KRISHNA CORIOLIS#3: Flute of Vrindavan

by Ashok K. Banker

  And the conclusion drawn was the inevitable one: God’s grace.

  ‘Vishnu has protected this child!’ said dddddddd, and she was echoed in turn by a hundred others. Everyone repeated the same thought. And that was so much better. Better that they believed that the Great Preserver had protected their child in his moment of crisis than that he himself was some form of superior being.

  Now followed the inevitable rituals of the Vrishni after such an event. Rare though such events were, attacks by demons upon mortals were not unheard of. Whether in corporeal or ethereal form, it was believed that asuras were everywhere in some form or other, attempting ceaselessly to attack and destroy the righteous. The Vrishnis, like all other Sura Yadava clans, had specific rituals designed to ward against such attacks.

  First all the gopis of Gokul formed a protective circle around little Krishna. He giggled and turned around to look at the pretty young girls and women standing around him, regarding it as some kind of game. Still unsteady on his chubby feet, he swayed constantly, and Yashoda kept wanting to dart out her hands to grab him before he fell, but somehow he always managed to retain his balance. He danced around, looking at the faces of all the gopis, pointing at the prettier ones as if approving of them, then stuffing the back of his fist into his mouth and sucking on it noisily. His antics amused them all and the gopis were entranced by the way he moved and danced.

  They took up the same chant they had sung earlier, when he had danced upon the corpse of the giantess. Because everyone else had arrived too late to fully comprehend what had happened, it was assumed that somehow the demoness had been stricken down by Vishnu’s power and fallen down dead, and the infant Krishna, saved by God’s grace, then took his first steps upon her corpse. Nobody knew that it was Krishna himself who had slain her, and Yashoda was glad that Nanda and she had decided to keept that crucial fact to themselves. For who would believe that an infant could slay a great demoness? For that matter, how had Krishna killed her? All she had seen was him clinging to the demoness’s breast, suckling. It had appeared as if he was sucking the very life out of her. But was that what had happened? She had no way of knowing for certain. So it was best to remain silent and let people believe what they did: that Vishnu himself had looked down and intervened to save the son of Yashoda-Devi and Nanda-Maharaj.

  ‘Govinda! Govinda! Govinda’ chanted the gopis. The word simply meant ‘cowherd’, but it was also a title of sorts, accorded to a young boy when he proved himself able enough to herd the cows of his family or clan, protect them from inclement weather or wild beasts, and bring them home safe. Govinda was also the universal term for the Celestial Cowherd who herded all cattle and kine everywhere, and therefore was a deity to cowherds everywhere. The term also had a playful connotation, for among the Vrishni, Govindas played as they worked, flirting, making music, dancing, feasting and doing as they willed. To apply the title to an infant who had barely learned to walk was high praise indeed. Yashoda felt herself flush with pride at the sight of her son being called by the title of Govinda, as the whole community watched and sang along.

  ‘Govinda! Govinda! Govinda!’ sang the gopis and little Krishna laughed and danced round and round, clapping his hands unsteadily, sometimes missing and almost losing his balance – but quickly regaining it and resuming his lurching dance.

  One of the gopis, an attractive woman named Shyamolie, came forward holding a cow’s tail. She waved it around Krishna as he danced, encircling him. The tips of the cowtail tickled Krishna’s ears and neck and he giggled and reacted, squirming. Looking up at the object that had stimulated him, he tried to grasp it, but Shyamolie kept it out of his reach. He laughed, trying to spin faster to grab it. Yashoda saw that he could spin as rapidly as a top if he desired – as rapidly as the wind itself – and she caught her breath, afraid that the gopis would witness the superhuman side of her little tyke. But Shyamolie finished the cowtail waving and retired and Krishna slowed. Yashoda heaved a small sigh, smiling with relief.

  Then came the bathing of the child in cow’s urine. This part Krishna ought not to have enjoyed as much as the chanting and dancing but he endured it stoically, even slapping himself and splashing the urine on the faces of the gopis who were bathing him. They laughed, undeterred. All products of GoMaata were sacred and to be revered; there was no shame in being splashed with cow urine.

