That’s how they looked after the calves: lighting up the great forest and roaming around everywhere enjoying themselves, like two prancing colts.
8 Then glorious Dāmodara said to Sankarshana:
Brother, we can’t play in these woods with the cowherds any longer. 9 The whole place is run down: the two of us have exhausted its pleasures. There’s no grass or firewood left, and the trees have been damaged by the cowherds. 10 The forests and groves here used to be impenetrable, but now they look for all the world like empty spaces. 11 Even the trees that seemed indestructibly strong have all been destroyed and used to fence in the cows, or for portable blockades, or in cowpen fires. 12 Grass and firewood used to be available close by, but now we have to hunt for them in far-off places.
13 This wasteland has hardly any water and hardly any undergrowth. It has nothing to offer. Its tranquil spots are hard to find. It’s harsh, and its trees are sparse. Since the trees are unsuitable, the birds have abandoned their roosts. 14 The place is joyless and flavourless, and its breezes are pointless. Without birds it’s barren, like food with no sauce. 15 Since firewood and forest-grown vegetables are being sold here and the grass stocks are depleted, this cattle station is more like a town.
16 Hills are embellished by a cattle station, but cattle stations are embellished by a forest, and so we should go to another forest—one that has fresh pasture and fuel. 17 The cattle want to eat grasses that they haven’t already tasted, and so the herders must take their cattle and go to a forest that has fresh grass. 18 For people praise herding communities because they’re like migratory birds: their people and cattle aren’t shut up behind doors and fences and have no houses and fields of their own. 19 Wherever there’s dung and urine, a bitter flavour starts to develop. The cows don’t enjoy the grass, and their milk is no good. 20 We should take the cows and travel into delightful new forest tracts that are full of well-drained spots. The encampment must be moved immediately.
21 There’s tell of a delightful forest called Vrindāvana the Swarming Forest, which has a carpet of thick grass and lovely waters, fruits, and trees. 22 It’s a forest furnished with all the features of a forest, free of thorns and crickets and rich in kadam trees. Hugging the bank of the Yamunā, 23 with its cool and gentle forest breezes it’s a fine place to live in every season, and with its charming and colourful woodland clearings it’s a pleasant place for cowgirls to wander. 24 Not too far from it, a great high-peaked hill called Govardhana the Cow-Nurturer sparkles like Mount Mandara does near Indra’s pleasure-grove. 25 In the middle of the forest there’s a banyan tree called Bhāndīra, which extends over one full yojana with its massive branches, and looks like a dark cloud in the sky. 26 And through the middle of the forest, as if parting its hair, flows Mount Kalinda’s daughter the Yamunā, just as the Celestial Gangā, supreme among rivers, flows through Indra’s pleasure-grove.
27 We two will see Govardhana there, and Bhāndīra the lord of the forest, and Kalinda’s charming river-daughter, and those who roam happily there. 28 The herding community must leave this forest of no virtues behind, and live there. With your blessing, once some pretext has been produced, we must move.
29 As Vasudeva’s wise son was saying this, hundreds of creatures that eat blood, flesh, and fat appeared. 30 There and then, while he was thinking the matter over, hundreds of vicious and terrifying wolves were produced from his body-hairs and charged out everywhere. 31 The wolves charged around wherever they liked amid the cows, calves, men, and cowherd women, and at the sight of them there was a great panic in the settlement.
32 Some of the wolves were in packs of five, others in packs of ten, others in packs of twenty or thirty, and some in packs of a hundred, 33 and they terrified the cowherds. Because they’d come from the body of Krishna the Dark One, they had dark faces and were marked with the shrīvatsa sign. 34 The cattle station was devastated by the wolves, who went around eating calves, terrorising the herds, and stealing children at night. 35 It was impossible to protect the cows, or go into the forest, or fetch anything from it, or cross the river. 36 In this way, the wolves Krishna had created, which were as bold as tigers, brought the herding community’s operations to a standstill, and forced it to huddle in one place.
53. The Move to Vrindāvana
1 Vaishampāyana said:
Realising that the plague of wolves was calamitous and getting worse, the whole community, men and women, deliberated as follows:
2 We can’t stay here. We should move to another open forest—one that’s benign and rich in comforts, and that will also bring comfort to the cows. 3 There’s no point in waiting: we should move with our wealth of cattle this very day, before our whole community is killed horribly by the wolves. 4 We fear these wolves, growling in the night, with their tawny and smoke-coloured bodies, their dark faces, their fangs, and their mouths that drag things away.
5 In house after house, women howled that their son, or brother, or calf, or cow had been killed by wolves. 6 Hearing the sound of the women weeping and the cry of the cattle lowing, the community elders assembled and decided that the camp should be moved.
