In the previous episode, we had witnessed the commencement of the next important “Krishna-Leela” as narrated by Sage Paraashara in the “Shri Vishnu Puraana”. This “Leela” that we’re discussing here is about Snake Kaaliya and how he unleashes his wrath on the people and animals of Gokula. As Snake Kaaliya makes his way to a small pond, off the banks of River Yamuna, alongside Gokula, he settles down there at a favourable spot from where he can inflict all the harm that he can. As a snake, Kaaliya was extremely poisonous in nature and with his poison that comes out of his mouth and breath, all the aquatic living beings such as fishes, crabs, etc. that are inside the river, start dying then and there. As a result, the entire river and the pond associated with it becomes extremely poisonous. As a routine practice, the cows that are grazing over there, come and drink the water from that pond and also from the banks of the Yamuna river. However, as Kaliya starts to unleash his poison, the cows that drink water from that pond start falling unconscious and dead on the ground. This started happening on a regular basis every passing day and none in Gokula knew the reason behind this. Every passing day, the death rate of the cows start to increase alarmingly and this sends shockwaves amongst the people of Gokula. At one point, even the birds that fly over that area started falling on the ground unconscious. This is because of the poisonous fumes that emerge from Kaaliya’s breath. The fumes themselves are so powerful that even the birds start falling dead on the ground.
As the situation worsens, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna takes note of it and is waiting for the right time to teach this Snake Kaaliya a befitting lesson. One fine day, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna was playing some games with a ball alongside His friends. As the game progressed, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna slowly brought the entire group of friends towards the river bank. All of a sudden, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna threw the ball into the river! Not knowing what to do next and how to recover the ball from the water, the children started panicking. Bhagawan Bala-Krishna had His plan intact! Afterall He’s a master in such things, isn’t it? Thus, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna came forward and volunteered to His friends that He would jump into the water and retrieve the ball. However, His friends were a bit skeptical, but Bhagawan Bala-Krishna had His acts cut out! He quickly uses this opportunity of retrieving the ball to jump into the river and deal with Snake Kaaliya. Thus, He climbs over a small “Kadamba” tree nearby and from there, takes a deep dive into the waters of River Yamuna, as all His friends were looking on!
Thus, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna swims across the waters and makes His way to the pond wherein Snake Kaaliya was resting with all his arrogance. The entire water was extremely poisonous in nature, however, this poison wasn’t going to neutralize Bhagawan Bala-Krishna in any way possible. Of course, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna had a seemingly tough time to wade through the waters and enter the pond where Snake Kaaliya was residing. As Bhagawan Bala-Krishna enters into that small pond, Snake Kaaliya realizes that he has got an enemy to attack. He immediately unleashes more plumes of poison to first try and neutralize Bhagawan Bala-Krishna. However, this didn’t work. As more and more plumes of poison evolve, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna kept coming closer and closer towards Snake Kaaliya.
As Bhagawan Bala-Krishna comes closer, Snake Kaaliya realizes who this enemy was. Initially perhaps, Snake Kaaliya thought that this might be some big fish or any form of aquatic animal that is trying to attack him. However, little did he expect a human being to come and attack him. This caught Snake Kaaliya by surprise. However, Snake Kaaliya decided to take the enemy head-on, no matter who he might be. He quickly decides that the only way to attack is to capture the little boy with his long tail. Thinking thus, Snake Kaaliya’s ultra-long tail rushes towards Bhagawan Bala-Krishna, swirls around Him and captures Him then and there! As Bhagawan Bala-Krishna tries to free Himself from the clutches of the snake, a huge fight erupted. Both were equally powerful! On one hand, Kaaliya is trying to unleash his poisonous powers upon Bhagawan Bala-Krishna and on the other hand, Bhagawan Bala-Krishna is showing to Kaaliya that He’s beyond all these gimmicks. He’s literally making Snake Kaaliya feel that he’s a joker! However, Snake Kaaliya is not someone who’s going to give up so easily. The fight continues for a long time unabated!
Meanwhile, on the banks of the river, the children were anxiously waiting for Bhagawan Bala-Krishna to come out of the water with the ball in His hands. However, that didn’t happen. They knew nothing about the fight that was going on between Snake Kaaliya and Bhagawan Krishna as it was happening under deep waters. As time passed by, the children started getting scared as Bhagawan Bala-Krishna didn’t return back. This made the children think and conclude that their beloved Bhagawan Bala-Krishna had drowned in the water, unable to swim across. Seeing this, some children run to Mother Yashoda and Nandagopa and narrate the entire story. They too get anxious and all of them run to the river bank to see what happened to their beloved son.
So for today, let us also join hands along with these children and Mother Yashoda and anxiously wait to see what happened to Bhagawan Bala-Krishna. Is He going to win over Snake Kaaliya? Is he going to be successful in chasing Snake Kaaliya away from the banks of River Yamuna? Let’s wait till the next episode to find out! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 