Text 2] Mother Yaésoda Binds Lord Krsna 145

songs; tat-bdla-caritani—in which the activities of her own child were
enacted; ca—and; dadhi-nirmanthane—while churning the yogurt:
kéle—at that time; smaranti—remembering; tdéni—all of them (in the
form of songs); agéyata—chanted.

TRANSLATION

Sri Sukadeva Gosvami continued: One day when mother Yasoda
saw that all the maidservants were engaged in other household
affairs, she personally began to churn the yogurt. While churning,
she remembered the childish activities of Krsna, and in her own
way she composed songs and enjoyed singing to herself about all
those activities.

PURPORT

Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, quoting from the Vaisnava-
tosani of Srila Sanatana Gosvami, says that the incident of Krsna’s break-
ing the pot of yogurt and being bound by mother Yasoda took place on
the Dipavali Day, or Dipa-malika. Even today in India, this festival is
generally celebrated very gorgeously in the month of Kartika by fire-
works and lights, especially in Bombay. It is to be understood that among
all the cows of Nanda Maharaja, several of mother Yasoda’s cows ate only
grasses so flavorful that the grasses would automatically flavor the milk.
Mother Yagoda wanted to collect the milk from these cows, make it into
yogurt and churn it into butter personally, since she thought that this
child Krsna was going to the houses of neighborhood gopas and gopis to
steal butter because He did not like the milk and yogurt ordinarily
prepared.

While churning the butter, mother Yasodd was singing about the
childhood activities of Krsna. It was formerly a custom that if one wanted
to remember something constantly, he would transform it into poetry or
have this done by a professional poet. It appears that mother Yasoda did
not want to forget Krsna’s activities at any time. Therefore she poeticized
all of Krsna’s childhood activities, such as the killing of Pitana,
Aghasura, Sakatdsura and Trnavarta, and while churning the butter, she
sang about these activities in poetical form. This should be the practice of
persons eager to remain Krsna conscious twenty-four hours a day. This
