a baby, dragged it out of the house and used it to
fell two trees.
Once when Yashoda caught him eating mud,
she forced him to open his mouth; within, she saw
the entire universe. Krishna’s magic made her for-
get this incident, lest she not be able to treat him
as an ordinary child.
In two stories of his childhood he outwits evil
forces. Putana, a witch, was sent by the evil king
Kamsa to kill the infant by suckling him with poi-
sonous milk. Krishna was completely unharmed,
but he sucked so ferociously at her breast that the
demon’s innards were sucked out and she died. In
a later incident the snake demon Kaliya poisoned
the drinking water in the Yamuna River, threat-
ening the lives of the cowherds and the cows.
Krishna found the pool where Kaliya was hiding
and danced a furious dance upon him until he
was killed.
In another tale the young Krishna asked peo-
ple to worship the mountain Govardhana, rather
than the great king of the gods Indra. Indra, learn-
ing this, sent terrible rain storms to wash away the
cowherds who had defied him. Krishna with hisLord Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, with consort Radha (Institute for the Study of American Religion, Santa
Barbara, California)Krishna 239 J