Damodara-lila
(from chapters 9-11 of Srimad Bhagavatam, 10th Canto)

1) One day as all her servants were engaged with other chores, Lord Krishna’s mother saw the butter churn had been ignored. So she collected yogurt to make butter for the day, and as she churned she sang a song describing Krishna’s play. 2) She loved to make up Krishna-songs to memorize and sing so she could think of Krishna as she did most anything. She sang and pulled the churning rope, her yellow sari moist from breast-milk born of love she felt just thinking of her boy. 3) Her bangles bounced and sang along. Her earrings danced in time. Her body shook from labor and her temperature climbed. As beads of perspiration broke across her lovely brow, the flowers from her hair swirled down like petals from a bough. 4) Into the room Lord Krishna toddled; He’d just woken up. He snatched His mother’s churning rod and tried to interrupt, for He was feeling hungry after such a lengthy nap. His mother then embraced the Lord and sat Him on her lap. 5) When Yasoda saw Krishna’s face, milk poured out from her breasts. Her son desired nursing, and she granted His request. The two were sitting happily in motherly repose when Yasoda remembered she’d left milk upon the stove. 6) She dashed to save the milk. Lord Krishna gave an angry squeal, upset to be disrupted in the middle of His meal. He bit His lips with baby teeth, picked up a nearby rock, and broke apart the butter pot with one well-measured knock. 7) He reached inside and took out all the butter, freshly churned, and quickly slipped outside before His mother could return. On seeing all the chaos, Yasoda was mildly irked. She quickly understood it had been Krishna’s handiwork. 8) While sitting on an upturned mortar meant for grinding spice, Lord Krishna felt quite satisfied. He easily enticed delighted village monkeys to eat butter from His hand, though now and then He’d glance about in fear of reprimand. 9) While Krishna went on feeding all the monkeys for some time, He did not see His mother creep up softly from behind. The crows, who’d come to watch the fun, saw trouble on the way. As Yasoda drew nearer, they jumped up and flew away. 10) The startled Krishna turned and saw his mother and her stick. He ran, His butter-laden footsteps falling short and quick. His mother ran behind and tried to capture God Himself, though He eludes great yogis and most everybody else. 11) Her heavy breasts were burdensome upon her slender waist, and as she ran behind her son her hair fell out of place. Because she loved her Krishna, Yasoda did not complain, and very soon she captured Him and asked Him to explain. 12) The fearful Krishna then confessed, and He began to cry. His tears mixed with the blackish ointment worn beneath His eyes, creating tainted teardrops that He rubbed across His face. His mother smiled but held His hand so He could not escape. 13) Absorbed in motherly affection, Yasoda could not see God Himself had left behind that broken butter pot. Observing Krishna’s fearful face and all the tears He shed, she threw away her whipping stick and tied Him up instead. 14) Now Krishna has no start or end, no front or back or side; He’s everywhere and everything – and still personified. Both time and karma come from Him, so He’s beyond their scope, yet Yasoda thought she could bind Him with a simple rope. 15) By love alone would Krishna ever let Himself be bound. When Yasoda picked up the rope and tried, she quickly found that it was just a little short. She tied on more, and then she found the lengthened rope was just a little short again. 16) She added on another rope. Too short. She tried another, yet Krishna’s tiny hands were still too large for His poor mother. The gopis in the neighborhood all giggled at the fun, and Yasoda laughed too, though all this puzzled everyone. 17) While Yasoda was trying hard to check her naughty son, her body was perspiring and her hair had come undone. On seeing that His mother’s strength was quickly running down, Lord Krishna felt compassionate and let Himself be bound. 18) Though Lord Brahma, Lord Siva and such great, exalted souls who rule the very cosmos are in Krishna’s full control, Govinda has a feature that’s exceptionally sublime: He’s bound by His devotees’ love, as He showed at this time. 19) A million goddesses of fortune dance to Krishna’s flute, yet He steals butter as if He were poor and destitute. The god of death, the dread of all, fears Krishna’s slight command, yet Krishna fears His mother with a whipping stick in hand. 20) The mercy shown to Yasoda, whose selfless love was pure, surpasses all Brahma, Siva, or Laxmi could secure. Ascetics, speculators, or the ordinary man cannot reach God as easily as pure devotees can. 21) Roped tight to heavy mortar by His mother’s loving hand, Lord Krishna took His punishment just like a little man. When Yasoda went back inside to clean the broken pot, the Lord observed a pair of arjuna trees at His spot. 22) These trees had quite a history, and Krishna knew it well. The two were once Kuvera’s sons and shared their father’s wealth. One day the youthful brothers played in Siva’s lush estate by splashing holy Ganga water in their drunken state. 23) Celestial damsels came along, and in that sacred place, like maddened, drunken elephants, the youths took their embrace. Intoxicated, laughing, unrestrained in any way, the young gods rolled their drunken eyes and passed their merry day. 24) Just then, by their good fortune, saintly Narada appeared. The damsels quickly snatched their clothes and hid themselves in fear. The two sons of Kuvera, though, were drunk and didn’t care, and stood in front of Narada with nothing on but air. 25) Surmising in a moment the condition of the youths, the sage resolved to help them understand a higher truth. As parents pinch awake a sickly child they need to nurse, Saint Narada decided to assign the two a curse. 