Nanda and Yaśodā

Nanda and Yaśodā are the foster parents of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa in Gokula. They are known everywhere as the best examples of vātsalya bhakti, devotion shown through the love of a parent. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells who they really were. Nanda is an aṃśa (a part) of the divine being Droṇa. Yaśodā is an aṃśa of Dharā. Together they did ten thousand years of tapas (austerity) on Mount Gandhamādana to have Bhagavān Kṛshṇa as their child.

They are not ordinary mortals who happened to raise a divine child. They are eternal devotees, and their whole spiritual history led to the great honour of caring for, feeding and loving the Parāt-para Brahman as a baby and a young boy.

Past lives as Droṇa and Dharā

In an earlier existence, Nanda and Yaśodā were the divine beings Droṇa and Dharā. They did ten thousand years of hard tapas on the holy mountain Gandhamādana. They wanted Bhagavān Kṛshṇa to come as their son so that they could give him the vātsalya bhakti (parental love) that they were able to offer. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa was pleased with this tapas and gave them the vara (boon).

In the Dvāpara yuga (age), Droṇa was born as Nanda, the chief of the settlement of Gokula, a rich and well-loved keeper of cattle. Dharā was born as Yaśodā. By the plan of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself, their child would be Kṛshṇa himself. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 9)

Nanda, chief of Gokula

Nanda is called gopanātha, the master of the gopas (cowherds), the head of the herding community. He is rich, giving and respected by all. His home in Gokula is the centre of Kṛshṇa’s childhood world. The Purāṇa shows that Gokula was a city built by Viśvakarma, the divine builder. Nanda is a very devout man. He keeps sandhyāvandana (the prayers at the junctions of the day) and his other daily duties (nitya-karmas) faithfully. When Kṛshṇa comes, Nanda knows at once that the child is very special, though he does not know with his mind that he is sheltering Parameśvara.

Vasudeva comes by night and lays the baby Kṛshṇa beside Yaśodā, taking her newborn girl in exchange. So Kṛshṇa begins his life on earth in Nanda’s house. When Nanda hears that a boy has been born, he at once holds a lavish Putrotsava (a festival for the birth of a son) and gives out great wealth to all who come. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 7 and 9)

The Putrotsava

The Putrotsava that Nanda held at Kṛshṇa’s birth was very large and very generous. The Purāṇa tells that:

• He gave away great numbers of cows decked with gold and jewels.
• He gave out large amounts of cloth, grain and gold coins.
• He invited the brāhmaṇas and honoured them with rich food, gifts and dakshiṇā (a fee of thanks).
• He fed the musicians, bards and wandering ascetics and gave them gifts.

The whole settlement shared in the joy.

Yaśodā, for her part, gave out sindūra (red powder), tailam (oil) and tāmbūlam (betel) to the women of the community, as is the custom at a birth. This showed the warmth and the kind love that marked her. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 9)

Yaśodā, the mother of Kṛshṇa

Yaśodā is the finest example of mādhurya-vātsalya, the tender and close love of a mother for her child. In the accounts of Kṛshṇa’s childhood in the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, she is never cold or distant. She holds baby Kṛshṇa, nurses him, lays him on carts and worries about him all the time. In everything she shows how fully a mother is taken up in her child’s world.

Her trust in the baby sometimes looks very unwise from an ordinary point of view. She puts baby Kṛshṇa near a cart and is drawn away by guests, and Kṛshṇa kicks the cart and breaks it (the Śakaṭa-bhañjana). When she sets him down for a moment, the whirlwind asura Tṛṇāvarta carries him up into the air. When she is busy with housework, Kṛshṇa works one wonder after another, and always comes safely back into her arms. Each event deepens her surprise and her love. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 10–14)

Pūtanā

The first great test of baby Kṛshṇa’s safety in Yaśodā’s house was the coming of Pūtanā. This rākshasī took the form of a beautiful brāhmaṇī woman and entered Gokula. Yaśodā saw what seemed a gentle woman and let the stranger take the baby on her lap and offer her breast. Kṛshṇa’s own divine all-knowing sight showed him who Pūtanā really was. He drank the poison out of her together with her life, and she fell dead in her huge rākshasī form.

The event shows that Yaśodā’s house was under the protection of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself, so that no harm could in the end touch him. It also shows the weak points of ordinary motherhood that Yaśodā knew. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 10)

The Dāmodara Līlā in the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa

One of the best-loved events of Kṛshṇa’s childhood is the time when Yaśodā, worn out by the child’s mischief, decided to punish him. She took a rope and tried to tie him to a large wooden mortar (ulukhala). Every rope she tried was strangely too short by two finger-widths. Again and again she tried, and again and again the rope fell short. At last Bhagavān Kṛshṇa pitied her tiredness, was moved by her love and let himself be tied. He was bound to the mortar and so earned the name Dāmodara (dāma means rope and udara means belly).

