Bhagavatam tenth canto study 64 – 10.11.41-49 For Krishna, killing demons is all in a day’s play, that too before breakfast

Thank you.
After Krishna and the Vrajavasis have moved from Gokula to Vrindavan, the pastimes that Krishna performed playfully, especially when he went to the forest nearby to the abode of the Vrajavasis and was grazing the cows, that is described here. Those pastimes are described here. So, text 41.
कदाचिद् यमुणातीरे वत्साम्ष्चारयतोस्वकै वयस्यै कृष्णबालयोर् जिघाम्सूर् दैत्यागमात् आगमात् So, āgamāt, arrived. Who arrived? An envious demon. जिघाम्स demon arrived.
Once, कदाचिद् यमुणातीरे Once, when on the banks of the Yamuna, वत्साम्ष्चारयतोस्वकै when Krishna and Balaram were grazing their cows and वयस्यै कृष्णबालयोर् कृष्णबालयोर् when with other Gopas of his own age when they were playing, at that time this demon arrived. So, this chapter contains multiple incidents. The first incident is the description of the Vrajvasi’s decision to leave Vrindavan before that, leave before that, of course, some playful activities of Krishna are described.
Then, their transit to Vrindavan and their various playful activities are described. Now, a specific incident is described. This will be describing the arrival of the demon Aghasura.
So, this is the first demon who attacks Krishna outdoor when he is in the forest. So, here is by the banks of the Yamuna. So, actually this was this is Vatsasura Aghasura will be described in the next chapter.
Sorry about that. So, on seeing that demon in the form of a Vatsa, of a calf Vatsayutha Gathambhari, that the demon had entered into the group of the cows acting as if he naturally belonged there. Although he tried to blend in, Krishna was too sharp and he noticed that this is an imposter who is over here and thus he saw it and he indicated to Baladeva here and he pointed to the demon pointed to the demon and hinted to Baladeva that there is some imposter over here.
But then he approached the demon as if he had not exposed him as if he had not caught his impersonation. He acted as if he had been taken in by that impersonation and thus he got the demon to be off guard whenever there is any kind of conflict that is going to happen. So how we deal with it determines how much aggravated it may become.
So if there is a head-on conflict between two parties and then that leads to violence and war, there can be a lot of casualties. But if the confrontation can be minimized, that is always better. So that is what Krishna is intending to do over here and so he of course alerts to Balram about the danger but just like say if there is a group of civilians and some anti-social elements, some terrorist has crept in and if there are some plain cloth security people either anti-terrorist squad or police people or whoever and they notice this terrorist sneaking in they may not want to cause all the civilians to panic.
If they can knock off the terrorist without sounding an alarm publicly then they can avoid unnecessary panic and along with panic there might be stampede and sometimes the panic itself causes much more problems. So Krishna doesn’t want that to happen and thus he focuses primarily on just dealing with the demons individually without raising too much of a hue and cry. So text 43 ब्रामतीवा कपिठाग्रे प्राहिनोद् गतजीवितम् कपिठैर महाकाय पात्यम् मानैं पपातः So क्रुहित्वा अपरपादाभ्याम् So that demon had tried to sneak in on Krishna but Krishna sneaked in on the demon.
So we see this poetic justice time and time again where Krishna turns the tables on those who try to outwit him. The Bhagavad Gita says that द्यूतम् चलयतामस्मी Krishna says I am among cheaters, I am the gambler. That means he can cheat also to the best of everyone’s capacity.
Thus when Vatsasura tries to sneak in then Krishna sneaks in upon him and Krishna outwits him in his own game by without causing any panic without leading to any escalation of collateral damage. He just deals with the demon like an efficient security person dealing with an efficient anti-terrorist squad member dealing with a terrorist who has sneaked in among civilians. पादाभ्याम् He caught him by his feet.
लाङ्गूलम् अच्छितः He caught him by his rear feet rear legs and by his hind legs and he also caught him by his tail. So लाङ्गूलम् लाङ्गूलम् is the tail. अच्छितः So when Krishna makes a plan he is infallible.
