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Skandha 10, adhyayas 5-7 · Saptah day 5
Gokula celebrates Nanda's newborn son while Kamsa's witch Putana arrives with poisoned milk — and receives a mother's place in heaven.
In the fifth chapter of the tenth skandha (`10.5.1–18`), the sage Shukadeva carries King Parikshit across the Yamuna River from Kamsa's dark dungeon in Mathura into the sun-lit cowherd settlement of Gokula. Here live Nanda Maharaja, the generous chief of the Vraja cowherds; his queen Yashoda, who has woken from her deep Yogamaya sleep to find a dark, radiant newborn boy lying on her bed without remembering the girl she actually bore; Rohini, the wife of Nanda's dear brother-friend Vasudeva, who shelters in Gokula raising young Balarama (Rama); and the joyful clan of cowherd men (`gopas`) and women (`gopis`, `10.5.1–18`).
Overjoyed that a son had been born to him in his advancing years (`atmajam jatam mahamana`, `10.5.1`), Nanda Maharaja bathed, dressed in fine garments, and summoned Vedic astrologers and brahmanas to perform the natal *jata-karma* ceremonies (`10.5.2`). He gifted the brahmanas two hundred thousand decorated milch cows (`dve shate sahasrani`, `10.5.3`) with gilded horns, silver hooves, and silk coverings, along with seven mountains of grain, sesame, and gold (`10.5.3–4`). As Shukadeva notes in a concise maxim (`10.5.4`), materials are purified by time, earth by bathing, the body by cleanliness, and the self by rites and penance—but wealth is purified only by giving (`danena dravyam`).
All of Gokula turned into a festival (`10.5.5–18`). Courtyards were swept and sprinkled with scented water; pillars were hung with banners, flower garlands, and fresh mango twigs; and the bulls, cows, and calves were brushed and rubbed with oil and turmeric (`10.5.5–8`). Hearing that Yashoda had borne a son (`10.5.9–12`), the gopis dressed in their finest clothes, collyrium, and lotus-pollen makeup and hurried to Nanda's house carrying gifts, their round faces glowing like blooming lotuses as they blessed the infant: "Long live this child and protect us (`ciram pahi`, `10.5.11`)!" While musicians, bards, and heralds sang (`10.5.12–15`), the cowherds playfully splashed and smeared one another with curd, milk, clarified butter (`ghrita`), and water (`10.5.13–14`), and Rohini—celebrated by Nanda and the villagers—moved freely through the house in gleaming garments and necklaces (`10.5.17`), while Goddess Lakshmi herself made Vraja her permanent home (`10.5.18`).
Shortly afterward (`10.5.19–32`), entrusting Gokula to the elder cowherds (`gopa-vriddhan`), Nanda traveled to Mathura to pay the annual royal taxes due to King Kamsa (`10.5.19`). Hearing that his brother-friend had arrived (`10.5.20`), Vasudeva hurried to Nanda's lodging, greeting him as excitedly as if life had returned to a lifeless body (`10.5.20–21`). Embracing Vasudeva and weeping over the six sons Kamsa had murdered and the single girl who had vanished into the sky (`10.5.22–24`), Nanda comforted him, and Vasudeva—knowing the secret truth he could not speak aloud—asked tenderly after Rohini's son Rama and after Nanda's "own" newborn son (`10.5.25–28`). Then Vasudeva gave Nanda an urgent warning (`10.5.30–31`): "Your annual tribute to the king has now been paid; do not linger here in Mathura for another day (`na stheyam iha`). Go back to Gokula at once, O friend, for I see terrible portents (`utpatan`) rising right now in your cowherd camp (`10.5.31`)!"
In the sixth chapter (`10.6.1–44`), as Nanda rode back toward Gokula pondering Vasudeva's warning (`10.6.1`), the first of those portents struck. Dispatched by Kamsa (`kamsena prahita`), the fierce child-killing demoness Putana (`ghora putana bala-ghatini`) roamed through cities, villages, and cow-pastures slaughtering newborn infants (`shishun ghnati`, `10.6.2`). For as Shukadeva notes (`10.6.3`), wherever people do not recite or listen to the protective titles of the Lord of Satvata, such female fiends (`matrikah`) hold sway.
