Kakasur’s Subjugation, Birth-star Day celebrations, and Deliverance of Shakatasur

Illustrated by Khushboo       

Something stirred in the wind, and a peal of invisible laughter was heard. Everyone looked up to the sky. It was their friend, daemon Utkach, who couldn’t control his mirth upon hearing Kakasur’s story about what had transpired with him that day. Kakasur at Kamsa’s behest had gone to Gokul to kill the son of Nanda. He had assumed the form of a raven and flown into Nanda’s courtyard, where he saw the baby lying in his cradle. As he debated his future course of action, he was suddenly pulled as if he was made of iron and the baby’s hand a giant magnet. His talons came in the baby’s grip, who, with a slight whirl of his hand, threw him many miles away, only to land in Mathura, in Kamsa’s assembly. He had to be resuscitated for many hours before he could find enough strength to speak.  

He told Kamsa about what had happened and conceded that the baby was no ordinary child but a terrible divine being of immeasurable strength. Maddened by his prowess, Utkach was laughing at this portrayal of Kakasur’s defeat. Utkach was Hiranyaksha’s son; born before the ‘Chaksush-manvantar.’ Once upon a time, he had strayed into the beautiful hermitage of Lomash Rishi. Intolerant as Utkach was of anything serene and beautiful, he spun his gigantic body and mangled all the trees around. The ashram lay in ruins, and the angered rishi cursed him to become incorporeal. He was immediately devoid of his body and lost all his strength. He pleaded with the rishi for forgiveness. The rishi, now appeased, devised a plan for Utkach’s deliverance. He spoke to Utkach, “Thou shall receive a body of air in ‘Chaksush-manvantar,’ and in ‘Vaivasvat-manvantar,’ thou shall attain emancipation by the touch of the Lord’s feet.”

Failing to remember this episode of yore and goaded by divine arrangement, Utkach now itched to go to Gokul. He presented himself to Kamsa and promised to kill the one who had dispatched Putana to the nether regions (not knowing the reality of her deliverance). Kamsa breathed a sigh of relief and ordered him to head for Gokul.  Utkach went around the land of Braj, looking for Gokul and the baby, but he lost his way just as Putana had earlier. Only by the Lord’s decree could anyone gain entry into Gokul. He was barred from entering yet as the stage for the act of his deliverance was still being set up.

The sun rose up into the sky, bathing the tops of Nanda’s palace in its effulgence. Nanda was busy inviting priests for the third birth-star day ceremony of his son. The unborn had turned three months old. Yasoda, along with Rohini, though occupied with the arrangements, continuously thought about her child. Every mother has experienced a similar emotion. To accept the Lord as one’s child and to let the mind dwell unceasingly upon him is Yashoda sadhana. Every now and then, she would run along to check on her son, who was being protected by womenfolk girding his cradle. The lord lying on his back was laughing joyously as they engaged him with toys and merry songs.

The Lord suddenly turned over onto his right for the very first time. Hearing this, an exhilarated Yashoda ran over and picked up her child; she kissed him all over and requested Nanda that the day be celebrated with even more pomp and gaiety than was previously arranged. Why would Nanda not concede? The small-scale celebrations for the birth-star day turned into a big festival.

Yashoda sent out invites to all the womenfolk of Gokul. They all arrived carrying gifts and singing auspicious songs. Yashoda got busy bathing her son, applying turmeric paste and unguents, dressing him up in bright new clothes, and using her little finger smeared collyrium in his eyes. She fed him until the baby fell asleep in her lap.  She put the sleeping baby into a cradle hung under a huge cart stationed at one end of the courtyard. Many young kids followed Yashoda to the cart and stood around guarding the baby. Taking turns, they tugged on the cradle rope, swaying it gently.

The second stage of the leela for the fateful day began with the Lord waking and Utkach finally being able to see Nanda’s palace. The Lord, sucking on his big toe, waited for Utkach’s next move. Invisible to others, like a gust of wind, Utkach landed in the courtyard. With his airy body, he moved around looking for the baby and found the killer of Putana, gleefully fascinated by his own limbs, lying in the cradle under the huge cart. The cart was loaded with brass and copper pots full of milk, butter, curd, etc. He was aware that the innocent-looking baby was not to be messed with, and it would need more than a brute frontal attack to kill him. Kakasur had tried that, and he was thrown away a great many miles. He instead sat on the cart and slowly tried to crush it under his weight.  The Lord’s Yogmaya once again swung into action and, through a seemingly involuntary action of the lord, made his left leg touch the underbelly of the cart. The lord straightened his leg, and lo! – the giant cart shot up in the air and tumbled down a few meters away, creating a deafening sound. The wheels separated from the spoke and lay around whirling in a pool of milk that was created as the pots came crashing around it.

Nanda and Upananda ran toward the upturned card, the womenfolk shrieking in horror, realizing that Yashoda’s baby was sleeping beneath the cart. Yashoda ran but collapsed after a couple of steps. Nanda picked up the baby, who seemed unhurt.  He looked around for any signs of mischief that would cause the heavy cart to be upturned. He enquired from the young kids who were crowding around the baby, and they, in their broken phrases, told him about the baby kicking up the cart in the air. They swore as a testament to their story, but who would believe that a three-month-old baby was capable of such a feat? They would believe it one day when the Lord would lift a mountain on his little finger, but that day was yet to come. Until then, Nanda’s son was not the supreme Lord of the three worlds but a hapless child under constant threat of being killed.

        Yashoda, who was still unconscious, was brought back by the loud screams of the womenfolk crowding around her, announcing to her that her baby was alive and well. Speaking incoherently through her sobs, she said, “Fie! upon me to be still living when my son was presumed dead”. She declared her own past karmas to be responsible for the continual mishaps befalling her son. Only due to Nanda’s great piety was her child protected. Nanda, who was crying himself, placed the child on her lap. Holding her child in her tight embrace, she wailed loudly.

The priests who had come for the ceremony rushed forward and chanted vedic mantras meant for safeguarding. Little did they know that the baby was the protector of the three worlds and that the genesis of the Vedas was from him. The simple folks of Braj had no inkling that the crashing of the cart and the liberation of Utkach was a simultaneous event. They could not see that Utkach was decimated by the kick of the lord and, having received a divine body, had saluted the Lord, ascended the indescribable chariot, and left for Goloka. The gods in the firmament bore witness to it all and showered adoration for the Lord by singing his praises.  May the deliverer of Utkach be our deliverer through his causeless mercy.

The Lord, stories of whose leela don’t decay with time, appeared for the sake of his parents to be scared and wailed loudly while kicking his feet. Yashoda could no longer bear to leave her child alone and directed the entire preparations for the ceremony, keeping the Lord in her tight embrace.