Pūtanā

Pūtanā is the rākṣasī (a female rākṣasa) whom Kaṃsa sent to Gokula to kill the infant Kṛṣṇa. She could change her shape. Her milk was poison, and she planned to feed Kṛṣṇa with it.

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells how she came as a beautiful brāhmaṇī (a brāhmaṇa woman), how the child drank out her life, and how she died in her huge true form. Her soul then went to Goloka in a divine chariot. The same Purāṇa gives her past birth: she was Ratnamālā, a daughter of the great Bali Cakravarti, who once longed to nurse the child Vāmana. Kṛṣṇa fulfilled that old wish and gave her the mokṣa (liberation) of a mother.

The mission: Kaṃsa’s instrument

Kaṃsa had tried to kill a girl-child. She rose into the sky as Yogamāyā and said that Kṛṣṇa had already been born elsewhere. Kaṃsa was full of fear and anger. He could not find the child, so he made a plan. He sent Pūtanā, a powerful rākṣasī who could take any shape, to find and kill every infant recently born in the region.

Her weapon was her milk. It was mixed with deadly poison. Any ordinary child who touched her breast would die at once.

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa (Śrī Kṛṣṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 10) gives this account.

Arrival in Gokula: the disguise

Pūtanā took the form of a woman of great beauty. She came as a brāhmaṇī, gentle in manner and bright in appearance. In this form she entered Gokula, the settlement of the gopas (cowherd men). The Purāṇa shows that Viśvakarma, the divine builder, had built Gokula, so it was a rich and lovely place. She walked through its streets and nobody suspected her.

She went to the home of Nanda and Yaśodā. Yaśodā saw a gentle and beautiful brāhmaṇī and felt no fear. Pūtanā came to the infant Kṛṣṇa with every sign of love and asked to nurse him. Yaśodā trusted her, as a mother does in her own home, and placed the child on her lap.

The encounter: Kṛṣṇa drinks her life

Pūtanā put her poisoned breast to the child’s mouth. But the infant was the Parāt-para Brahman, all-knowing and all-powerful even in the form of a helpless child. He knew at once who she was and what she wanted. He began to suck, and with the milk he drew out her prāṇa (life-force).

Pūtanā felt her life drain away. Her disguise could not hold. She cried out, her body shook, and she lost her false beautiful form. She fell with a great crash in her true form, a giant rākṣasī. Her huge body lay across a wide stretch of ground. The fall shook the earth and frightened all of Gokula.

The gopas and gopīs (cowherd women) ran out. They found the huge dead body, and the infant Kṛṣṇa sitting calmly on her chest, playing as if nothing had happened. They understood that something wonderful and divine had taken place.

The previous birth: Ratnamālā, daughter of Bali

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa gives the history that shows this event as one of the kindest acts of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa. In an earlier life Pūtanā was born as Ratnamālā, the daughter of the great Bali Cakravarti. Bali was the noble and generous asura-king who ruled the three worlds. Bhagavān Viṣṇu, in his Vāmana avatāra (incarnation), brought him under control.

Bhagavān Viṣṇu came to Bali’s yajña (fire ritual) as Vāmana, a small brāhmaṇa boy. Ratnamālā saw the lovely child and was filled with a mother’s love. She longed with all her heart to take him on her lap, to nurse him, and to feed him from her own breast. Her wish was pure and full of loving adoration. It was not fulfilled in that life.

Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa never forgets such a wish from a devotee. In time the same divine child came into the world as Kṛṣṇa. Ratnamālā had been born as Pūtanā. She had a rākṣasī’s body and came with murder in her plan, but her old wish was still there. Kṛṣṇa fulfilled it. He let her nurse him. Though she acted from a wicked purpose, the nursing met a devotee’s wish, and Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa honoured it.

Liberation: the divine chariot

What happened after her death shows that Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa received Pūtanā as a devotee. While her huge body lay on the ground, her jīva (soul) left it. A divine vehicle sent from above received her. She was given mātṛ-gati, the mokṣa (liberation) given to a mother. Kṛṣṇa had drunk from her breast, even though she offered it to kill him. So the bond of mother and child was made between them. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa counts one who has nursed him as his mother, and he gave her the matching mokṣa.

Her soul left the rākṣasī’s form completely. It was carried in a divine chariot to Goloka, the eternal supreme realm of Kṛṣṇa. There she was received in her divine form, cleansed of all the karma of her births as a rākṣasī.

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa adds the question that tradition asks about this event. If Pūtanā, who came to kill, was freed by Kṛṣṇa’s grace, what can be said of those who come to him with true devotion?

Pūtanā in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa

The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa (10th Skanda, Chapter 6) also tells this event. It gives details of what followed.

The protective rites

After Pūtanā’s huge body fell and the gopas and gopīs found Kṛṣṇa playing on her chest, the community was badly shaken. The elder women of the settlement, led by Yaśodā and Rohiṇī, at once performed protective rites to guard the child from further harm. The Bhāgavata describes the rites in detail.

• They used cow-dung to mark the child’s body at the joints and the vital points, as a protection.
• They said the names of Viṣṇu to protect the child, while waving the right hand in auspicious circles over his body.
• They made him touch cow-dung on the ground.
• They recited protective mantras and names of Bhagavān Viṣṇu at his head, at his feet, and all around him.
• The gopa men, just as alarmed, performed protective rites for the cattle and the settlement.

The Bhāgavata gives the twelve names of Viṣṇu said in this rite, which call on his guard from every direction. They are given with special power as mantras.

Pūtanā’s liberation in the Bhāgavata

The Bhāgavata says that Pūtanā’s huge body was cut into pieces and burned. Its wood-like quality made it useful as fuel. The smoke from the pyre had a sweet, divine smell and not the smell of burning flesh. All noticed this fragrance. It was understood as the sign of her liberation: touching Kṛṣṇa’s body had made even her rākṣasī form pure.

The Bhāgavata then gives its own teaching. She came with the plan to kill, and she put poison on her breast with a murderous purpose. Yet she gained the mokṣa of a mother, because Kṛṣṇa took her milk. So those who serve Kṛṣṇa with love and offer him food without fear or hatred will gain far more from that same contact. The gopīs nursed the same Kṛṣṇa with true love. The cows gave him their milk. The women of Gokula looked on him with affection. In the Bhāgavata’s vision, all of them were gaining great puṇya (merit) just by being part of his world.

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, Chapter 10
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 10th Skanda, Chapter 6