7 When he heard that they wanted to depart in the direction of Vrindāvana to settle the herding station and comfort the cows, 8 cowherd Nanda knew that they’d made up their minds to settle in Vrindāvana, and he made a grand speech, as if he were Brihaspati:
9 If the decision’s been made, we really must leave this very day. Quick, tell the community to get ready immediately.
10 That command was then announced in the cattle station by the ordinary people:
Drive ou
t the cows immediately, and hitch up the carts. 11 Drive out the herds of calves, and load up the pots and pans. We’re to leave this place and move to Vrindāvana.
12 Cowherd Nanda’s command was proclaimed effectively: the whole community heard it, and they got up straight away, keen to depart.
13 Move it! Get up, we’re leaving. Why are you sleeping? Move! Get busy!
While the herding community was mobilising there was quite a racket from the cowherds. 14 While the herding community was mobilising it looked amazing, crowded with carts, and the noise it made was as loud as a tiger’s roar, or the sound of the sea. 15 With churns and jars as crowns on their heads, a crowd of cowherd women streamed out of the old settlement like a crowd of stars spilling out of the sky. 16 With their red and yellow and dark blue clothes fastened up tightly, the crowd of cowherd women was like a rainbow moving along the path. 17 Some of the cowherds were carrying ropes and tethers dangling from their bodies, and as they went along the path they looked like trees with aerial roots. 18 With its splendid caravan of moving carts, the herding community looked like the ocean when its waves are rolling out, driven by the wind. 19 In the twinkling of an eye, the place where the cattle station had been became barren ground devoid of anything valuable, dotted with rings of crows.
20 So, step by step, the herding community made its way to the forest of Vrindāvana, and set up a broad encampment suitable for the cows to settle in. 21 Bounded by an arc of carts and formed in the shape of a half-moon, it was one yojana wide in the middle, and twice that in length. 22 It was protected on all sides by dense thorn-bushes and thorny trees, and by branches erected with their ends buried in the ground.
23 Here and there, churning-rods were being strung with driving-belts, and churns rinsed out with water, 24 and posts erected, and ropes and tethers tied to them, and carts turned on their sides and secured with restraints, 25 and harness-ropes wound onto the tops of churning-poles, and straw awnings set up to provide shade, and grass huts too. 26 The trees were having their branch-ends trimmed here and there, spaces were being cleared to house cows, mortars were being set up, 27 east-facing fires were being sprinkled with ghee and blazing up, and couches with calf-skin covers were being put down. 28 The forest was full of cowherd women fetching and sprinkling water and collecting branches, 29 and full of cowherds young and old with their hands extremely busy, using axes to chop up trees and bits of wood.
30 This was a much better place for the cattle station. It looked lovely with the woodland all around. It really was a delightful place to settle in the forest: it was as if it had been freshly showered with nectar. 31 Vrindāvana was a forest with grass in every season, a pleasure-grove to match Indra’s, and after the cows had moved there they yielded as much milk as the cowherds wanted. 32 For that was the forest that Krishna, the forest-wanderer who takes care of the cows, had seen in his kind mind in advance, 33 and that’s why, for the entire latter half of the hottest month, the grass there shot up just as it does when the god Indra rains nectar. 34 If Madhusūdana is living somewhere for the good of the worlds, the calves there don’t get downhearted, and nor do the cows, or anyone else. 35 So the cows, and the herding community, and young Sankarshana settled down happily in the home that Krishna had ordained for them.
54. Description of the Monsoon
1 Vaishampāyana said:
Having arrived in Vrindāvana, Vasudeva’s two sons were both very happy to continue travelling around grazing the herds of calves. 2 While the two of them were happily playing with the cowherds there in the forest and bathing in the Yamunā, the hot season passed by.
3 Then came the monsoon season, which inflames the desires of the heart. Fearsome stormclouds poured with rain, their bellies branded with rainbows. The sun became invisible, and the earth displayed her grass. 4 With her surface cleansed by rushing winds and by clouds that brought fresh water, the earth looked as if she was in the bloom of youth. 5 The woods were quite a sight, doused with fresh showers, swarming with rain-mites,* and smoking where their forest fires had been put out.
6 It was time for the peacocks to fan out their tails and perform their dances, and their passionate cries rang out, making that shrill sound. 7 When the monsoon came, the beautiful kadam flowers provided sustenance for the bees, and their youthful beauty shone against the new dark clouds. 8 The coral-swirl flowers made the forest smile, and the kadam flowers made it smell. The rainclouds scared the heat away, and the rains satisfied the jewel-bearing earth. 9 The mountains had been scalded by the sun’s streams and scorched by forest fires, and the water pouring from the clouds seemed to give them some respite. 10 The sky was shaken by high winds and beset with high banks of cloud—it was as if it was full of great billows of dust from the earth.
