Chapter Thirteen
The Stealing of the Boys and Calves by Brahma
1. Srila Sukadeva Gosvami said: O best of devotees, most fortunate Pariksit, you have inquired very nicely, for although constantly hearing the pastimes of the Lord, you are perceiving His activities to be newer and newer.
2. Paramahamsas, devotees who have accepted the essence of life, are attached to Krishna in the core of their hearts, and He is the aim of their lives. It is their nature to talk only of Krishna at every moment, as if such topics were newer and newer. They are attached to such topics, just as materialists are attached to topics of women and sex.
3. O King, kindly hear me with great attention. Although the activities of the Supreme Lord are very confidential, no ordinary man being able to understand them, I shall speak about them to you, for spiritual masters explain to a submissive disciple even subject matters that are very confidential and difficult to understand.
4. Then, after saving the boys and calves from the mouth of Aghasura, who was death personified, Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, brought them all to the bank of the river and spoke the following words.
5. My dear friends, just see how this riverbank is extremely beautiful because of its pleasing atmosphere. And just see how the blooming lotuses are attracting bees and birds by their aroma. The humming and chirping of the bees and birds is echoing throughout the beautiful trees in the forest. Also, here the sands are clean and soft. Therefore, this must be considered the best place for our sporting and pastimes.
6. I think we should take our lunch here, since we are already hungry because the time is very late. Here the calves may drink water and go slowly here and there and eat the grass.
7. Accepting Lord Krishna’s proposal, the cowherd boys allowed the calves to drink water from the river and then tied them to trees where there was green, tender grass. Then the boys opened their baskets of food and began eating with Krishna in great transcendental pleasure.
8. Like the whorl of a lotus flower surrounded by its petals and leaves, Krishna sat in the center, encircled by lines of His friends, who all looked very beautiful. Every one of them was trying to look forward toward Krishna, thinking that Krishna might look toward him. In this way they all enjoyed their lunch in the forest.
9. Among the cowherd boys, some placed their lunch on flowers, some on leaves, fruits, or bunches of leaves, some actually in their baskets, some on the bark of trees and some on rocks. This is what the children imagined to be their plates as they ate their lunch.
10. All the cowherd boys enjoyed their lunch with Krishna, showing one another the different tastes of the different varieties of preparations they had brought from home. Tasting one another’s preparations, they began to laugh and make one another laugh.
11. Krishna is yajna-bhuk—that is, He eats only offerings of yajna—but to exhibit His childhood pastimes, He now sat with His flute tucked between His waist and His tight cloth on His right side and with His horn bugle and cow-driving stick on His left. Holding in His hand a very nice preparation of yogurt and rice, with pieces of suitable fruit between His fingers, He sat like the whorl of a lotus flower, looking forward toward all His friends, personally joking with them and creating jubilant laughter among them as He ate. At that time, the denizens of heaven were watching, struck with wonder at how the Personality of Godhead, who eats only in yajna, was now eating with His friends in the forest.
12. O Maharaja Pariksit, while the cowherd boys, who knew nothing within the core of their hearts but Krishna, were thus engaged in eating their lunch in the forest, the calves went far away, deep into the forest, being allured by green grass.
13. When Krishna saw that His friends the cowherd boys were frightened, He, the fierce controller even of fear itself, said, just to mitigate their fear, “My dear friends, do not stop eating. I shall bring your calves back to this spot by personally going after them Myself.”
14. “Let Me go and search for the calves,” Krishna said. “Don’t disturb your enjoyment.” Then, carrying His yogurt and rice in His hand, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, immediately went out to search for the calves of His friends. To please His friends, He began searching in all the mountains, mountain caves, bushes and narrow passages.
15. O Maharaja Pariksit, Brahma, who resides in the higher planetary system in the sky, had observed the activities of the most powerful Krishna in killing and delivering Aghasura, and he was astonished. Now that same Brahma wanted to show some of his own power and see the power of Krishna, who was engaged in His childhood pastimes, playing as if with ordinary cowherd boys. Therefore, in Krishna’s absence, Brahma took all the boys and calves to another place. Thus he became entangled, for in the very near future he would see how powerful Krishna was.
