Krishna saving the arjuna trees

 

One day Yasoda was churning curdled milk and singing the deeds of her son. Krishna came up and, desirous of sucking milk, held the churning rod. Yasoda placed him on her lap and gave him milk to suck. But the milk that was boiling on the oven overflowed the pot and she hurriedly left her son. In anger Krishna bit his lips, broke the milk pot with a stone, took the fresh butter to a retired corner and there partook of it. Yasoda came back after a while and found the pot broken. Her son had left the place and she could easily see that it was all his doing.

She found Krishna seated on the husk stand, freely dividing the contents of the hanging pots among the monkeys, and she quietly approached him with a stick. Krishna hurriedly got down and ran away as if in fear. Yasoda ran after him and caught him at last. Finding him fear-stricken, she threw down the stick and tried to fasten him to the husking stand. The rope fell short by the breadth of two fingers (say two inches). She added another rope. The gap remained the same. She added rope after rope, as many as she had of her own and of her neighbors, but could not bridge over the distance. She stood baffled at last, amazed and ashamed. Finding that his mother was perspiring in the effort and that her hair had become disheveled, Krishna allowed himself to be fastened to the stand.

The Yaksha King Kuvera had two sons — Nalakuvara and Manigriva. They became maddened with power and intoxicated with drink. Narada passed by them while they were playing with Gandharva girls stark naked in a river bath and they heeded him not. Narada thought how best he could reclaim them. “Poverty is the only remedy for those that lose their heads in wealth. These sons of the Lokapala Kuvera are deep in ignorance, insolence and intoxication. Let them become trees. But they shall not lose memory by my favor. After one hundred Deva years, the touch of Sri Krishna shall save them.”  These sons of Kuvera in consequence became a pair of Arjuna trees in Vrindavana.

While Krishna was fastened to the husking stand, the pair of Arjuna trees drew his attention. He was bent on making good the words of Narada. So he approached the trees, drawing the husking stand behind him by force and, placing himself between them, uprooted the trees. They fell down with a crash and lo! two fiery spirits came out, illumining space by the splendour of their bodies. They prayed to Krishna and then rose upwards.

The Gopa women had been engaged all this time in their household duties and the crash attracted the attention of all the Gopas and Gopis. The boys told what they had seen. But some were loath to believe that all this could be done by the boy Krishna.

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