Riding the Whirlwind Demon

The Transcendental Pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṅa

"The whirlwind demon intended to take Kṛṣṅa up in the sky and kill Him, but Kṛṣṅa was simply enjoying the ride...."

by Drutakarmā dāsa

When Lord Kṛṣṅa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, came to this earth five thousand years ago, He played as a cowherd boy in the north Indian village of Vṛndāvana. To please the great souls who appeared as His boyfriends and girl friends and His father and mother. He displayed many wonderful pastimes. In India most people are familiar with Kṛṣṅa's activities, and traditionally they celebrate them through music, dance, drama, and literature. In Bhagavad-gītā the Lord assures us that anyone who meditates on these pastimes can rejoin Him as one of His eternal companions in the spiritual world

When Kṛṣṅa was a mere infant, He killed the witch Pūtanā, who had tried to make Him suck her poison-smeared breast (See BTG 12/3). As we'll see in this issue, soon afterward Kṛṣṅa foiled Śakaṭāsura (the cart demon), and when He was barely one year old He killed the Tṛṅāvartāsura (the whirlwind demon).

Just after baby Kṛṣṅa turned three months old. His Mother Yaśodā noticed that He was slanting His body in an attempt to rise and turn around. To celebrate this auspicious sign, she arranged to observe the Vedic ceremony called utthāna, a bathing ritual performed when a child is due to leave the house for the first time. So Mother Yaśodā called together the neighborhood women to assist her. Brāhmaṅa priests also came, and they chanted Vedic hymns while bands of musicians played instruments and sang.

During the ceremony Mother Yaśodā saw that baby Kṛṣṅa was falling asleep, and she placed Him in a cradle underneath a household cart. While the child slept, Mother Yaśodā became absorbed in receiving guests, garlanding them with flowers, and offering them presents. When Kṛṣṅa awoke. He began crying for His mother. He wanted to drink the milk from her breast. But Mother Yaśodā was busy elsewhere and could not hear Him. All of a sudden, Kṛṣṅa threw His legs upward and struck the cart. Although His legs were tiny and very soft, the cart turned over violently and collapsed. The wheels separated from the axle, the hubs and spokes fell apart, and the pole of the handcart broke. On the cart were many utensils made of various metals, and all of them scattered hither and thither.

When Mother Yaśodā, her husband Nanda Mahārāja, and all their guests saw the situation, they began to wonder aloud: "Is this the work of some demon or evil planet?" Then the small children present said, "As soon as baby Kṛṣṅa kicked the cart's wheel, the cart collapsed. There is no doubt about it." But the adults could not believe that little Kṛṣṅa had such inconceivable power.

Mother Yaśodā called for the brāhmaṅa priests and had them chant mantras to counteract the influence of the bad planet she believed to be the cause of the accident. Meanwhile the stout, strong cowherd men put the pots and other utensils back on the cart and set it up as before. Then Kṛṣṅa's father Nanda Mahārāja took his child on his lap and bathed Him with water mixed with pure herbs.

Actually, the cart had been haunted by the ghostly demon Śakaṭāsura. Since he was without a body of his own, the ghost had taken shelter of the handcart and had been waiting for a chance to do some mischief to Kṛṣṅa. But when Kṛṣṅa kicked the haunted cart with His small, delicate legs, Śakaṭāsura was immediately pushed down to the ground and killed. An ordinary infant would not have been able to do such a thing, but Kṛṣṅa was more than able, because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Also, when the cart collapsed, an ordinary child would surely have been injured, but Kṛṣṅa came out unhurt—in fact. He thoroughly enjoyed the whole episode.

Not long afterward, when Kṛṣṅa was a year old, Mother Yaśodā was playing with Him on her lap. Sometimes a mother lifts her child, and when the child falls in her hands, the child laughs, and the mother also enjoys pleasure. Yaśodā was doing this, but suddenly she felt Kṛṣṅa to be heavier than a mountain peak, and she could no longer bear His weight. Kṛṣṅa had exercised His inconceivable potencies and had mystically assumed the weight of the universe. It seems that Kṛṣṅa was aware that the whirlwind demon Tṛṅāvarta was coming to take Him away. Not wanting His mother to suffer any difficulty from the demon. He became so heavy that she had to put Him down.

But Mother Yaśodā couldn't understand what was really happening. She called the brāhmaṅa priests to chant hymns for her son's safety. Then, while Kṛṣṅa was sitting on the ground, the Tṛṅāvarta demon came as a whirlwind and very easily carried Him into the air. This was another demonstration of Kṛṣṅa's mystic potencies. One moment He had become heavier than the whole universe, so that His mother would have to set Him down, and the next moment He became lighter than a piece of grass, so that Tṛṅāvarta could carry Him away. This was all ānanda-cinmaya-rasa—Kṛṣṅa's blissful, transcendental pleasure.

Covering the whole land with clouds of dust, the demon obscured everyone's vision and began vibrating everywhere with a fearful sound. For a moment the whole pasturing ground was overcast with dense darkness from the dust storm. Mother Yaśodā could not find her son, nor could she understand why. She fell down on the ground like a cow who has lost her calf, and she began to lament very pitifully. When the force of the dust storm subsided, Yaśodā's friends approached her. Not seeing Kṛṣṅa, they joined Mother Yaśodā in crying.

Meanwhile, by his mystic power the whirlwind demon was carrying Kṛṣṅa high into the sky. But then Kṛṣṅa suddenly became much heavier, and the demon had to stop in midair. Kṛṣṅa was challenging Tṛṅāvarta to a competition in yogic power, and Tṛṅāvarta was doomed to lose, because Kṛṣṅa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Unfortunately, even today many so-called yogīs and bābās present themselves as greater than God by showing some insignificant mystic wonder before foolish people who have no knowledge of Kṛṣṅa.

Tṛṅāvarta intended to take Kṛṣṅa up in the sky and kill Him, but Kṛṣṅa was simply enjoying the ride. Now Tṛṅāvarta was falling because of Kṛṣṅa's heaviness, and he wanted to save himself by throwing Kṛṣṅa off from his neck. But he was unable to do so, because Kṛṣṅa was grasping him by the throat. Unable to make a sound or even move his hands and legs, Tṛṅāvarta choked and his eyes popped out. The demon lost his life and fell, along with little Kṛṣṅa, down to the ground.

While the women who had gathered were crying for Kṛṣṅa, the demon fell from the sky onto a big slab of stone, smashing and dislocating all his limbs. The astonished cowherd women saw that Kṛṣṅa was uninjured and free from misfortune and was playing on the demon's chest very happily. They immediately picked Him up and brought Him back to Mother Yaśodā. She and Nanda Mahārāja and all the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana were overjoyed.

For thousands of years, sages have meditated upon these pastimes with great pleasure. It is said that both Kṛṣṅa and those who enjoy Kṛṣṅa's pastimes are ānanda-cinmaya-rasa—always free from unhappiness and full of transcendental bliss.

"Riding the Whirlwind Demon" was adapted from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, translation and commentary by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.