Stories From The Bhagavatham - Krishna Avatar - Shakatasura and Trinavartha

 

Little Krishna was now already 3 months old and the darling of Gokul. On the eve of his nakshatra (birth star), Yashoda and Nanda decided to host a celebration in the village along with some chanting of sages. Accordingly everyone gathered at the banks of the Yamuna river, where amidst music and dancing, Krishna was given a holy bath and gifts were distributed by Nanda to the villagers.

Soon, Krishna appeared to be tired and sleepy. Yashoda placed him inside a cradle and kept the same beneath a cart.

After a while, Krishna woke up but Yashoda wasn’t nearby. She was talking to the villagers and couldn’t hear his cries. Little Krishna, in anger, started flailing his legs and kicked the cart.

All of a sudden, a huge noise erupted and startled everyone. People came running and saw the cart flung away at a good distance, as if someone had thrown it. All the vessels kept inside the cart were thrown out and broken and one of the wheels had come off. No one could understand what had happened.

No one believed the children who said that it was Krishna who had kicked and flung the cart away. No one could believe that such tiny feet could do something like this.

But Krishna knew. He always knows! The flinging of the cart wasn’t an accident.

One of Kansa’s minions, Shakatasura had been deployed by the evil king to kill Krishna. The asura had come to Gokul and had entered inside the wheel of the cart with the intention to grab Krishna and kill him. But his evil plan was thwarted by Krishna.

The villagers, along with Nanda and Yashoda, although worried and confused, could only express gratitude to the divine that the child wasn’t hurt.

In another incident, Yashoda was sitting in the courtyard with Krishna lying on her lap. All of a sudden, she felt immense pressure on her legs, as if the baby were gaining weight all of a sudden. She tried to brush it off as something created by her own mind. But as the minutes passed by, the pressure on her legs became unbearable and she gently placed Krishna on the ground. Seeing him sleeping, she went inside the house to check on her duties.

Kansa had sent another asura, Trinavartha, to kill Krishna. This asura took on the form of a whirlwind. The entire Gokul came under his sway as dust rose in the air, darkness engulfed them and it became difficult to keep their eyes open or to stand steady on the ground. As quickly as the whirlwind had arrived, it abated too. Suddenly there was silence and the people could finally see around.

When Yashoda came running to the courtyard, she could not find Krishna. She called out for help. The entire village searched for the child amidst stones and dust still falling from the sky. But no one could find Krishna. A terrible gloom descended upon the village.

If only they could see the leela happening in the sky!

Trinavartha had carried Krishna high up in the sky with the aim of dashing the child to the ground and killing it. However, the asura found the child too heavy to hold. He found it impossible to lift the child any longer. Krishna caught his neck between his tiny hands. The asura started choking, feeling as if a large rock had been tied to his neck. He started gasping for breath. After a short while, he stopped breathing and fell down to the earth.

When the whirlwind’s fury completely abated, the people of Gokul saw the huge and dead form of the asura. To their shock, they found Krishna in his arms. Some people quickly ran and lifted the child off the asura and handed him over to Yashoda.

No one could understand how a child survived an asura.

No one thought that the child had been the one to kill the asura. No one knew.

But Krishna knew. He always knows!

The people of Gokul thanked the divine for saving Krishna yet another time. Some of them thanked Narayana himself for saving the child, not knowing that the subject and object of their prayers was the one and the same lord.

By His grace, I would be presenting more of His leelas in the forthcoming blogs of Vedanam.

Om Namo Narayana! Om Namo Bhagavathe Vasudevaaya!