26) Said Narada, “Material resources, my dear boys, like beauty, education or the fame you both enjoy, are all surpassed by money, for it makes men very proud. The rich drink wine and have more sex than others are allowed. 27) The rich man, smug and satisfied with all that he’s acquired quite often grows malicious in pursuit of his desires. To please the mortal flesh he loves and thinks will never die, he murders helpless creatures just for sport and exercise. 28) He does not see the suffering he’ll bring himself, the fool, when his fine body ends up ashes, worms, or vulture stool. He thinks his body durable, long-lived and very strong and never asks to whom his body actually belongs. 29) Does one’s employer own his body? Does his mother dear? Or is it a possession of the king or the premier? At death the family puts one’s body on a funeral pyre. Is it the asset of the eldest son who lights the fire? 30) Do slave owners possess the body due to bill of sale? Or is it owned at death by dogs who eat and wag their tails? In fact, the body comes from sand and goes back into sand, as anyone who thinks about it surely understands. 31) Illusion makes the rich try to enjoy what they cannot, but poor folks, on the other hand, can hardly give a thought to sense enjoyment, seeking, as they do, a decent meal. In poverty one learns how other starving people feel. 32) A hungry person has no extra energy to chase the sins of wine and meat and needless sexual embrace. Impoverished people therefore gain the merits of a saint who lives without such pleasures by deliberate restraint. 33) Avoiding wealthy sense-enjoyers, saints live with the poor— another reason destitutes can spiritually mature. Because you boys are rich and think your bodies are your selves, your only hope to learn the truth is through some special help. 34) Your drinking and illicit sex have made your brains so numb like trees you stand there naked—and so trees you shall become! One hundred godly years from now, you both shall have the grace to reacquire your freedom and see Krishna face to face.” 35) Saint Narada then left, and through his mystic energies the two sons of Kuvera turned into a pair of trees. They stood there many, many years until the fateful day when Krishna, mortar dragged behind Him, slowly crawled their way. 36) Lord Krishna thought, “I have no obligation to this pair, but Narada, My dear devotee, took them in his care. He wanted Me to see them. Let his prophecy now come so they can rectify what they have previously done.” 37) With this the Lord crawled further on His tiny hands and knees. The heavy mortar wedged between the bases of the trees. The rope bound to His belly strained, but Krishna seemed to glide; He crawled a little further and both trees crashed to His sides. 38) Then from the fallen branches, leaves and trunks began to rise two brilliant, glowing gods with folded hands and downcast eyes. Their beauty lit the very earth, yet as they bowed their heads before the toddler Krishna, they looked up a bit and said, 39) “O Krishna, the greatest of mystics, our Lord! O cause of all causes, our lives are restored! Your dear servant Narada called You and thus, transcendent creator, You’ve sanctified us. 40) The planets and stars are within Your control; You are the director of each spirit soul. You know all the secrets of every heart, yet fools think of You as remote and apart. 41) Unless You disclose Yourself, who can perceive that You are beyond what the mind can conceive? We won’t try to analyze all that You do; Instead, we most humbly bow down before You. 42) Since Narada cursed us and cured our disease, our hands are now pledged to serve Your devotees. Without their intrusion our lives were condemned. May we see them always and serve You through them.” 43) The two young gods thus prayed as Krishna smiled to hear the sound. “I freed these two, “ He thought, “yet I remain completely bound.” He said aloud, “Saint Narada indeed is very kind; your mad desire for opulence made both of you go blind. 44) As darkness disappears before the presence of the sun, the presence of a saint at once enlightens everyone You both fell down from heaven and were born as naked trees; go back now with My blessings and remain My devotees.” 45) The two sons of Kuvera bowed, enormously inspired. Lord Krishna’s gift—devotion—was the wealth they now desired. Ecstatic with the blessing saintly Narada bestowed, they walked around their bound-up Lord and rose to their abode. 46) The crashing sound of arjuna trees blasted through the town. The startled cowherd men assumed that lightning brought them down. Arriving at the scene they found no bolts had struck; instead, the cowherd boys who witnessed it approached the men and said: 47) “When Krishna dragged the mortar to the base of these two trees He quickly pulled them down by simply crawling on His knees. Two glowing men then left the trees and rose up in the skies. We saw it all ‘cause Krishna did it right before our eyes!” 48) Some men believed the trees too big for Krishna to uproot, but others felt the cowherd boys were telling them the truth. When Nanda saw his son bound up, he smiled and set Him free and shook his head, bewildered in parental ecstasy.