The story goes on. The mortar began to drag by itself as little Kṛshṇa crawled between two tall arjuna trees (the Yamala-Arjuna) and pulled the mortar after him. The mortar stuck between the trees, and Kṛshṇa’s pull tore up both huge trees. Two divine beings came out of the fallen trees: Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva, the sons of Kubera. The ṛshi Dēvala (or Nārada, in some versions) had spoken a śāpa (curse) that made them spend time as trees, because of their loose behaviour. Kṛshṇa’s act set them free. They praised Bhagavān Kṛshṇa and went to their divine realm. Yaśodā ran out in alarm at the sound of the crashing trees. She found Kṛshṇa safe and smiling between the fallen trunks, and she could only wonder. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 14)

Nanda and the Govardhana event

An important event for Nanda was his giving up of the usual Indra-yāga (the worship of Indra for rain) at Kṛshṇa’s urging. Kṛshṇa sat in the assembly of the gopas and brāhmaṇas and talked with Nanda. Who really rules the rain? Not Indra. The sun draws up the water, the clouds form by the will of Brahmā, and all this is ruled by the highest will of Parameśvara. Indra is only one tool in a great working that Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself rules. So why worship Indra at all?

Kṛshṇa proposed that they worship Mount Govardhana instead, and the brāhmaṇas. The mountain gives fresh grass to the cows every day and so supports the whole living of the gopas. Nanda was won over by his son’s reasoning and by the full agreement of the assembly of ṛshis, and he agreed. The grand preparations meant for Indra were turned to Govardhana.

Kṛshṇa then took a second form and stood near Govardhana, saying, “I am Govardhana. I accept your offerings!” He ate the huge amount of food that was offered. He gave Nanda the vara that Nanda asked for: firm bhakti for Śrī Hari. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 21)

The lifting of Govardhana

Indra was furious that his worship had been set aside. He sent his armies of Maruts, with terrible rain, hail and lightning, to destroy Gokula. The sky went black, trees were torn up and the earth shook. Nanda, in terror, called on Śrī Hari and led the gopas in prayer.

Kṛshṇa spoke a word of comfort to his father. Then he lifted the whole of Mount Govardhana with his left hand, as easily as a child lifts a mushroom, and held it up like a huge umbrella over all of Gokula. It sheltered every cow, every gopa, every gopī and every child from the storm. For seven days and nights he held it, while the people sheltered beneath it.

Indra’s every weapon failed. His vajra (thunderbolt) was held still and his armies were stopped. Indra saw that it was useless to fight Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. He came down and sang his famous stotra (hymn of praise), calling Kṛshṇa “Govinda” (the protector of cows and of the earth). Kṛshṇa accepted this and set Govardhana back in its place.

When Nanda saw his child safe and all Gokula saved, he broke out into a stotra of his own. He saw in that moment that the eternal Parāt-para Brahman had truly come as his son, and that this was the fruit of his own and Dharā’s old tapas. His eyes filled with tears of joy and his body shook with bhakti. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 21)

Nanda’s stotra to Kṛshṇa

After the Govardhana event, Nanda sang a heartfelt stotra. In it he praised Kṛshṇa as Govinda, the keeper of cows and brāhmaṇas, and as Brahmaṇya-deva. He praised him as the Parāt-para Brahman who is beyond all the guṇas (qualities of nature) yet appears in a different form in each of the four yugas. He praised him as the witness of all karma, and as the source and the end of all that exists.

Nanda said he was firmly sure that the highest good fortune for any being in creation was not Brahmatva, not Indratva and not even mukti (liberation). It was the dāsya-mukti of being an eternal servant at the lotus feet of Śrī Hari. He prayed for this alone: firm bhakti and dāsya (service). Kṛshṇa was moved by the love of his foster father and gave him this vara. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 21)

Why they matter in the tradition of Kṛshṇa bhakti

Nanda and Yaśodā stand at the top of vātsalya bhakti in the tradition of Kṛshṇa bhakti. Vasudeva and Devakī knew from the moment of his birth that their child was Parameśvara. Nanda and Yaśodā love Kṛshṇa wholly as their own child, without the distance that comes from knowing he is the Parāt-para Brahman. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa counts this pure, free and unbound parental love as an even closer kind of bhakti than the respectful love of Vasudeva and Devakī. Their earlier tapas as Droṇa and Dharā was not for moksha (liberation) or the pleasures of svarga (heaven). It was only to love Bhagavān Kṛshṇa as a parent loves a child, and the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa says that in this they fully succeeded. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 9 and 21)

Kṛshṇa’s teachings to Nanda at his departure

Kṛshṇa was getting ready to leave Vṛndāvana with Akrūra. Nanda wept and clung to his son. To comfort him, Kṛshṇa gave him deep teachings.

• He described Goloka. It is fifty crore yojanas above Vaikuṇṭha and shines by its own light. It has walls of diamond essence, seven gates, seven moats and one lakh prākāras (walls). It has the river Virajā, and a rāsa-maṇḍala (the ring of the rāsa dance) ten thousand yojanas wide. At its centre is Rādhā’s citadel with three peaks and sixteen rings of courtyards, each guarded by sixteen lakh gopikās.
• He gave the Vibhūti teaching, in which he names himself as every excellence in creation.
• He explained cosmic time. Even if countless Brahmās fall, a bhakta in Goloka never falls.
• He told Nanda: “Give up the idea that I am your son. Serve me as Brahma-svarūpa. Teach this jñāna (knowledge) to Yaśodā and the gopikās.”