  Next came the sprinking of cow dust, literally the dust from the dried cowdung. This left Krishna’s dark bluish-black skin powdery brown for a while. He beamed brightly at his mother as if to say, Not to worry, I’m fine, Maatr. She was glad he did not speak to her mind just then; she might not have been able to avoid reacting in front of so many people.

  Then came the writing of the names of God. Using fingertips dipped in wet cow dung, twelve different names of Vishnu were written on twelve different parts of Krishna’s body – the forehead, throat, chest, belly, left and right sides, left and righ shoulders, left and right biceps, top of the back and bottom of the back.

  As Yashoda watched from behind the circle of busy gopis, she saw each name glow from within as it was written, as if her Krishna’s skin itself reacted to the shape of the letters. The glow was very faint and only visible if you were staring directly at that spot at that instant: the gopis were too busy writing the next name to notice. So only she saw this subtle effect. But it was unmistakeable in its power and meaning. Each name glowed briefly, its colour a distinct deep blue, then dissipated inwards. It was as if the names were being absorbed into the bloodstream of her son, leaving only the shapeless crusted cowdung on the skin. She swallowed and looked around, wishing she could share this new evidence of her son’s extraordinary nature with someone; then subsided and reminded herself it was for the best that his true nature be kept a secret.

  It was ironical though, she mused silently, that the gopis were invoking the protection of Vishnu upon one who was empowered as Vishnu himself!

  The gopis then sprinkled sacred water – brought from the Yamuna – and over their bodies, then applied the bija seed mantra to themselves, invoking the first syllable of the deity’s name followed by the nasal ‘nam’ sound. Then they applied the same bija seed mantra to Krishna who gurgled happily and raised his arms in the air.

  The gopis chanted:

  |The Unborn One protect your feet|

  |Maniman, protect your knees|

  |Yajna, protect your thighs|

  |Achyuta, protect your loins|

  |Hayasa, protect your belly|

  |Kesava, protect your heart|

  |Isa, protect your chest|

  |Ina, protect your throat|

  |Vishnu, protect your arms|

  |Urukrama, protect your mouth|

  |Isvara, protect your head|

  |The wielder of the chakra, protect your forebody|

  |Hari who wields the bala, protect your rearbody|

  |Madhu-slayer and the Unborn One|

  |Bearer of the bow and the sword|

  |Protect your sides|

  |Urugaya, conch-blower, protect your corners|

  |Upendra, protect you from above|

  |Tarksya, protect you on the ground|

  |The Supreme One, plough-pusher, protect you on all sides|

  |Hrishikesha, protect your senses|

  |Narayana, protect your life force|

  |The Lord of Shvetadvipa, protect your consciousness|

  |Lord of yoga, protect your mind|

  |Prshnigarbha, protect your intelligence|

  |Bhagwan Supreme, protect your soul|

  |Govinda, protect you at play|

  |Madhava, protect you while you sleep|

  |Vaikunta, protect you when you travel|

  |Lord of the goddess of good fortune, protect you while you are seated still|

  |Enjoyer of sacrifices and terror of all evil spirits, protect you while you eat|

  In conclusion they chanted verses designed to chase away any of the evil beings known for abducting or harming infants, such as the d
akinis, yatudhanis, kusmandas, bhoot-preyth, pisacas, yaksas, rakshasas, vinayakas, Kotara, Revati, Jyestha, Putana, the Maatrakas, insane persons, those who have lost their senses or memories, they who seek to harm humans, the old enemies of humankind, snatchers of children and every other imaginable being that might cause harm to little Krishna.

  By the time the gopis were done, even Krishna had tired. Sucking the back of his fist, he curled up and slept and had to be carried by his mother indoors. She fed him from her breast till he was sated enough that he fell asleep with the teat still in his puckered wet lips.

