SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM: CANTO 10

S'rî S'uka said: 'One day, when the maidservants were engaged with other things, churned and made mother Yas'odâ, Nanda's queen, all the thick of milk [yogurt and butter] personally. For the time she was churning the butter sang she songs about what she remembered of all that her son had done.

S'rî S'ukadeva Gosvâmî continued: One day when mother Yas'odâ saw that all the maidservants were engaged in other household affairs, she personally began to churn the yogurt. While churning, she remembered the childish activities of Krishna, and in her own way she composed songs and enjoyed singing to herself about all those activities. (Vedabase)

Text 3

Being dressed in linen that was held by a belt around her shaking hips moved, as she was churning, her breasts, which at the nipples were wet because of her affection for her son, and along with that movement moved in harmony the bangles on her wrists and her earrings while, of the labor of pulling the churning rope, the perspiration ran down her face and fell down together with the jasmine flowers in her hair.

Dressed in a saffron-yellow sari, with a belt tied about her full hips, mother Yas'odâ pulled on the churning rope, laboring considerably, her bangles and earrings moving and vibrating and her whole body shaking. Because of her intense love for her child, her breasts were wet with milk. Her face, with its very beautiful eyebrows, was wet with perspiration, and mâlatî flowers were falling from her hair. (Vedabase)

Text 4

Desiring to drink approached the Lord her as she was churning and stopped He, getting affectionate with His mother, the churning rod by catching it.

While mother Yas'odâ was churning butter, Lord Krishna, desiring to drink the milk of her breast, appeared before her, and in order to increase her transcendental pleasure, He caught hold of the churning rod and began to prevent her from churning. (Vedabase)

Text 5

She sweetly allowed Him on her lap to drink from her overflowing, loving breasts and watched with a smile how happy He was, but with Him not yet satisfied had she to put Him aside quickly and leave when she saw how a pan of milk was boiling over.

Mother Yas'odâ then embraced Krishna, allowed Him to sit down on her lap, and began to look upon the face of the Lord with great love and affection. Because of her intense affection, milk was flowing from her breast. But when she saw that the milk pan on the oven was boiling over, she immediately left her son to take care of the overflowing milk, although the child was not yet fully satisfied with drinking the milk of His mother's breast. (Vedabase)

Text 6

Thrown into a fit biting His full red lips broke He, in vain tears, with a stone the pot in which the butter was churned and began He hidden from sight in an adjacent room to eat from what all was churned.

Being very angry and biting His reddish lips with His teeth, Krishna, with false tears in His eyes, broke the container of yogurt with a piece of stone. Then He entered a room and began to eat the freshly churned butter in a solitary place. (Vedabase)

Text 7

The gopî putting the hot milk from the stove returned to her workplace and saw the churning pot broken. Not finding Him present concluded she with a smile that it had been the work of her child.

Mother Yas'odâ, after taking down the hot milk from the oven, returned to the churning spot, and when she saw that the container of yogurt was broken and that Krishna was not present, she concluded that the breaking of the pot was the work of Krishna. (Vedabase)

Text 8

Standing on top of a turned up mortar was He, apprehensive as a thief, to His like handing out to a monkey a share of the milk goodies from a hanging pot, while from behind watching these activities she very slowly approached her son.

Krishna, at that time, was sitting on an upside-down wooden mortar for grinding spices and was distributing milk preparations such as yogurt and butter to the monkeys as He liked. Because of having stolen, He was looking all around with great anxiety, suspecting that He might be chastised by His mother. Mother Yas'odâ, upon seeing Him, very cautiously approached Him from behind. (Vedabase)

Text 9

Seeing her approaching with a stick in her hand He quickly got down from there and fled like He was afraid with the gopî after Him, He who not even by the greatest yogis of penance trying to get access in meditation could be reached [see also B.G. 18: 55].

When Lord S'rî Krishna saw His mother, stick in hand, He very quickly got down from the top of the mortar and began to flee as if very much afraid. Although yogîs try to capture Him as Paramâtmâ by meditation, desiring to enter into the effulgence of the Lord with great austerities and penances, they fail to reach Him. But mother Yas'odâ, thinking that same Personality of Godhead, Krishna, to be her son, began following Krishna to catch Him. (Vedabase)

Text 10

Though the chasing mother, in her great speed with the flowers falling from her hair, heavy-breasted as she was to her thin waist had to slow down, managed she nevertheless finally to capture Him.

While following Krishna, mother Yas'odâ, her thin waist overburdened by her heavy breasts, naturally had to reduce her speed. Because of following Krishna very swiftly, her hair became loose, and the flowers in her hair were falling after her. Yet she did not fail to capture her son Krishna. (Vedabase)

Text 11

When she saw Him as the offender remorsefully crying, rubbing the black of His eyes all over His face with His hands, was she with Him, whom she with His distressed eyes had caught by the hand, just of a mild reproof.

