Birth of Lord Krsna 29
material eyes.” In other words, she requested the Lord to assume the form
of an ordinary child. “My only cause of fear from my brother Kamsa is due
to Your appearance. My Lord Madhusiidana, Kamsa may know that You
are already born. Therefore I request You to conceal this four-armed form
of Your Lordship which holds the four symbols of Visnu—namely the
conchshell, the disc, the club and the lotus flower. My dear Lord, at the
end of the annihilation of the cosmic manifestation, You put the whole
universe within Your abdomen; still by Your unalloyed mercy You have
appeared in my womb. I am surprised that You imitate the activities of
ordinary human beings just to please Your devotee.”

On hearing the prayers of Devaki, the Lord replied, “My dear mother,
in the millennium of Svayambhuva Manu, My father Vasudeva was living
as one of the Prajapatis, and his name at that time was Sutapa, and you
were his wife named Préni. At that time, when Lord Brahma was desiring
to increase the population, he requested you to generate offspring. You
controlled your senses and performed severe austerities. By practicing the
breathing exercise of the yoga system, both you and your husband could
tolerate all the influences of the material laws: the rainy season, the on-
slaught of the wind, and the scorching heat of the sunshine. You also
executed all religious principles. In this way you were able to cleanse your
heart and control the influence of material law. In executing your aus-
terity, you used to eat only the leaves of the trees which fell to the ground.
Then with steady mind and controlled sex drive, you worshiped Me,
desiring some wonderful benediction from Me. Both of you practiced
severe austerities for 12,000 years, by the calculation of the demigods.
During that time, your mind was always absorbed in Me. When you were
executing devotional service and always thinking of Me within your heart,
I was very much pleased with you. O sinless mother, your heart is therefore
always pure. At that time also I appeared before you in this form just to
fulfill your desire, and I asked you to ask whatever you desired. At that
time you wished to have Me born as your son. Although you saw Me
personally, instead of asking for your complete liberation from the material
bondage, under the influence of My energy, you asked Me to become your
son.”

In other words, the Lord selected His mother and father—namely Prsni
and Sutapa—specifically to appear in the material world. Whenever the
Lord comes as a human being, He must have someone as a mother and
father, so He selected Prsni and Sutapa perpetually as His mother and
father. And on account of this, both Prsni and Sutapa could not ask the
Lord for liberation. Liberation is not so important as the transcendental
