Yogamāyā and Kaṃsa

This is the moment in the 4th chapter of the 10th Skandha when Yogamāyā, the divine power who was born as Yaśodā’s daughter, slips out of Kaṃsa’s hands and rises into the sky. Kaṃsa had seized her to kill her. She shows herself in her fearful eight-armed divine form and tells him that Kṛshṇa has already been born elsewhere and is beyond his reach. Shaken, Kaṃsa frees Devakī and Vasudeva from their chains. He then calls his ministers and plans to send a line of asuras to find and kill the infants of the region. The Bhāgavata names the asuras.

Yogamāyā escapes

The prison guards announced that Devakī had given birth again, and Kaṃsa ran to the cell. He found not the male child that had been foretold, but a girl. For a moment he hesitated. Devakī pleaded with him: “This is a girl, not your enemy! I beg you, do not harm her.” But Kaṃsa’s fear overcame every restraint. He grabbed the baby by the feet to dash her against the stone floor.

The baby slipped from his hands, as if his grip could not hold her. She rose up, and in the air above him she took her own divine form. She had eight arms and shone with light. She wore divine ornaments, and her many arms held weapons and sacred emblems. This was Yogamāyā, the first divine power, the Ekāṃśā Devī. The texts name this same Śakti as Durgā, Bhadrakālī, Vijayā and Vaishṇavī, and give her still other names.

Yogamāyā speaks

In her divine form Yogamāyā spoke to Kaṃsa: “O fool! What use is it to throw me against the stone? The one who will destroy you has already been born. He is living somewhere. You will not be able to find him. Those who do evil to innocent children do not escape the fruit of their karma. Give up this useless violence.”

Then she vanished. The whole prison was left in stunned silence. Kaṃsa stood shaken, facing a divine power he could not attack.

Kaṃsa frees Devakī and Vasudeva

After this divine appearance Kaṃsa’s feelings swung sharply. He went to where Devakī and Vasudeva were chained and freed them with his own hands. He spoke to them with unexpected gentleness: “O sister! O noble one! Out of my fear I have done a terrible thing to you. For nothing I killed your innocent children. Forgive me. I am sorry.” He admitted that his deeds had come from selfishness dressed up as dharma, the idea of “protecting oneself from one’s enemies”, and that all they had brought was cruelty and pāpa (sin).

Devakī and Vasudeva, with their usual grace and spiritual understanding, forgave him and spoke words of philosophical comfort. Freeing the two prisoners marked a short softening in Kaṃsa’s fear-driven behaviour.

Kaṃsa’s council and the list of asuras

The next morning, however, fear came back in full force. Kaṃsa called together his ministers and advisers. He told them the whole sequence: the birth of the eighth child, Vasudeva carrying the baby across the Yamunā, the exchange of the babies, and Yogamāyā’s words. He asked what should be done.

His ministers advised that the foretelling could not be fought head-on, but it could be defeated by killing every male infant in the Mathurā region and beyond. They advised sending out a series of asuras, each skilled in a different kind of attack, to all the villages, forests and settlements where infants might be found.

The asuras named for this task were Pralamba, Baka, Cāṇūra, Tṛṇāvarta, Aghāsura, Mushṭika, Arishṭa, Dvivida, Pūtanā, Keśī and Dhenuka. Each would go to a different area and look for the child. Each would use its own asura power to destroy any infant that showed signs of supernatural power.

By this plan Pūtanā was sent to Gokula. By this plan each asura in turn came to Kṛshṇa and was destroyed, and most of them gained moksha (liberation) in the process.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skandha, Chapter 4