  He slept soundly then for a full night and all the next morning.

  Perhaps, Yashoda thought to herself, even a mortal imbued with divinity is still subject to weaknesses and limitations of mortal flesh. He may be empowered beyond imagining but he is still a human babe. He still tires, needs sleep, nourishment, rest, and all the bodily functions and needs of the mortal beings whose form he has chosen to adopt. If a deva resides in a tree, he must grow roots and leaves and needs sunlight and water. If a deva resides in a babe, he needs milk and sleep and laughter and love!

  She slept with him cradled in the warmth of her embrace. Mother and son slept soundly and peacefully. Nanda came often to check on them and a constant guard was maintained around the clock to ensure nobody came within harming distance of the mother and infant.

  2

  Kamsa listened to the report of the spasa. When the spy had finished, he dismissed him and sat brooding for a while. His ministers approached him several times, saw him sitting in that familiar brooding posture, chin resting on his fist, arm supported by his thigh, and retreated quickly. As the minutes dragged on, they began whispering in the corridors of the palace, speculating on the news that had disturbed their king so deeply. ‘Putana,’ was the consensus. ‘He has taken the news of her loss to heart.’ And the spasa, when waylaid and questioned, agreed readily: his news had been mainly of Putana’s death in distant Gokul-dham. Nobody knew exactly what Putana had been to Kamsa – friend, advisor, training partner, lover, mistress, all of the above, none of the above? Nobody knew enough to speak confidently, and those who knew something, had perhaps glimpsed the king and the captain’s wife speaking with odd passion and intense gestures in the stables and training field, knew better than to spread idle gossip about the king of Mathura. Thousands had been slaughtered for little or no reason under the young lord’s reign. To be hauled up for gossipping about his indiscretions would surely merit torture of unimaginable cruelty. So they whispered and speculated, in corners and corridors, in half-sentences and incomplete queries, nobody saying much at all, leaving almost everything to the imagination and to curiosity. But one thing was certain and undeniable: Kamsa was stricken by the news of Putana’s death. Stricken to the core.

  After perhaps an hour of sitting and brooding alone in the throne room, Kamsa rose and left the chamber. Voices hushed at once in the corridors as the imposing young liege swept past, his gold-brocaded robes swirling in his wake. His handsome clean and smooth face was a porcelain mask without expression. His fair features and handsome light eyes were fixed in an aspect none had seen before. These were all members of the inner circle of power. Ministers and courtiers and munshis who had survived the past ten terrible years since Ugrasena’s unseating. They were well-weathered veterans who had seen the young king in every mood, through every change. Usually they could recognize his tells, his moods and his likely reactions. As a rakshasa, during his awful gargantuan puss-suppurating phase, and as a violent rage-prone youth during his years of cruel and mindless slaughter. But this new Kamsa was an inscrutable being. He was normal and human in all aspects, behaved and spoke normally, even conducted himself with rare self-control and aplomb in the most provocative situations. It was commonly accepted that Jarasandha’s prolonged stay had something to do with the transformation. The Emperor of the burgeoning Magadhan Empire had hammered some sense of good conduct into the thick skull of his son-in-law, everyone believed. Yet even after Jarasandha’s departure, Kamsa’s good behavior continued. And at times like this, if he felt or thought anything intensely, he did not show or share it with anyone. For an Arya king, especially a Yadava, such extreme self-control was unnatural, almost inhuman. It was one thing to control oneself from flying into a rage and mindlessly slaughtering thousands for no good reason. It was another thing to withhold all one’s emotions from public scrutiny. Yadavas were passionate, open-hearted people. Even their kings displayed emotion freely, laughing and crying in public if the occasion warranted. In this context, Kamsa’s porcelain-masked inscrutability was no less unnerving than his earlier rakshasa rages. If too much emotional reaction was demoniac, then too little was inhuman.

  Kamsa swept past all the curious and concerned of his court without a word or indication of what he was feeling or planning.

