Bhagavatapurana 10.9
English (machine translation) 10.9
- Language
- English
Contents
10.9.1
Śrī Śuka said:
One day, while the female household servants were engaged in other chores, / Yaśodā, the mistress of Nanda’s house, churned the curds herself.
10.9.2
All the childhood deeds of Him that are sung of in this world, / she remembered and sang while churning the curds.
10.9.2.p1
Wearing a linen garment bound by a girdle around her broad hips, / her pair of breasts flowing with milk from love for her son, trembling [with exertion], that fair-browed woman,
10.9.3
with bracelets and earrings shaking from the strain on her arms pulling the ropes, / her face covered in sweat, and jasmine blossoms dropping from her hair, churned away.
10.9.3.p1
[…]
10.9.4
Approaching His mother as she churned, Hari, wishing to nurse, / seized the churning rod and stopped her, bringing delight.
10.9.5
Taking Him up on her lap, she nursed Him from her breast flowing with milk, looking at His smiling face; / but leaving Him still unsatisfied, she rushed away because the milk boiling on the stove was spilling over.
10.9.6
Aroused with anger, biting His quivering reddish lip with His teeth, / He broke the pot of curd with a grinding stone, and with feigned tears, going into a secluded place, ate freshly churned butter.
10.9.7
The cowherd woman, having taken down the well-boiled milk, returned, and seeing the curd pot / broken, recognized it as the doing of her son; she laughed, though not seeing Him there.
10.9.8
Seeing her son standing on top of a mortar, generously feeding a monkey butter / that had been placed in a hanging pot, while glancing around in fear of theft, she approached Him softly from behind.
10.9.8.p1
Seeing her holding a stick, He quickly / climbed down from there and ran away as if terrified,
10.9.9
and the cowherd woman ran after Him whom even the mind of yogins, / driven by asceticism, is unable to reach.
10.9.9.p1
[…]
10.9.10
Following Him, the slender-waisted mother, whose pace was slowed by the weight of her large, swinging hips, / following the trail of blossoms that had fallen from her loosened hair through her speed, caught Him.
10.9.11
Taking hold of His hand as He cried, guilty of offense, / rubbing His eyes blackened with collyrium with His own hand, / looking up with frightened, bewildered eyes, she threatened Him to frighten Him.
10.9.12
Casting away the stick upon seeing her son terrified, she who loved her child, / not knowing His true power, desired to bind Him with a rope.
10.9.13
He who has neither inside nor outside, neither beginning nor end, / who is before and after, inside and outside the universe, and who is the universe itself—
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regarding Him, the unmanifest Adhokṣaja appearing in mortal form, as her son, / the cowherd woman bound Him to the mortar with a rope, as if He were an ordinary child.
10.9.15
That rope used to bind her own child who had committed the offense / fell short by two finger-breadths; therefore, the cowherd woman tied on another piece.
10.9.16
When that too proved short, she joined another rope to it; / yet whatever binding she took, that too was short by two finger-breadths.
10.9.17
Thus, even as Yaśodā tied together all the ropes in her house, / while the cowherd women laughed sweetly, she herself smiled in astonishment.
10.9.18
Seeing the fatigue of His mother, whose limbs were bathed in perspiration / and whose flower garland had slipped from her braids, Kṛṣṇa, out of compassion, allowed Himself to be bound.
10.9.19
In this way, O dear one, was Hari's subjection to His servants revealed / by Kṛṣṇa, who though entirely self-willed, holds this universe with its rulers under His control.
10.9.20
Neither Viriñca, nor Bhava, nor even Śrī who dwells upon His bosom, / obtained such grace from the Giver of liberation as that cowherd woman received.
10.9.21
The Lord, the son of the cowherd woman, is not as easily attained by embodied beings, / or even by men of knowledge who realize the Self, as He is by those endowed with devotion in this world.
10.9.22
Now, while His mother was busy with household duties, the Lord Kṛṣṇa / saw the two arjuna trees that had previously been Guhyakas, the sons of Kubera,
10.9.23
who long ago, by the curse of Nārada, had been made into trees due to their arrogance; / endowed with fortune, they were known as Nalakūvara and Maṇigrīva.
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit