Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva Moksha

This episode is in the tenth chapter of the tenth Skanda of the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa. Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva were the two sons of Kubera. Nārada Muni had laid a śāpa (a curse) on them, and for a time they stood as twin arjuna trees (also called maddī trees) in Nanda’s courtyard in Gokula. The small child Kṛshṇa was still tied to the mortar from the Dāmodara episode. He crawled between the two trees and dragged the mortar after him. It stuck between the trunks. As he went on crawling, both great trees were torn out of the earth with a crash like thunder. Two shining divine beings came out of the fallen trees. They sang a stotra (hymn of praise) to Kṛshṇa and went to their realm of the devas.

The arjuna trees are pulled down

Kṛshṇa was still tied to the big wooden mortar by Yaśodā’s rope. He began to crawl across the courtyard. He moved towards the space between the two tall arjuna trees that stood close together in the courtyard. The mortar was wider than the gap, so it stuck fast between the two trunks. Kṛshṇa kept pulling forward with all the force of his will. The trees groaned. With a sound like thunder that was heard across the whole settlement, they toppled and fell, and their roots were torn completely out of the earth.

The gopas and gopīs (the cowherd men and women) ran from every side at the crash. They found the two uprooted trees. Between them sat the small child Kṛshṇa, calm and smiling, with the mortar rope around his belly. They were bewildered. How could this little boy have pulled down two such huge trees? (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 10)

Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva appear

As the trees fell, two shining divine beings came out of the fallen trunks. They were tall and bright, and they wore divine ornaments. They were Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva, the sons of Kubera. Now the śāpa that had held them in the form of trees was over. Their forms went back to their bright divine shine.

They stood before the small child Kṛshṇa with folded hands and bowed heads. Their eyes were full of tears of thanks and of recognition. They sang a stotra to him. In it they named him Parabrahman (the highest Brahman), who had come in the form of a child for the good of the world. They said that his mercy reaches even those held fast in the fruits of their own karma, and that his freeing of a being is the greatest gift any being can receive.

In their stotra, Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva called Kṛshṇa by these names:

• Sarvātman: the ātman (self) of all beings.
• Parāt-para: the highest beyond all that is high.
• The one who is beyond all the guṇas (the three qualities of nature), yet shows himself within the guṇas to guard the worlds.
• Nārāyaṇa, Vāsudeva and Hari: the eternal one, the one who does not move, the one who frees.

They also thanked Nārada for the śāpa that had brought them this great fortune: to be near Bhagavān Kṛshṇa and to be freed by his hand. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 10)

The two parts of the episode

The Dāmodara episode and this episode go together as one narrative. In the Dāmodara episode, Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, whom no power can bind, lets himself be bound by the pure love of a mother. In this episode, while still in the body of a small child tied to a mortar, he frees two beings of the devas from a śāpa that had kept them bound for ages, simply by crawling between them. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 10)

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 10