Flying through the sky by her mystic witch-craft (`khecari mayaya`), Putana entered Nanda's Gokula disguised directly as a breathtakingly beautiful woman (`10.6.4`). With jasmine flowers woven into her glossy hair, her slender waist bending under her hips and breasts, glorious garments, and sparkling earrings casting light around her smiling face (`10.6.5–6`), she walked into Nanda's courtyard holding a lotus flower in her hand (`padma-hastam`). Seeing her sidelong, charming glances, the simple gopis mistook her for Goddess Lakshmi herself come in person to see her husband (`manyamana ramam sakshat`), and stood dazzled without stopping her (`10.6.6`).
Searching for infants, the child-hunter (`bala-graha`) stepped straight into Nanda's nursery and saw the baby lying on his bed (`10.6.7`)—his immense divine fire concealed beneath a small child's frame just like a blazing coal hidden under ash (`channam bhasmanevagnim`, `10.6.7`). Realizing instantly that this infant was the soul of all moving and non-moving beings (`caracara-atma`), the little Lord closed his eyes (`militaksho`), pretending to sleep as he allowed the witch to lift him (`10.6.8`). Just as an ignorant person picks up a sleeping cobra mistaking it for a rope (`suptam ahim`), the doomed Putana lifted the Infinite Child onto her lap while Yashoda and Rohini, their minds overwhelmed by her glamorous radiance (`prabha-abhibhuta`), stood watching silently like women facing an unsheathed sword (`10.6.8–9`).
There on her lap (`10.6.9–10`), Putana placed into the baby's mouth her terrible breast, which she had smeared with deadly, indigestible poison (`dushyena ghora-rupena digdham`). Instantly the Lord squeezed her breast hard with both hands (`sambadhya karabhyam`), flared with indignation (`sa-manyuh`), and sucked out her very life-breath (`pranan`) together with her poisoned milk (`10.6.10`).
Writhing as her vital spots (`marmani`) were torn apart inside (`10.6.10–11`), the demoness screamed in agony: "Leave me! Leave me! Enough (`munca munca alam`, `10.6.11`)!" With sweat pouring from her limbs, her eyes bulging, and her arms and legs thrashing wildly as she roared (`10.6.11–12`), Putana lost her magical disguise and crashed down outside the village in her true monstrous Vritra-like form (`10.6.12–14`), crushing every tree across a stretch of six *gavutas* (twelve miles) of ground (`10.6.14`)!
Hearing the thunderous crash and see the giant corpse with teeth like plowshares, nostrils like mountain caves, breasts like fallen boulders, and red hair scattered on the dust (`10.6.15–17`), the horrified gopis, Yashoda, and Rohini saw the little child playing completely unafraid (`निर्भयं क्रीडन्तम्`) right on top of her chest (`10.6.18`). Rushing up in frantic relief (`10.6.19–30`), they snatched the baby up, bathed him with cow's urine and dust from cow-hooves, waved cows' tails (`go-puccha`) around him, and chanted a comprehensive protective liturgy placing Aja, Maniman, Acyuta, Hayagriva, Keshava, Govinda, and Madhava over every limb of his body before Yashoda nursed him to sleep (`10.6.20–30`).
When Nanda and the men returned from Mathura and saw Putana's twelve-mile carcass (`10.6.31–34`), they marveled at how Vasudeva had proved almost a prophetic sage (`rishi-kalpa`), chopped the giant body to pieces with axes, and burned it on stacks of wood (`10.6.33–34`). As her flesh burned, a startling miracle occurred (`10.6.34`): out of the smoke of her pyre rose the pure, sweet fragrance of *aguru* sandalwood (`dhuma aguru-saurabhah`), because all her sins had been burned away the instant Krishna drank from her breast (`10.6.34`)!
Shukadeva pauses in awe over that grace (`10.6.35–40`):
> "Putana, a blood-drinking murderess of children (`loka-bala-ghni rakshasi`), offered her breast to Hari out of a desire to kill him (`jighamsaya`, `10.6.35`)—and yet she attained the supreme destination of a foster-mother in heaven (`lebhe gatim dhatry-ucitam`)! What then of mothers who offer what is dearest with faith and devotion (`10.6.35`)? Having her body pressed by the two feet of the Lord who sleeps inside the hearts of devotees and is embraced by the devout, she who disguised herself as a loving mother attained a mother's place (`10.6.37–38`). Whom else can we take shelter of as more merciful (`dayalum sharanam vrajema`) than the One who granted the station of a mother even to treacherous witches wearing deceitful forms (`10.6.43`, cf. `3.2.23`)?"