He can execute his plan without any difficulty, without any obstacle. And thus what does he do? ब्रामयित्वा कपिठाग कपिठाग्रे So ब्रामयित्वा he whirled him around whirled him around so forcefully so rapidly that that itself in the resulting vertigo the demon lost all sense and then Krishna hurled him on top of a Kapitha tree Kapithagri, on top of it. प्राहिनोत् So while he was being hurled like that, in that itself he lost his life and that lifeless body he hurled.
So it requires a lot of force normally. It is collision that can damage the body. If a collision destroys the body that itself is extraordinary.
To throw someone at something and for them to lose their life by that, they must be thrown with a very strong force. But to whirl someone around so fast that itself disorients them so much and that brings them to near losing their life, that is Krishna’s formidable power. And as he कतजीतम् was hurled onto the tree and as his lifeless body कपित्थई, स कपित्थई along with the Kapitha tree, his body also महा कायाम् Now he had come in as a small calf but once he lost control and was nearing losing his life his original body started manifesting and it was a huge body महा काया and what happened? By the impact of that huge body hitting the tree, the tree fell down and along with that his body also fell down.
पात्यमा नहीं पपात हाम् So both of them met with their destruction in this way. We see that Krishna uses different modus operandi, different ways of dealing with different demons. He doesn’t use the same strategy with any demon.
He doesn’t repeat it. Sometimes some criminals have a particular modus operandi that if they are synthused, they break into the house in a particular way and that gives the investigators, the police a clue to how to catch them. But Krishna is so illusive that the demons can have no clue about how Krishna will counter them and thus he keeps them in suspense and then of course overpowers them.
So here also Krishna has used a new strategy as compared to the earlier demons, Shaktasur, Vakas, Shaktasur, Putana, Dronavarta. Dronavarta was hurled on the ground from the sky. Here Vatsasura was hurled from the ground into the air and onto a tree.
Different strategy. But same result. Text 44.
On seeing him, all the children were astounded. How did this happen? Who is this person? What did they do? They all praised Krishna. Well done! Well done! Amazing! Amazing! And even the gods were satisfied by this spectacular feat of Krishna in freeing the world from this terrible demon Vatsasura and being pleased by Santashta Devatas, they showered down flowers on Krishna.
In this way, this whole pastime is described very briefly and quickly without any too much elaboration. The point is that there is sweet, there is in Vrindavan, there is no everything is playful. So even Krishna’s dealing with the demon is also part of his playfulness.
That’s why there is no elaborate strategy planning or prolonged warfare. Children don’t do such things. Adults before fighting a war may need to negotiate to try to avoid.
We plan to get allies and then make further detailed plans about how to go about the fight. So all those things, that kind of strategic planning has to be done and we see the Pandavas do strategic planning before the Kurukshetra war. But Krishna in Vrindavan is just a child and children do not basically play.
So even Krishna’s play, Krishna’s killing of the demons is incorporated within his playfulness and thus Krishna kills the demons effortlessly without needing any planning, strategy planning. So everybody is happy. The Gopas are happy and the Devas are happy.
Text 45 Text 45 Text 45 Text 45 Text 45 Text 45 In this way both of them, Krishna and Balarama, played the role of being Vatsapalakas, of being the protectors of the cows when in actuality they were Sarvalokapalakas. They were the protectors of all people and all abodes. So whichever role Krishna and Balarama play, when the Lord descends to this world, they play that role perfectly.
So he is the leader of the Gopas. So he does cow herding expertly but along with that he also does other things such as taking care of the cows and protecting them from demons also expertly. Thus he is Krishna and along with of course Balarama.
Here both of them are more or less referred to together because they are almost like one unit. They are two individuals. Of course we understand that they are God in two forms but in their Leela also, in their friendship, in their affection, they were so close to each other that they were almost like one person in two bodies, one soul in two bodies as we sometimes say when two people are very close to each other.
So like that among the Vrajagopas, Krishna and Balarama played the role of protecting those Vrajavasis for their perfection. Saparathur Ashogo Vatsams So it’s like Krishna, this was what he did, Krishna and Balarama this is what they did before taking breakfast. That’s amazing, isn’t it? That it was early morning they went out and the demon had been waiting.
