Devakī

Devakī belongs to the Yādava line. She is the wife of Vasudeva and the mother of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa. The Purāṇas say she was Aditi, the mother of the devas, in an earlier birth.

Her life holds great good fortune and great sorrow together. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa was her eighth child. But she spent years in prison under the rule of Kaṃsa, who killed her first six children one by one.

Family and marriage

Devakī’s grandfather was Āhuka and her father was Devaka, one of the sons of Āhuka. She was married to Vasudeva, who came from the line of Devamīḍha through Śūrasena. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 7, says that the great muni Garga performed the wedding. The Yādavas rejoiced, and Kaṃsa himself drove the wedding chariot, as an elder kinsman honouring his cousin.

The voice from the sky and the prison

The joy ended in a moment. As Kaṃsa proudly drove the chariot with the newly married pair, a voice without a body spoke from the sky. This is an ākāśavāṇī. It said that the eighth child born to Devakī would kill him. Kaṃsa, full of fear and anger, seized Devakī at once and made ready to kill her there. Vasudeva stepped in wisely. He reminded Kaṃsa that the danger lay in the eighth child, not in Devakī, and he gave his oath to hand every child she bore into the hands of Kaṃsa. Kaṃsa gave way. But he put Devakī and Vasudeva in prison, in chains.

Her six children are killed

In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Devakī gave birth to child after child in prison. Kaṃsa kept guards to report each birth. He seized every infant and dashed it to death. The first six children of Devakī and Vasudeva were killed in this way, one by one. Devakī and Vasudeva could only bear it. What held them up was the knowledge in the heart of Vasudeva from his tapas (austerity) in earlier births: that Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa himself would come as their child.

The Harivaṃśa gives its own account. Nārada came to Mathurā and told Kaṃsa that the eighth child of Devakī would be his killer, the same being who had killed him in an earlier birth. Kaṃsa shook with fear. He ordered his ministers to guard Vasudeva day and night and to watch every pregnancy of Devakī. The women who served him were told to count the months with care. He commanded: “From the first child onward, each infant shall be killed.” Devakī was kept under guard in Kaṃsa’s own house.

Bhagavān Viṣṇu saw the plan of Kaṃsa through dhyānayoga (yoga of meditation). He arranged that the six Ṣaḍgarbhas, the sons of Kālanemi who were fated to die at the hands of their father, be placed one by one in the womb of Devakī by Yogamāyā (Yoganidrā). Kaṃsa seized each child and killed it by dashing it on a stone. Devakī bore this grief six times, helpless in prison.

The seventh child: the move of Balarāma

In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, the seventh child in the womb of Devakī was Śeṣa, the divine serpent who is the couch of Bhagavān Viṣṇu, coming as Balarāma. By the working of the māyā of Bhagavān Viṣṇu through Yogamāyā, the child was moved from the womb of Devakī to the womb of Rohiṇī. Rohiṇī was the other wife of Vasudeva, and she lived safe in the settlement of Nanda in Gokula. The move was unseen and Kaṃsa did not know. To Devakī it seemed that the pregnancy had failed, and Kaṃsa was told that the child was lost. Balarāma was born safely to Rohiṇī in Gokula.

In the Harivaṃśa, the seventh pregnancy carried the aṃśa (part) of the Moon, who would be born as Saṃkarṣaṇa, or Balarāma. Yoganidrā moved it in the night from the womb of Devakī to the womb of Rohiṇī in the house of Nandagopa. Devakī woke thinking she had lost the child and she mourned. Then she conceived for the eighth time, and this time she carried Bhagavān Viṣṇu himself.

Her past births

The Harivaṃśa says Devakī is the earthly form of Aditi, the wife of Kaśyapa. Kaśyapa, in his divine form as a brāhmaṇa ṛṣi, had stolen the cows of Varuṇa. Varuṇa found this out and went before Bhagavān Viṣṇu to ask for his cows back. A śāpa (curse) followed: “Because you stole the cows of a brāhmaṇa, you shall be born on earth as a cowherd (gopāla).” The wives of Kaśyapa, Aditi and Surabhi, were to go with him in that birth. So Kaśyapa became Vasudeva the gopāla, Aditi became Devakī, and Surabhi became Rohiṇī. The aim of this descent was the coming of Bhagavān Viṣṇu through the womb of Devakī.

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa also says Devakī is an aṃśa-avatāra of Aditi, the mother of the Ādityas. In the earlier kalpa, Aditi had prayed and practised tapas to receive Bhagavān Viṣṇu as Vāmana. In the same way, her aṃśa as Devakī now received Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa as her son.

The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 3, tells of three births. In the first age, Vasudeva and Devakī were the divine pair Sutapas (a prajāpati) and Pṛśni. They practised twelve thousand years of tapas in perfect purity, wanting nothing but to have Bhagavān Viṣṇu as their son. Pleased, Bhagavān Viṣṇu appeared before them as Bhagavān Pṛśnigarbha, born of the womb of Pṛśni. In the second age, Pṛśni was born again as Aditi and Sutapas as Kaśyapa. Their tapas brought the Vāmana avatāra, Bhagavān Viṣṇu born as Upendra. In the third and last birth, the aṃśa of Aditi is Devakī and the aṃśa of Kaśyapa is Vasudeva. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa tells them this himself at his birth in the prison cell: “Three times you have won me as your son through tapas. Now the same wish has brought me to you as your son for the third time.”

The eighth birth: the coming of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa

In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, the eighth child, Parāt-para Brahman himself, was born at midnight at a most auspicious muhūrta: Rohiṇī nakṣatra, kṛṣṇāṣṭamī, with all the planets in their high places and the sky full of joy. At the moment of birth, Devakī saw something beyond all ordinary sight. The child showed himself first in a four-armed divine form, with conch, disc, mace and lotus in his hands, wearing the Kaustubha gem and the Vaijayantī garland and dressed in pītāmbara (yellow silk). It was the full form of Bhagavān Viṣṇu standing before her. The prison cell was filled with divine light.

Vasudeva, overcome with devotion, at once made a stotra (hymn of praise) to the divine child. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa then spoke to Vasudeva and Devakī. He told them that in an earlier kalpa Vasudeva had been the ṛṣi Kaśyapa and Devakī had been Aditi. In that time Kaśyapa had practised hard tapas, wanting Bhagavān Viṣṇu as his son, and Bhagavān Viṣṇu had appeared before him as Vāmana. Now, to keep that vara (boon), the same Parāt-para Brahman had taken birth as the child of Devakī. Then he took the form of an ordinary infant so that Vasudeva could carry him across the Yamunā to safety in the house of Nanda.

In the Harivaṃśa, Devakī gave birth at midnight under the Abhijit nakṣatra, in the auspicious Vijaya muhūrta. Her ministers had guarded the pregnancy with great care. The infant bore the Śrīvatsa mark on his chest and shone with divine signs. Vasudeva looked at him and was overcome, but afraid. He begged the child to hide his divine form, remembering how Kaṃsa had killed their six older children. He wrapped the infant quickly and, under divine protection, carried him across the Yamunā to the house of Yaśodā at Gokula.

The stotra of Devakī

The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 3, records the stotra of Devakī herself to the four-armed child at his birth. She praised the nature of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa that goes beyond all things: that he is the Parāt-para Brahman, beyond the guṇas, the cause of all causes, the Self within all selves. Then she asked him to hide his divine form so that the spies of Kaṃsa would not learn of his birth. She asked him to take the form of an ordinary infant for protection from Kaṃsa. This stotra shows that Devakī knew from the first moment whom she had borne.

The exchange and the freeing of the parents

In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Vasudeva carried the child Kṛṣṇa to Gokula under cover of night. Ādiśeṣa spread his thousand hoods over the infant like an umbrella. At the same time, Yogamāyā had made Yaśodā in Gokula give birth to a girl. Vasudeva placed Kṛṣṇa beside Yaśodā and brought the girl back to the prison cell of Devakī.

Kaṃsa came and seized the girl to dash her on the stone floor. She slipped from his hands and rose into the sky. She took her divine form with eight arms as Yogamāyā, also called Ekāṃśā, and said: “The one who will kill you has already been born, O fool!” Then she was gone. The girl was not killed, and she was shown to be the divine Śakti herself. Devakī stayed in prison until Kṛṣṇa killed Kaṃsa. After the death of Kaṃsa, Devakī and Vasudeva were freed.