When caught by mother Yas'odâ, Krishna became more and more afraid and admitted to being an offender. As she looked upon Him, she saw that He was crying, His tears mixing with the black ointment around His eyes, and as He rubbed His eyes with His hands, He smeared the ointment all over His face. Mother Yas'odâ, catching her beautiful son by the hand, mildly began to chastise Him. (Vedabase)

Text 12

Considerate of her son's fright she heartful with her kid threw away the stick and decided to bind Him with a rope, not realizing what kind of power she was dealing with.

Mother Yas'odâ was always overwhelmed by intense love for Krishna, not knowing who Krishna was or how powerful He was. Because of maternal affection for Krishna, she never even cared to know who He was. Therefore, when she saw that her son had become excessively afraid, she threw the stick away and desired to bind Him so that He would not commit any further naughty activities. (Vedabase)

Text 13-14

There is no inside nor an outside to Him, a beginning nor an end; He, as the end as well as the beginning, the internal as well as the external of the entire creation, is the One Totality of that creation. Taking Him, the Unmanifest in the form of a mortal, for her own son bound she, like one does with a normal child, Him to a mortar.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead has no beginning and no end, no exterior and no interior, no front and no rear. In other words, He is all-pervading. Because He is not under the influence of the element of time, for Him there is no difference between past, present and future; He exists in His own transcendental form at all times. Being absolute, beyond relativity, He is free from distinctions between cause and effect, although He is the cause and effect of everything. That unmanifested person, who is beyond the perception of the senses, had now appeared as a human child, and mother Yas'odâ, considering Him her own ordinary child, bound Him to the wooden mortar with a rope. (Vedabase)

Text 15

When the rope she used to bind her naughty child fell short with a length of two fingers joined the gopî it with another one.

When mother Yas'odâ was trying to bind the offending child, she saw that the binding rope was short by a distance the width of two fingers. Thus she brought another rope to join to it. (Vedabase)

Text 16

When even that one fell short she then tried another one which also, with the joining and joining, would not suffice to bind staying short with two fingers.

When mother Yas'odâ was trying to bind the offending child, she saw that the binding rope was short by a distance the width of two fingers. Thus she brought another rope to join to it. (Vedabase)

Text 17

Yas'odâ in this manner unsuccessfully proceeding with all the ropes in the household, was, with all the gopîs taking part in the fun, laughing, being struck with wonder.

Thus mother Yas'odâ joined whatever ropes were available in the household, but still she failed in her attempt to bind Krishna. Mother Yas'odâ's friends, the elderly gopîs in the neighborhood, were smiling and enjoying the fun. Similarly, mother Yas'odâ, although laboring in that way, was also smiling. All of them were struck with wonder. (Vedabase)

Text 18

When He saw how much His mother was sweating with all flowers fallen from her hair and how tired she got, was Krishna so gracious as to agree in His being bound.

Because of mother Yas'odâ's hard labor, her whole body became covered with perspiration, and the flowers and comb were falling from her hair. When child Krishna saw His mother thus fatigued, He became merciful to her and agreed to be bound. (Vedabase)

Text 19

My best, in this was factually by the Lord exhibited how He, Krishna, by whom indeed the whole universe with all its demigods is controlled, is won over by those [devotees] who submit to His wishes [compare 7.3: 14-21].

O Mahârâja Parîkshit, this entire universe, with its great, exalted demigods like Lord S'iva, Lord Brahmâ and Lord Indra, is under the control of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Yet the Supreme Lord has one transcendental attribute: He comes under the control of His devotees. This was now exhibited by Krishna in this pastime. (Vedabase)

Text 20

Nor Lord Brahmâ, nor Lord S'iva nor the Goddess of Fortune despite of her residing at His side, can achieve from the Giver of Final Liberation the like of the mercy that the gopî obtained.

Neither Lord Brahmâ, nor Lord S'iva, nor even the goddess of fortune, who is always the better half of the Supreme Lord, can obtain from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the deliverer from this material world, such mercy as received by mother Yas'odâ. (Vedabase)

Text 21

The Supreme Lord, the Son of the Gopî, is not as easily won by those bound to the body [those who are after the money, the profit], by jñânis [book people, transcendentalists] or mere soul-seekers [escapists, impersonalists] as by those who in this world are of bhakti [of devotional service] [see also B.G. 11: 54 and 18: 16].

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, the son of mother Yas'odâ, is accessible to devotees engaged in spontaneous loving service, but He is not as easily accessible to mental speculators, to those striving for self- realization by severe austerities and penances, or to those who consider the body the same as the self. (Vedabase)

Text 22

Meanwhile, with His mother very busy engaged in her household, observed the Lord two arjuna trees outside who, as the sons of the bestower of riches [Kuvera], had been demigods [guhyakas].

While mother Yas'odâ was very busy with household affairs, the Supreme Lord, Krishna, observed twin trees known as yamala-arjuna, which in a former millennium had been the demigod sons of Kuvera. (Vedabase)

Text 23

They formerly were known as the very opulent Nalakûvara and Manigrîva, but had for their conceit been cursed by Nârada to become trees.'

In their former birth, these two sons, known as Nalakûvara and Manigrîva, were extremely opulent and fortunate. But because of pride and false prestige, they did not care about anyone, and thus Nârada Muni cursed them to become trees.' (Vedabase)