Demon had come at previous night and had made a whole plan to sneak in and normally we might say all in a day’s work. Killing a big demon whom even the devatas were dreading that’s no easy job but killing such a formidable demon, Krishna did it. It’s not just all in a day’s work, it’s like all in a day’s work before breakfast.
Most people don’t even start their work before breakfast. Krishna has done a work which the gods can’t do throughout their lives such powerful Krishna has done it even before breakfast. So playing with his friends and dealing with demons in a playful mood was like an appetizer for Krishna before he took his breakfast.
And after finishing the breakfast with his cows, he went around with his cowherd gopas, then he went around in the forest with the cows and the cowherd boys. When the incident itself is extraordinary the nonchalance with which it is being narrated that it’s like it’s an extraordinary activity killing a demon but it’s just a part of ordinary day Krishna’s routine goes on after doing this phenomenal work. And thus for him, it’s within his leela, it’s wonderful but it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the leela.
It only makes that flow more relishable. It spices the flow, it doesn’t stop the flow of his leela. So, text 46 now Swam Swam Vatsakulam Sarve Payeshanta Ekada Gatwa Jalash Jalashaya Bhyasham Payitva Papurjalam So, one day, now another description is defined.
Swam Swam Vatsakulam Sarve So, with the cowherd cowherd boys with their particular group of cows Vatsakulam Sarve Payeshanta Ekada Ekada, they desire to drink water Payeshanta Thirst is a normal human need and we keep arrangements for us to be able to drink water periodically and in a forest they don’t carry water jugs or water bottles or water containers with them but wherever they are there are some water arrangements nearby So, nowadays we might keep taps or whatever in various parts of our house or our establishment so that people can drink it. Here there are no such arrangements but the other arrangements were there were various rivers, lakes which had water and that’s when the Prajwasis felt thirsty they decided to go there Gatwa Jalashaya Abhyasham Jalashaya, water body or reservoir of water, they went there and Paitvapapurjalam so they they are thirsty but they were in the forest as the servants of the cows so they let the cows drink the water and then they also drank so even when fulfilling a bodily need they were conscious of their service and kept that service prominently in their consciousness Text 47 Te Tatra Dadrishwar Bala Mahasattam Avasthitam Tatra Survajya Nirbhinnam Girehashrungam Ibaichitam Te Tatra Dadrishwar Bala at that time the children saw something over there Mahasattam is a huge body, somebody was getting a huge body Tatra Survajya Nirbhinnam that body was like a mountain peak which had been broken and struck down by a thunderbolt that means the metaphor of this body of the demon being like a thunderbolt, like a mountain peak struck down by a thunderbolt was that this body was huge it could not have come by any ordinary force first to break a mountain peak is not easy so it was extraordinary and scary what they saw over there and Girehashrungam Ibaichitam so naturally they became worried, they became fearful and then what happened with their fear text 48 this demon pulled a really fast one on all of them whereas Vatsasura had tried to sneak in among them this demon directly didn’t just sneak in, he just pounced on them he came specifically to Krishna his name was Vakasusavai Bakona powerful demon Bakarupadruk as his name was Baka he had also taken the form of a big duck as soon as he arrived after arriving suddenly he pounced upon Krishna and he swallowed Krishna his sharp beaks he opened now as soon as the beaks were opened then he succumbed for it so as long as the as long as the beak was opened that means he opened his beak and he grabbed Krishna and he with his sharp beak he swallowed Krishna and the Gopas were aghast, what has happened how did it happen so seeing Krishna consumed like that, the Gopas and even Balram were shocked what has happened they became almost unconscious as if senses without life so such was the predicament normally a danger to one person in a group is a danger to everyone in the group and especially if that person is very much loud then the loss is felt personally danger to that person is felt as if it’s a danger to oneself so such was the predicament there for the Uraja Gopas and they were horrified to see Krishna having been devoured, thinking that Krishna has lost his life they themselves felt as if they had lost their life such was the depth of their affection for Krishna now how Krishna survived and thrived we will discuss