11 In places the forest was rich with the laughter of kadam trees, in others it was studded with mushrooms. With the jungle-flame bushes in bloom, it looked like it was blazing. 12 People caught the smell of the earth’s perfume, sprinkled with Indra’s nourishment and freshened by the breeze, and they felt stirrings in their hearts. 13 Everywhere the jewel-bearing earth rang with the same sounds: the grunting of the wild spotted deer, the croaking of frogs, and the new cries of the peacocks.
14 The rolling rivers flowed fast and forcefully, their streams swollen from the arrival of the rains. They ran in spate, carrying off trees that grew on their banks. 15 The birds were immobilised by the constant downpour and stayed in the treetops as if they were exhausted, their wings and outer plumage sodden. 16 The underbellies of the new rainclouds hung deep with water, pouring and thundering, and the sun seemed to have drowned in them.
17 The jewel-bearing earth soaked up the pressure of the water by growing body-hair. She looked great with her garlands of green grass and her attractive avenues. 18 Outcrops on the wooded hills were worn down by the torrents and rubbed away, as if they’d been smashed by a thunderbolt. 19 Rain fell from the clouds and then flowed downwards however it could, taking on colour and spilling out into pools, and tracts of woodland filled up with it. 20 Because of the excessive rain, wild elephants, looking like rainclouds descended to earth, raised the trunks from their faces and echoed the sound of the thunder.
21 The son of Rohinī observed the arrival of the monsoon. He saw those solid rainclouds. In a suitable private moment, he said to Krishna:
22 Dark Krishna, look at those dark clouds. Towering in the sky, decorated by a sighting of flying flamingoes, they’ve stolen the colour of your body. 23 This season makes you sleepy, and the sky looks like your body. During the monsoon the moon lives in an unknown home, just as you do.*24 Now that the monsoon is here, the sky looks rainy indeed. It’s as dark as a blue water-lily . . . it’s the colour of a blue water-lily petal.
25 Look, Dark Krishna: with its bundles of dark clouds swollen with water, lovely Mount Govardhana looks true to its name as the Cow-Nurturer. 26 In the forests the dark spotted deer, joyful and wild with rut, glisten all over with fallen water.
27 You with your eyes like hundred-petal lotuses! Thrilled by the moisture, tender green grasses cover the rich earth with their blades. 28 Nothing surpasses the beauty of the hills and forests running with water when the rains come, or the beauty of the village borders thick with grain.
29 Dāmodara, the rainclouds have become bold: hurtling forward on stiff winds and violent with thunder, they make travellers anxious.
30 Hari of the three steps, this middle footstep of yours has a bow without string or arrows—a three-coloured rainbow. 31 In the month of Nabhasya the eye of the sky moves through the sky without shining, and it supplies a cool heat through the clouds, like a beamer without beams. 32 The interface between heaven and earth is constantly filled with massive clouds that are like ocean floods and yield incessant streams of water. 33 Tumultuous winds blow the rains across the land, inflaming the passions with the smells of jungle-flame, arjuna, and kadam flowers. 34 Beset with heavy rains and hanging with heavy rainclouds, the sky looks boundless and deep, as if it’s
merged with the ocean. 35 Holding a rainbow as its weapon, with showers as its shining iron arrows and lightning as its shining armour, the sky looks as if it’s ready for battle.
36 You with your fine face! The tops of the hills, forests, and trees seem to be hidden behind cloud upon cloud. 37 Filled with clouds squirting water like rows of elephants, the sky’s become indistinguishable from the ocean in appearance. 38 The winds blow stiff and chilly, with spitting raindrops. Roaring like the ocean, they ruffle the restless stretches of green grass. 39 The ten directions are invisible, since by night the moon sleeps while the rainclouds send the rain, and by day the sun is submerged within the sky.
40 Krishna, look at Vrindāvana. Now it’s left the troubles of the hot season behind, it’s been decorated with clouds and rain, and it looks like Kubera’s pleasure-grove.
41 As Krishna’s glorious and powerful big brother arrived back at the cattle station he was still talking like this, pointing out all the virtues of the monsoon season. 42 During that season Krishna and Sankarshana both roamed in the great forest with their relations, taking pleasure in each other’s company.
55. The Discovery of Kāliya’s Pool
1 Vaishampāyana said:
Sometimes Krishna of the fine face, who takes any form at will, went roaming in the fine forest without his older brother Sankarshana.
2 The glorious dark boy with the lotus-petal eyes wore his hair in side-locks. His chest bore the shrīvatsa, just as the moon bears the sign of the hare. 3 He wore toe-rings on the ends of his feet, and he was as beautiful as a blooming lotus growing in the dirt. He had the rosiness of a delicate youth, but he walked with strong strides. 4 He was like a raincloud at twilight, dressed in thin clothes of a yellow that lifted people’s spirits, the same colour as a lotus filament. 5 His two well-rounded arms—the ones that the gods adore—were busy with forest tasks, working with his ropes and stick.
Krishna's Lineage Page 27