In the Harivaṃśa, Vasudeva placed Kṛṣṇa with Yaśodā and brought back the newborn daughter of Yaśodā, who was Yogamāyā in human form, to lay beside Devakī. He then told Kaṃsa that a daughter had been born. Kaṃsa came with guards. Devakī pleaded in tears: “You have already killed seven children; this one is a girl, look.” But Kaṃsa seized the girl and threw her on the stone. The child flew up into the sky and showed herself as a four-armed devī. She laid a śāpa on Kaṃsa and departed.

Devakī forgives Kaṃsa

After Yogamāyā had gone, Kaṃsa was ashamed and went alone to the chamber of Devakī. He said:

“Sister, I killed your sons to save myself from death. But now I see that the danger comes from another place. I have killed my own kin. No human effort can block the divine will. Do not grieve for your children. Their time was over. I was only the instrument; kāla (time) is the true cause. I bow before you as a son. Please let go of your anger against me.”

Devakī, weeping, her voice choked, spoke to him as a mother: “Son, rise. You killed my children in the grip of time. What is done is done. The divine has ordained it, and no one is truly to blame. Death can come in childhood, in youth or in old age. You too were only an instrument. Go. I hold no anger in my heart against you.”

Hearing her words of grace, Kaṃsa went back to his palace, burning with pain that was not settled.

The reunion

When Akrūra came to Vṛndāvana to invite Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma to Mathurā at the order of Kaṃsa, he said to Kṛṣṇa: “Your father Vasudeva, worn down by the death of his sons, suffers. Your mother Devakī, equal to a deva in splendour, tormented by the loss of her children, longs for you. Go and gladden your aged parents.” Kṛṣṇa understood everything and agreed without anger. This is told in the Harivaṃśa, Viṣṇu Parva, Chapter 27.

The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 4, tells that after Kṛṣṇa killed Kaṃsa in the wrestling arena of Mathurā, he went at once to the prison cell where Devakī and Vasudeva were still in chains. He freed them, bowed before them with deep respect, and openly named them his parents. Devakī saw her son for the first time since his infancy, for she had been kept in prison while he grew up in Gokula. She was overcome with joy and a mother’s love. The long years of prison and grief, the loss of six children and the doubt over the eighth, ended in this meeting with the son who had always been Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme.

Her place among mothers

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa names Devakī as the highest of all mothers. She is the mortal mother from whose womb the Parāt-para Brahman chose to come into the world of Bhāratavarṣa. Her suffering under Kaṃsa is seen as the līlā (divine play) in which Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa chose to appear. The grief of seeing six children killed, the years in prison and the deep longing were the means by which the Supreme made his descent clear and moving to the world.

The meeting at Dvārakā

In the Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 59, after the Kurukṣetra war, Devakī and Vasudeva receive their son again after a time apart. He had come back to Dvārakā from the journey of the Uttaṅkopākhyāna. He arrived during the festival of Raivataka and was received by the gathered Vṛṣṇi, Andhaka and Bhoja kinsmen. Then he made abhivādana (the formal greeting) before his parents. Devakī and Vasudeva held their son close. Kṛṣṇa washed their feet and, when his father asked, told him the full course of the great war.

Sahagamana on the pyre of Vasudeva

The Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 7, tells of the end of the earthly līlā of Kṛṣṇa. The Vṛṣṇis had destroyed one another at Prabhāsa, and Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma had laid down their bodies. Vasudeva, overcome with grief for his sons, steadied himself in yoga and went to the highest goal. His body was carried out and burned on the pyre with sandalwood and sweet-smelling things. Four of his wives, Devakī, Bhadrā, Rohiṇī and Madirā, wished to follow their husband to his own world. They climbed on the pyre and did sahagamana (going with the husband on the pyre). Arjuna, who performed the last rites, honoured them. The roar of the burning fire mixed with the chanting of the Veda and the weeping of the people.

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 7
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapters 3 and 4
• Hari Vāṃśa Purāṇa, Viṣṇu Parva, Chapters 1 to 5 (including the background section before Chapter 1), and Chapter 27
• Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 59
• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapter 7