12 / The Killing of the Aghasura Demon

Once the Lord desired to go early in the morning with all His cowherd
boy friends to the forest, where they were to assemble together and take
lunch. As soon as He got up from bed, He blew a buffalo horn and called
all His friends together. Keeping the calves before them, they started for
the forest. In this way, Lord Krsna assembled thousands of His boy
friends. They were each equipped with a stick, flute and horn as well as
lunch bag, and each of them was taking care of thousands of calves. All
the boys appeared very jolly and happy in that excursion. Each and every
one of them was attentive for his personal calves. The boys were fully
decorated with various kinds of golden ornaments, and out of sporting
propensities they began to pick up flowers, leaves, twigs, peacock feathers
and red clay from different places in the forest, and they began to dress
themselves in different ways. While passing through the forest, one boy
stole another boy’s lunch package and passed it to a third. And when the
boy whose lunch package was stolen came to know of it, he tried to take
it back. But one threw it to another boy. This sportive playing went on
amongst the boys as childhood pastimes.

When Lord Krsna went ahead to a distant place in order to see some
specific scenery, the boys behind Him tried to run to catch up and be the
first to touch Him. So there was a great competition. One would say, “I
will go there and touch Krsna,” and another would say, “Oh you cannot
go. I'll touch Krsna first.”” Some of them played on their flutes or vibrated
bugles made of buffalo horn. Some of them gladly followed the peacocks
and imitated the onomatopoetic sounds of the cuckoo. While the birds
were flying in the sky, the boys ran after the birds’ shadows along the
ground and tried to follow their exact courses. Some of them went to the
monkeys and silently sat down by them, and some of them imitated the
dancing of the peacocks. Some of them caught the tails of the monkeys and

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