16. Thereafter, when Krishna was unable to find the calves, He returned to the bank of the river, but there He was also unable to see the cowherd boys. Thus He began to search for both the calves and the boys, as if He could not understand what had happened.
17. When Krishna was unable to find the calves and their caretakers, the cowherd boys, anywhere in the forest, He could suddenly understand that this was the work of Lord Brahma.
18. Thereafter, just to create pleasure both for Brahma and for the mothers of the calves and cowherd boys, Krishna, the creator of the entire cosmic manifestation, expanded Himself as calves and boys.
19. By His Vasudeva feature, Krishna simultaneously expanded Himself into the exact number of missing cowherd boys and calves, with their exact bodily features, their particular types of hands, legs and other limbs, their sticks, bugles and flutes, their lunch bags, their particular types of dress and ornaments placed in various ways, their names, ages and forms, and their special activities and characteristics. By expanding Himself in this way, beautiful Krishna proved the statement samagra-jagad visnumayam: “Lord Visnu is all-pervading.”
20. Now expanding Himself so as to appear as all the calves and cowherd boys, all of them as they were, and at the same time appear as their leader, Krishna entered Vrajabhumi, the land of His father, Nanda Maharaja, just as He usually did while enjoying their company.
21. O Maharaja Pariksit, Krishna, who had divided Himself as different calves and also as different cowherd boys, entered different cow sheds as the calves and then different homes as different boys.
22. The mothers of the boys, upon hearing the sounds of the flutes and bugles being played by their sons, immediately rose from their household tasks, lifted their boys onto their laps, embraced them with both arms and began to feed them with their breast milk, which flowed forth because of extreme love specifically for Krishna. Actually Krishna is everything, but at that time, expressing extreme love and affection, they took special pleasure in feeding Krishna, the Parabrahman, and Krishna drank the milk from His respective mothers as if it were a nectarean beverage.
23. Thereafter, O Maharaja Pariksit, as required according to the scheduled round of His pastimes, Krishna returned in the evening, entered the house of each of the cowherd boys, and engaged exactly like the former boys, thus enlivening their mothers with transcendental pleasure. The mothers took care of the boys by massaging them with oil, bathing them, smearing their bodies with sandalwood pulp, decorating them with ornaments, chanting protective mantras, decorating their bodies with tilaka and giving them food. In this way, the mothers served Krishna personally.
24. Thereafter, all the cows entered their different sheds and began mooing loudly, calling for their respective calves. When the calves arrived, the mothers began licking the calves’ bodies again and again and profusely feeding them with the milk flowing from their milk bags.
25. Previously, from the very beginning, the gopis had motherly affection for Krishna. Indeed, their affection for Krishna exceeded even their affection for their own sons. In displaying their affection, they had thus distinguished between Krishna and their sons, but now that distinction disappeared.
26. Although the inhabitants of Vrajabhumi, the cowherd men and cowherd women, previously had more affection for Krishna than for their own children, now, for one year, their affection for their own sons continuously increased, for Krishna had now become their sons. There was no limit to the increment of their affection for their sons, who were now Krishna. Every day they found new inspiration for loving their children as much as they loved Krishna.
27. In this way, Lord Sri Krishna, having Himself become the cowherd boys and groups of calves, maintained Himself by Himself. Thus He continued His pastimes, both in Vrndavana and in the forest, for one year.
28. One day, five or six nights before the completion of the year, Krishna, tending the calves, entered the forest along with Balarama.
29. Thereafter, while pasturing atop Govardhana Hill, the cows looked down to find some green grass and saw their calves pasturing near Vrndavana, not very far away.
30. When the cows saw their own calves from the top of Govardhana Hill, they forgot themselves and their caretakers because of increased affection, and although the path was very rough, they ran toward their calves with great anxiety, each running as if with one pair of legs. Their milk bags full and flowing with milk, their heads and tails raised, and their humps moving with their necks, they ran forcefully until they reached their calves to feed them.