The Birth of Krishna

Kansa, the tyrant king of Mathura, was wicked and oppressive beyond the power of men to bear. The very earth cried out against his injustice and evil deeds. And then, for the comforting of those who could endure no more, a prophecy began to be whispered about, regarding the slaying of the tyrant. And the origin of this prophecy was indeed most strange.

Kansa had a great love for his sister Devaki and also for Vasudeva, one of his nobles, and his friend. He exerted himself, therefore, to bring about a marriage between the two, and when the wedding was over, he himself acted as charioteer, to drive them both to the home of Vasudeva. But lo! on the way, a voice spoke to him from heaven, saying, “The eighth child of this couple, O Tyrant, shall be a boy, who in his twelfth year shall slay thee with his own hands!” At these words, all Kansa's love for the bride and bridegroom turned to hatred. Swiftly he turned the horses' heads, and driving back to Mathura, whence they had come, cast Devaki and Vasudeva into the dungeons underneath his palace, there to endure imprisonment for life, that he might the more easily slay each child of theirs at birth. And now this had happened seven times, that a child had been born, and Kansa had destroyed it—save indeed once. For one child, the boy Bolarama, had been carried away secretly, and the King had been told that he was already dead. Now, however, had the time come for the fulfilment of the prophecy. And Devaki and her husband waited in their prison for the coming of that child who should be the deliverer of His people.

Outside, the wind wailed, and the rain fell, and the waters of the Jumna rose, as if in flood. The night was wild, whereon would come to earth Krishna, the Holy Child. Within, in the dungeons of Mathura, Devaki and her husband Vasudeva waited, trembling; for they knew that to-night, of a truth, would be born as their son that soul of whom it had been foretold that he, and no other, was the destined slayer of Kansa. Was it not for that very reason that they at this moment were in prison? And their hearts were sore within them, for what welcome could they offer to the coming child? Knew they not, only too well, that with the morning Kansa himself would visit them, to kill the babe with his own hands? Terrible was the time of watching, while the storm howled without, round them rose the bare forbidding walls of the prison, and in the heart of poor Devaki the hope and love of a mother struggled with sadness and fear.

Slowly, slowly the hours went by, till midnight. And then, just as the bell of the great water-clock outside the palace began to boom out the hour, the hearts of the mother and father were filled with joy, for at that very moment, their Babe had come to them. In that one brief instant, as she held Him in her arms, Devaki forgot the ordeal of the morrow, forgot the cruel death that awaited her Child, and knew only the bliss of the mother, who welcomes the newly-born.

At the moment of His birth, the prison was filled with a soft light, streaming out from the Babe Himself, and as He lay back in His mother's lap, they saw shining out from behind Him four arms. One hand held the shank or battle-trumpet; another the discus; a third the mace; and in the fourth was a lotus on its stem. Then Devaki and Vasudeva knew these for the signs of Vishnu, and they worshipped the Child, saying the salutations, as Narayan, Saviour of the World. But as the salutations ended, the veil of Maya descended upon them once more, and the Child appeared to them as their own babe. All about them now, however, they heard voices. At first they did not trust to their own ears, thinking the sounds were of the wind and rain. But presently, listening, they heard distinctly the words, “Arise! Take the young Child, and leave Him in the house of Nanda, Chief of the Cowherds, in the village of Gokool, and bring hither the girl-child who has just been born there.”

What could be meant by telling a prisoner, unable to leave his prison, to rise and carry a baby to a village on the far side of the Jumna? How could Vasudeva open the dungeon doors? How could he pass the guards? How, if he did all this, would he be able to cross the Jumna itself on coming to it at this late hour? Yet the feeling of some incomprehensible power was strong upon them, and they were full of terror for the fate of the Child on the morrow. So Vasudeva yielded himself to the bidding of the unknown. He arose, lifted the Babe, covered Him with his own garment, and, staff in hand, went forward to the prison-entrance. To his amazement the bolts slid back, the locks turned, the chains fell softly, and the heavy doors swung outwards of their own accord before him. Outside, the guards and soldiers slumbered heavily, and no one woke, as Vasudeva, with the Babe Krishna hidden beneath his robe, passed into the open road.

Here the storm was even worse than it had sounded from within the prison. Heavily the warm rain fell, and the winds raged, and the man's heart was heavy with foreboding, as he listened to the rushing of the great river in the distance, and wondered how he should reach its further bank.

At this very moment, in the darkness before him, he saw a jackal, and silently resolved to take the wild creature as his guide. On went the animal; on followed the man, until they came to the river-side. Then the jackal plunged in at a certain place, and proceeded to make his way over, and Vasudeva, seeing that here there must be a ford, step after step went across in his wake. And men say that in the guise of this jackal, for protection of the Divine Child, it was Durga, Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Universe, who had come to earth that night.

But it is told that, as they went, the Babe grew heavier and heavier in His father's arms, till all at once He slipped and would have drowned, only just in time he caught Him back and bore Him safely on. For Mother Jumna also longed to take the Lord into her keeping, and fold Him for a moment to her breast.

At last came Vasudeva with his precious burden to the village of Gokool, and to the dwelling-place of Nanda, the King of Cowherds. Softly the door of the great farmhouse opened before him, and, still obeying the same gentle guidance that had led him forth from the prison, he entered, and saw a light burning in the first room within the doorway. The lamp stood by the bedside of a sleeping mother and a new-born child. Quietly, quietly Vasudeva bent down and exchanged the children. To the farmer-chieftain's wife he gave the Babe he carried, and from her side he took the little daughter who slept there. Then, without a word, he turned and went back by the way he had come, to the dungeons of Kansa, in the city of Mathura, and gave the girl-child of Nanda to his own wife, Devaki.

Great was the rejoicing amongst the cowherds when they all woke up in the morning and found that the child whom they remembered as a girl was really a boy. For this was the only explanation of the mystery that occurred to them. It is said indeed that that morning there was no food to eat in the house of Nanda, for all the pots of milk and curd fell from the hands of the women when they heard the news, in their astonishment and delight. Then thousands of people came, and every one was fed, and wealth was distributed and there was great rejoicing. So this is always kept in India as Nanda's Feast, and on the day before, as the people believe, there is always rain.

But in the stronghold of Kansa, it was told that morning that a child had been born in the night to Devaki and Vasudeva. Then was the heart of the tyrant hot within him, and he came down into the dungeons in person, attended by all his guards, that he might with his own hands slay this child, who, it was said, had been born to be his destroyer.

To the King's amazement, however, he found that the child was not a boy at all, but a girl. Had Kansa been less wicked and tyrannical he would have rested here. A girl could hardly, at the age of twelve, be the slayer of a man. And the prophecy had pointed distinctly to a boy. But evil men are blinded by their own wickedness. The very unexpectedness of the event enraged him, and he put out his hand to seize the babe by the foot, and dash it to pieces against the prison walls. As he touched it, however, to the astonishment of all present, the seeming child slipped from his grasp, and high above their heads rose the shining form of a goddess. “He who shall slay thee, O King, is even now growing to manhood,” she said, mockingly, “in the village of Gokool on the far side of the Jumna,” and then, as they looked, the radiant being faded away, and none could tell even the direction in which she had disappeared.

But wrath and mortification filled the heart of Kansa the Tyrant, and for many a long year thereafter he knew no rest, in his burning zeal to outwit the gods, and end the life of the Child Krishna, ere yet He should be old enough to become his slayer.