  He left the main palace and walked across the courtyard to his own quarters, watched by a hundred pairs of eyes. Even after Jarasandha’s departure, he had elected to remain in the relatively modest and remotely situated apartments at the far end of the palace complex, unguarded and within scent of the stables and pens. In fact, on his own instructions, no palace personnel were permitted to come within a hundred yards of his private quarters, on pain of death. If nobody had been arrested or executed for transgressing this instruction, it was only because nobody dared try. Besides, who would want to go near Kamsa’s quarters? People wanted to go far away from him! He was, after all, the king under whose reign a mass exodus of Yadavas had taken place. The largest outward emigration in the history of the Yadava nation. Apart from the old warrior Bahuka and the captain of the guards Pradyota, nobody else had even been inside those private apartments, nor did anyone desire to go there. Except Putana, of course. Or so it was rumoured.

  Kamsa did not stop at his residence. He continued walking past the entrance, past the pens where all manner and species of livestock chattered and clucked and thrashed and howled and bayed and lunged as he strode past. He went straight to the stables, took hold of the first horse he saw and climbed astride it. The horse was one of the large Bhoja giants that were specially bred for him. Enormous in comparison to the pony-sized horses usually used by Yadavas, he was well over two yards high at the withers, and the tips of his ears were three full yards from the ground. Like the others in this section of the stables, he had been bred for bone density and strength, fed on a special diet, put through a special training regime usually used to train elephants to carry heavy timber loads. It was assumed by the other trainers that this stable of horses were being trained to carry some new fangled kind of Magadhan armour, one that was so strong it could withstand even a flung javelin. What other reason could there be to breed such enormous unruly giants and prepare them to carry loads of a half ton or more? None of the other trainers would venture near this stable because the horses here were ungelded and so ferocious at times, it was beyond the ability of any man to control them and survive. Only the ancient trainer, the one who had been here since before anyone else could remember, and who was rumoured to be one of the oldest living Mathurans, manned the stable on his own. Aptly enough, he was named Yadu, after the founding father of the Yadava race.

  Yadu was in the stables when Kamsa entered and took hold of a horse. The old syce stopped mucking out the stables and lowered his rake to watch as the young king led the rearing snorting horse outside. Then he put down the rake and went out as well, through the other entrance at the far end of the stables.

  Yadu watched as Kamsa manipulated the reluctant stallion upto the fenced enclosure that bordered the stable yard. The horse was bucking and pulling away from the king even though Kamsa had him by a rope through his nostrils, clearly making his displeasure known. Kamsa managed him with apparent ease until he turned his back for a moment to untie and push open the gate of the enclosure. The horse saw his opportunity and struck: rearing up to a height of perhaps four yards or more, towering above even the tall and powerfully built king of Mathu
ra, the stallion lashed out viciously with his fore feet. Yadu had seen the same horse smash those same fore feet through an inch thick siding of wood a fortnight ago but the old Yadava’s deeply wrinkled face did not flinch as the stallion struck Kamsa on his back and shoulders. Had it been any man at all, however muscular or strong, he would have been thrown several yards away with shattered bones and serious contusions.

  The horse’s feet landed on Kamsa’s back and shoulders – the right fore foot actually struck directly on his collarbone – with a sound that reminded old Yadu of a mace striking a tree. Mace warriors sometimes practised that way, striking their weapons into the trunks of massive trees to prepare themselves for the impact of combat. The living wood absorbed enough of the impact so as not to dislocate their shoulders or harm their joints and bones, yet withstood it strongly enough to provide good conditioning. A dull metallic thud. Not the cracking of bone or the slapping sound of flesh being traumatized.

  Kamsa remained standing.

  He barely lurched a little, perhaps an inch or two forward, not even enough to consider a jolt or a jostle.

  Then he turned and looked at the horse. The stallion was still rearing, eyes showing white, nostrils flared, whinnying in that triumphant tone that male horses used when they had proven their superiority over a fellow equine or a two-legged human.

  Kamsa tugged down the rope with which he held the horse.