Krishna's Mother

Indian Epics Stories

Image on YouTube

       I clearly remembered giving birth to a girl, yet when I awoke the next morning and went to my child, it was a boy, and he was blue. I thought maybe that I had been so distracted by the pains of childbirth that I was not able to think clearly… My husband and I had already decided that I would call my girl Maya, but I had to reconsider and called the boy Krishna. Also, my husband had brought another baby to be cared for by me, a boy named Balram. 

        I was so confused when people of all statuses came from far-off cities to meet Krishna, for I did not know any of them, yet they wished to pay him respect. We welcomed teary-eyed beggars, merchants, and elite members of society. Oddly too, there was none of the same excitement for Balram. Although I loved Krishna very much and was pleased that people came from far away to wish him well, I was unable to say what made him such a special baby.

        The two boys grew up to be quite the troublemakers, and I often had to vouch for them when the neighboring women came to the house and claimed that they had stolen butter or other items. At first, I did not want to believe that I could have raised thieves, but I eventually began to punish the boys quite severely, for surely not all of the women who came around could be mistaken. Even at their orneriest, I knew that my children had kind hearts.

Baby Thief Krishna on Wikimedia

        One day, Balram, easily the gentler of the two, came inside the house and told me that his brother had eaten mud. I do not know why anyone, even a naughty child, would put mud in their mouth, but I went outside to find and scold Krishna. When I located him, I told him to open his mouth at once, and he did so reluctantly.

        What I saw when Krishna opened his mouth I still cannot comprehend. I did not see mud. Instead, I saw everything. Inside my child’s mouth were all of the universes in their entirety, every being that had ever lived and died, the past, the present, and the future of the cosmos… all inside of my little boy. Stars dazzled and then faded out, colors that I had never seen danced around the heavens, and all of the celestial gods who watch over us were there, too.

Image on Pixabay

        I could feel my mind slipping away, and I thought perhaps that it would be lost forever in those divine swirls of creation. There simply can be nothing more overwhelming than what I experienced that day. However, Krishna shut his mouth and was simply a child cowering at his angry mother, and my mind returned. The child looked as confused as I was. 

        It was then that I realized that my little blue son, Krishna, was no regular boy. He was an avatar, the reincarnation of the great Vishnu himself. This was only the beginning of many bizarre events that would occur for the rest of Krishna's human life. 

Vishnu on Wikimedia

Author’s Note: This week, I watched all of the Epified Krishna videos on YouTube, and I was taken by the story of Yashoda, Krishna’s “mother.” King Kamsa of Mathura had imprisoned his sister and her husband because it was prophesied that their eighth child would be the one to kill him. When his sister has her eighth child in prison, there is divine protection that watches over the couple and commands the husband to exit the opened cell with the baby boy. He goes outside and everything is completely still. Then, he crosses a river and switches his newborn for Yashoda’s newborn girl, Maya. When Yashoda awakes, she is confused as to how she now has a baby boy instead of a girl. Yashoda then experiences many bizarre events while caring for Krishna, such as being visited by people from all over the world for blessings, finding Krishna playing next to a dead demon, and this episode in which she sees the entirety of the cosmos in Krishna’s mouth. I kept the plot of the story the same, but the storytelling is completely different as it is in Yashoda’s perspective in order to portray her confusion while raising the reincarnation of Vishnu.

If you would like to watch these videos, click here: link.

“Epified Krishna .” YouTube, Epified.