Navanītacōra: Kṛṣṇa, the Butter Thief
described through bhakti poetry
The līla of Kṛṣṇa stealing butter from Yaśōda’s butter pots and from those of the gōpis of Braj is an iconic image of divinity clouded in boyish playfulness, creating the most pure of vātsalya bhāva (parental affection) in his bhaktas. Though the story was probably inspired by the episodes in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, one of the earliest references to little Kṛṣṇa as a butter thief occurs in Tamil Śri Vaiṣṇava literature of Periyāḻvār, in his Tirumoḷi:
“That mouth that swallowed the worlds is the mouth
that ate the butter stolen from the pot nets”
The work of the Āḻvārs is similarly replete with references to Kṛṣṇa’s mischievous ways. One of the most vivid and charming evocations of the child Kṛṣṇa in alvar Tamil literature and the later Sanskrit stotras of the āchāryas is of the child-god tied (impossibly!) to a mortar by a ‘‘tight-knotted string’’ (kanninunciruttampu). One of the most extended meditations on this image is in the Atimanusha Stava of Kurattalvan, where the butter-thief of Yaśoda’s house, his hair smeared with the mud of grazing cows, is inseparable in the poet’s vision from other avataras of Vishnu, for they are all present before the poet’s eyes in the temple image of Viṣṇu (the archavataram), the supreme center of gravity of most Tamil and Sanskrit poems in early Vaiṣṇava literature.
In the 10th century work of Periyalvar’s Tirumoḷi, Kṛṣṇa is addressed as the one who swallows butter and the one who robs butter from the gopis. Āṇḍāl too describes offering butter to her Lord:
“For the lord
of the sweet fragrant groves of Māliruṇcōḷai
I offered a hundred pots of butter
and yet another hundred brimming with sweet rice
Will the beautiful lord who rides on Garuḍa
not come to claim my offering?”
(From Āṇḍāl’s Nācciyār Tirumoḷi, translated by Archana Venkatesan)
When Kṛṣṇa steals butter from Yaśodā, in her frustration and anger she takes a rope and tries to bind him to a grinding stone. Alas, since Śri Kṛṣṇa is the supreme lord, she is unable to do so, as no length of rope is sufficient. Finally, Kṛṣṇa takes pity on his mother and allows himself to be bound, demonstrating his devotion to his devotees. This is the reason he is known as Dāmodara, one whose belly was bound by a rope. The incident is beautifully illustrates the overlap of a microcosmic incident with a cosmic one as so many of Kṛṣṇa’s līlas are characterized by. This sentiment is captured in the Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta of Bilvamangala (translated by Francis Wilson):
“To quiet the loud complaint in the cowherd
village, the mother of the butter thief bound
him by the waist with a churning rope,
and, oh, how that bondage was the entire cause
of a great outcry throughout all the three
worlds which are tucked in the three folds
of his belly.”
Bilvamangala’s contemporary, Sūrdas is perhaps the most adept at so lovingly describing Kṛṣṇa’s love of butter and the divine picture painted by the transcendental epitome of beauty that is the child Śri Kṛṣṇa:
“How radiant! — fresh butter in his hand,
Crawling on his knees, his body adorned with dust,
face all smeared with curd,
Cheeks so winsome, eyes so supple,
a cow-powder mark on his head,
Curls swinging to and fro like swarms of bees
besotted by drinking drafts of honey,
At his neck an infant’s necklace, and on his lovely chest
the glint of a diamond and a tiger-nail amulet.
Blessed, says Sūr, is one instant of this joy.
Why live a hundred eons more?”
He also describes the scene wherein infant Kṛṣṇa charms the gopis and steals their butter:
“Gopāl is furtively eating butter.
Look, my friend, what a bright shimmer streams
from the dusk-toned body of Śyām,
With drop after drop that was churned from curd
trickling down his face to his chest
As if the moon rained lovely bits of nectar
on lovers approaching from below.
His hand lends grace to the face beside it
and flashes forth as if
The lotus had dropped its feud with the moon
and come forth bearing gifts.
Look how he’s risen to peer from his lair,
to look around on every side;
With wary eye he scans the scene, and then
he cheerfully feeds his friends.”
Seeing Sūr’s Lord in his boyish fun,
the maidens start, weakened,
Until their hearts are lost to speech —
thought after thought after thought.”
Sūrdās’s poetry describes Kṛṣṇa’s childhood with a cloyingly nectarine love and bhakti — he says that the way Kṛṣṇa behaves is more than his poor heart can contain: that the childish antics of the God of every mercy entrance him, and cause his eyes to dance.
“What pleasure to my heart, his innocent childish games!
He scrambles on his knees, carefree, across the floor
to capture the refl ection of his nails;
He calls for his butter, Nanda’s little boy,
by silently signaling a milkmaid with his eyes;
He marshals his sounds in an effort to speak
but the words still won’t emerge,
And the brilliance of millions of bits of the universe,
in his infancy he obscures.
As for the people of Braj, the Master of Sūr
brings fruition to the longing of their eyes.”
References:
- Krishna, the butter thief by John Stratton Hawley
- The Memory of Love: Surdas Sings to Krishna byJohn Stratton Hawley
- The Secret Garland: Andal’s Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli by Archana Venkatesan
- Krishna: A Sourcebook Edwin Bryant
__________________________________________
If you find value in my work, I hope you consider becoming a patron through Patreon. Hindu Aesthetic requires a lot of time and effort and your support would mean that I can continue bringing you the highest quality content. Link to my Patreon:
