42 / Fraternal Loving Affairs
Krṣṇa’s age, His beauty, His bugle, His flute, His conchshell and His pleasing attitude all provoke love in friendship for Him. His exceptional joking abilities, exhibited sometimes by His pretending to be a royal prince, or even the Supreme Personality of Godhead, also give impetus to devotees developing love for Krṣṇa in friendship.
Learned scholars have divided Krṣṇa's age into three periods: the age up to five years is called  kaumāra , the age from the sixth to the tenth year is called  paugaṇḍa , and the age from the eleventh to fifteenth year is called  kaiśora . While Krṣṇa is spending His days as a cowherd boy, He is in the  kaumāra  and  paugaṇḍa  ages. In the  kaiśora  age, when Krṣṇa appeared at Gokula, He acted as a cowherd boy, and then, when He was sixteen, He went to Mathurā to kill Kaṁsa.
The  kaumāra  age is just suitable for reciprocating the love of a child with Mother Yaśodā. In the Tenth Canto, 13th Chapter, 9th verse of  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , Śukadeva Gosvāmī tells King Parīkṣit: “My dear King, although Lord Kṛṣṇa is the supreme enjoyer and the beneficiary of all kinds of sacrificial ceremonies, He still used to eat with His cowherd boy friends. This is because at that time He accepted the pastimes of an ordinary boy, keeping His flute under His arm and His bugle on the right side in His belt, along with His cane. In His left hand He would hold a lump of rice paste with yogurt, and in His fingers would be  pīlu , the king of fruits. When He would thus sit amongst His friends, it would appear that He was the whorl of a lotus flower and that the friends surrounding Him were petals. As they thus enjoyed joking amongst themselves, the denizens of heaven would become struck with wonder and would only stare at the scene.”
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