Later, Nanda came from Gokula to Mathurā in grief. Kṛshṇa again gave him teaching about the cosmos. The body made of the five elements (pañcabhūta) is mithyā (unreal), like a dream. His bhakta who says his mantra with devotion destroys karma and reaches Goloka. There he gets an eternal body free of birth, death and old age (janma-mṛtyu-jarā). (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 58–60 and 73–74)

Nanda’s rise to Goloka

Kṛshṇa told the Māyā Stotra and gave Nanda the vara of living in Goloka (Chapter 88). Nanda was blessed and sent back toward Gokula. At that moment Nanda, Yaśodā, Rādhā (Chāyā-Rādhā, the Rādhā who had appeared on earth) and all the gopikās of Vṛndāvana rose in divine chariots to Goloka. Their service to Bhagavān Kṛshṇa on earth was complete. Their human bodies melted into their eternal divine forms.

Yaśodā had spent her whole life in the great honour of being Kṛshṇa’s mother: feeding him, scolding him, worrying for him and sleeping with him beside her. She went to that eternal realm where the same love goes on without the pain of parting.

The Purāṇa says that the Rādhā who rose was Chāyā-Rādhā (the shadow form), while the true Rādhā had always stayed in Goloka with Kṛshṇa. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 88 and 89)

Nanda and Yaśodā in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa

The Jananotsava at Gokula

The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa tells in rich detail how Nanda celebrated Kṛshṇa’s birth. The gopas and gopīs took the day to be the birth of Yaśodā’s son, since the exchange had been hidden from them. Nanda held a great Jananotsava (birth festival). He bathed, put on fine clothes and had the whole settlement decorated. He gave away great wealth: ten lakh cows decked with gold and jewels to the brāhmaṇas, heaps of sesame seeds mixed with gold, clothes and mountains of food. Musicians played, bards sang the praises of the family, and all Gokula rang with the sounds of the festival.

The gopīs went through the streets singing auspicious songs (maṅgala-gītas), with filled water-pots on their heads, dressed in their best ornaments. Yaśodā did not know whether she had borne a son or a daughter. She had fallen into a deep sleep right after the birth and woke to find a son beside her. The joy of the community was full and without limit. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skandha, Chapter 5)

Vasudeva’s visit and warning

The Bhāgavata says that Vasudeva came to Gokula to see Nanda, as an old friend who came to wish him joy on the birth of a son. The meeting took place while Nanda’s festival was at its height. Vasudeva and Nanda spoke warmly. They were friends, and both had newborn children.

Vasudeva knew of the dangers beyond the senses that Kaṃsa would now send. He urged Nanda to watch for strange events and signs. He especially warned Nanda to go back to Gokula quickly with the newborns, and said that the air of the region was full of unseen dangers. Nanda took the warning seriously. Vasudeva went back to Mathurā after this talk, without telling Nanda what he truly knew of what was happening. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skandha, Chapter 5)

Yaśodā and the Dāmodara Līlā

The Bhāgavata account of the Dāmodara Līlā is one of the best-loved passages in all Vaishṇava writing. Yaśodā was churning curd early in the morning, singing songs of Kṛshṇa’s glories as she churned. Baby Kṛshṇa came to her, wanting her attention and her milk. She stopped churning, took him on her lap and began to nurse him. Just then the pot of milk on the fire boiled over, and she set the child down to see to it. Kṛshṇa, upset like a child who is suddenly put aside, took a stone and broke the butter pot. He went into the storeroom and began to feed the stolen butter to the monkeys while he ate some himself, looking back with a naughty glance to see if anyone saw him.

Yaśodā found him and chased him. With a rope she tried to tie him to the ulukhala (wooden mortar). Every rope she tried was strangely too short, by two finger-widths each time. She fetched more rope and joined it to what she had, and it was still two finger-widths too short. The Bhāgavata reads the repeated failure as showing that Bhagavān Kṛshṇa is far greater than any limit, and that no made thing can hold the endless. But Yaśodā, tired out by her work and wet with sweat, sat down in defeat. Kṛshṇa was moved by her love and by the sweat of her effort, and he let himself be tied. The gap of two finger-widths closed. The rope was long enough. He gave in to being tied to the mortar.

The Bhāgavata then gives its well-known thought. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa cannot be reached by the jñānīs (seekers of knowledge) through study of the Veda, by the yogīs through austerity, or by the karmīs (those who follow rituals) through rites. Yet that same Bhagavān Kṛshṇa was bound by the rope of a mother’s love.

Kevalaṃ prema-pāśena baddhaḥ

He was bound only by the cord of prema (loving devotion). (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skandha, Chapter 9)

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapters 7, 9–14, 21, 58–60, 73–74, 88 and 89
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skandha, Chapters 5 and 9