In the seventh chapter (`10.7.1–37`), King Parikshit eagerly asks to hear the next childhood wonders (`bala-caritam`) of the Lord (`10.7.1–3`). Shukadeva describes the festive day three months later when the baby first turned over on his side (`औत्थानिकौत्सवे`) beneath his birth-star Rohini (`10.7.4`). While the music played and the brahmanas chanted blessings (`10.7.5`), Yashoda bathed her son and laid him down to nap underneath a heavy wooden handcart (`shakata`) stacked with large pots of milk, curd, and butter (`10.7.6`), while she went inside to receive the village guests (`10.7.6`).
Waking up hungry for his mother's milk (`stana-arthah`, `10.7.7`), the tiny infant began to cry and kicked his two little red-soled feet upward into the air (`utkshipann anghri`, `10.7.7`). Though his heel was softer than a fresh red leaf (`pravala-mridunanghrina`), the instant it struck the bottom of the cart (`10.7.7–8`), the heavy wooden vehicle flipped violently upside down (`vyavartata`)! Its metal pots of sweet liquids smashed, its wheel-hubs tore loose from the axle, and its wooden pole and yoke shattered with a crack (`10.7.8`). When the startled gopis, Yashoda, and Nanda ran out wondering how the cart had collapsed on its own (`10.7.9`), the naked little children playing nearby pointed at the baby: "We saw him kick it down while crying—there is no doubt about it (`anenai va nipatitam`, `10.7.10`)!" The cowherds, knowing nothing of the baby's unfathomable strength, laughed off the children's testimony (`na te shraddadhire gopah`, `10.7.11`), while Nanda had the brahmanas bathe the boy with *kusha* grass and water to ward off unseen spirits (`10.7.12–17`).
Not long afterward (`10.7.18–20`), while Yashoda sat holding her son on her lap, the infant suddenly grew heavier than a mountain peak (`giri-shringa-garimana`, `10.7.18`). Unable to bear his crushing weight (`asahamana`), the astonished mother set him down on the floor, meditated on the Lord of the universe, and went about her household chores (`10.7.19`). At that instant (`10.7.20`), a demon servant of Kamsa named Trinavarta arrived in the form of a roaring dust-whirlwind (`cakra-vata-svarupena`) and swept the sitting child high into the sky (`jahara asinam arbhakam`, `10.7.20`).
Blinding all of Gokula with thick clouds of dust and roaring terribly across every direction (`10.7.21–24`), the whirlwind plunged the village into pitch darkness for a *muhurta* (`10.7.22`). Unable to see her baby where she had placed him (`10.7.23–25`), Yashoda collapsed to the ground like a cow whose calf has been torn away (`10.7.24`), and the gopis wept through the settling dust (`10.7.25`). Meanwhile, high up in the sky (`10.7.26–28`), the whirlwind demon Trinavarta found he could fly no further because the baby's immense weight dragged him down (`bhara-voḍhum ashaknuvan`). Thinking the infant was a mountain, Trinavarta tried to shake him off—only to find the child locked tightly around his neck (`gala-grahena`), strangling him until his eyes popped from their sockets and his voice choked (`10.7.27–28`). Lifeless, the giant demon plummeted from the clouds (`nyapatad ambarat`) with the baby clinging to him and smashed to pieces upon a broad slab of stone below in Vraja (`shilayam`, `10.7.28–29`)!
Amazed to find the baby hanging safely on the dead demon's chest (`10.7.29–33`), the women snatched him back and gave him to Yashoda as if he had returned from the jaws of death (`mrityor mukhad iva`, `10.7.30–31`).
And then, at the close of the chapter (`10.7.34–37`), came a quiet private moment between mother and infant that foreshadowed what was to come. One day (`ekada`), while Yashoda held her little boy on her lap, nursed him to full satisfaction (`stanyam पाययित्वा`), and stroked his smiling face tenderly (`10.7.34`), the baby opened his mouth to yawn (`jrimbhatah`, `10.7.35`). Looking casually inside his tiny yawning mouth (`dadarsha idam akhilam`), the mother suddenly beheld the sky, the higher spheres, the earth, the stars, all directions, the sun, the moon, fire, wind, the oceans, islands, mountains, her own daughters, forests, and every moving and non-moving creature (`10.7.35–36`)! Trembling all over at that sudden glimpse (`vepathuh`), deer-eyed Yashoda squeezed her eyes shut in wonder (`10.7.37`)—ready for the secret naming ceremony and the full cosmic vision that the eighth chapter would soon bring.
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