In the previous episode, we had witnessed how Bhagawan Bala-Krishna neutralizing Raakshasi Poothana as He was sucking her breast milk filled with poison. Poothana’s plan was to kill the baby with her poison stored amidst her breasts. However, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna knew her wicked plans. As mentioned in yesterday’s episode, one important characteristic of Bhagawan Krishna is that, He doesn’t kill anybody directly. It is only the circumstances that would bring all the Raakshasas to Him, only to get killed by themselves and their wicked actions. This happened not only with Poothana, but with many others. We’re going to witness many such cases one by one as we progress further. Thus, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna neutralizes Poothana and makes her fall on the ground dead. As she had disguised her Raakshasi form, she had initially come in the false form of a young beautiful lady. However, as she was getting killed, her disguised form made way to her original horrible form of a Raakshasi, and she fell on the ground with a grumpy loud sound that sent shivers all across the Gokula village. People rushed to the spot to see what had happened. Poothana was lying there dead and Bhagawan Bala-Krishna was playing over her dead body.
Upon seeing this, all the Gokula residents were shell-shocked! They’ve never seen such a huge Raakshasi in their village till date. Yashoda came running amidst all the chaos that had just happened and she was shocked beyond words when she understood that it was her baby that was in trouble. Sage Paraashara explains the length and breadth of this Raakshasi Poothana, who had fallen dead just now. She was around 12 miles tall! It was thus very difficult for the Gokula people to carry such a huge body and cremate it. Thus, they had to cut the body into pieces and finally do the needful. However, Sage Paraashara in this context, explains an important point here – As Poothana fell on the ground dead, there was not even a single trace of any foul smell coming from her body. Normally, Raakshasas are characteristic to foul smells due to so many bad reasons. However, the presence of Bhagawan Bala-Krishna made all the difference here. As the “Shaastras” repeatedly keep mentioning, Bhagawan Vishnu is an embodiment of pure smell of fresh sandalwood and is also an embodiment of all forms of light. Since Bhagawan Bala-Krishna is playing all over her body, there was no place for any sort of bad or foul smells there. It was all transformed into the smell of fresh sandalwood, and this made the Gokula residents comfortable.
Moving further thus, as Yashoda sees the baby safe and secure, she heaved a huge sigh of relief. On one hand, she was happy and satisfied that the child was safe, and on the other hand, she felt that the child has become scared upon seeing such a huge Raakshasi! We’ve to imagine here – The entire world is fearing upon seeing this baby, and here is Yashoda thinking that this baby is fearing afterall for this Poothana! 🙂 With this feeling thus, she decided to calm down the baby. She took Bhagawan Bala-Krishna on her lap, fed Him with her milk once again and calms Him down. Even then, the baby was profusely crying. Yashoda inferred that the baby was crying because of the deadly scare, and hence she immediately brings a cow in front of Him, turns the cow to the opposite direction, with the tail facing the baby. She circles the tail in the clockwise direction in front of the baby, so that upon seeing it, the baby’s fear would come down!
This was an age-old practice. If a baby gets shocked or scared for life, the baby is confronted in front of a cow, with its tail facing the baby. The tail would be rotated clockwise, and it is believed that upon doing so, the baby would be devoid of fear. This is exactly what Yashoda is doing here! We might wonder whether Yashoda was a fool to do all this to a baby who is the leader to the entire world (“Bhagawan Jagad-Rakshaka”) We’ve to understand one thing very clearly here – Yashoda is a mother, and she doesn’t know the reality of this baby. She is doing all this out of her motherly love and affection towards her darling child. We’re knowing that this baby is none other than Bhagawan Vishnu, because we’re reading this story from Shri Vishnu Puraana. Our context of looking at this story is very different. Hence, we might feel this way. This is one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that, if we’re doing something towards Bhagawan with our ardent and innocent love and affection towards Him, this is what accounts to “Bhakti”, isn’t it? If we’ve to go into the “Bhakti-Maarga”, we’ve to first understand that our love towards Bhagawan should be unconditional and pure. Yashoda is doing the same thing here – She’s witnessing Bhagawan as her own baby, and hence, her unconditional love and affection towards Him is overflowing without any blemish. Hence, whatever she does to Bhagawan Bala-Krishna – Be it this experience that we’re currently talking about, or tying Him to the wall, scolding and beating Him for stealing butter (We’re going to witness all of this in the further episodes), is out of her true love and affection towards Bhagawan Krishna. Hence, Bhagawan too takes all of it in a loving way, rather than retaliating against her with all His might!
Thus, this is the message that we’ve to understand from the motherly love and affection of Yashoda! How fortunate was she to parent Bhagawan during His childhood days! So for today, let us understand this point and let us appreciate the bountiful opportunity that Yashoda had obtained to be a mother for Bhagawan Krishna for the first ten years of His divine incarnation! We shall wait till the next episode to witness what happened next! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 