Vasudev’s vision in Mathura described.
By Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj
Devotee: Could you describe the details of Krishna’s birth?
Srila Sridhar Maharaj: On the whole, it is something like imitation. It is nothing like the things we conceive of with our material senses. Krishna, a spiritual body, came and showed Himself being born physically. It was an imitation, a show, like a drama, a play.
Devotee: Did Krishna appear as a child with four arms or in His mature Visnu form with a crown and ornaments?
Srila Sridhar Maharaj: When He came out, Vasudev and Devaki’s eyes were attracted, and they saw Him with four arms and many ornaments. By His will, the iron gate to their cell opened, and the Yamuna, even during in the rainy season, became shallow. A jackal showed Vasudev the path, and he walked through the water of the Yamuna. When he came back, the gate of the cell closed as it was previously. From the material standpoint, all these supernatural events are inconceivable and impossible. They took place only by the Lord’s will. The Lord did not come here by any particular material process, but He did imitate material processes as far as possible.
Devotee: So, Krishna was born as a four-armed, mature form of Visnu, not a four-armed baby form?
Srila Sridhar Maharaj: When Vasudev was beside Devaki at the time of the birth, he saw the Lord in a four-handed, full-grown form as Visnu decorated with ornaments and began to praise Him. That Visnu form then advised Vasudev, “Do this, this, this, and this”. Then, the Lord became a prakrta sisu, an ordinary baby. When Vasudev first saw the Lord, he saw a four-armed form of Visnu. That Visnu form gave Vasudev some advice and then assumed a form like that of an ordinary child. Vasudev carried out the Lord’s orders, and took Him, the child, to Nanda Maharaj’s home in Gokula.
Devotee: Maharaj, doesn’t Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur comment that two Krishnas appeared at the same time?
Srila Sridhar Maharaj: Yes. At the same time that this four-armed Visnu form appeared before Vasudev, Yasoda gave birth to a male baby and a female baby. Both of these babies were beside Yasoda when Vasudev arrived, but Vasudev could not detect that. According to the advice he had received from the Lord, Vasudev placed the baby that was in His arms beside Yasoda and as soon as he did so, Yasoda’s male baby absorbed Vasudev’s baby. Vasudev only saw Yasoda’s female baby, and he took her and put her beside Devaki. Then their cell closed as it was previously. At that time, intimation went to the watchmen, they become conscious, and then they heard the newborn baby crying.
At once, they informed Kamsa, who came and found that the baby was a girl. He wondered, “Why is this so? A male child must be born to kill me, but a girl has been born. Do the gods also speak lies? What is this?”
He asked Vasudev, “Why is the child a girl? Give me explanation.”
Vasudev replied, “You can see the child with your own eyes.”
Kamsa wondered what he should do, and then he took the girl by the legs with his hand as he did with Devaki’s other children previously and thrust the baby onto the stone. As he did so, however, the girl slipped from his hand, flew into the sky, assumed the eight-armed form of Katyayani, and said, “He who will kill you is growing up in Gokula.” Then, she disappeared. Kamsa wondered what he should do, and then he engaged many spies to find all of the newborn babies in Vrndavan. He first sent Putana to kill Krishna. She did her service, but the effect came in the opposite way. Agha, Baka, and all the demons who Kamsa secretly engaged in trying to kill Krishna ended up failing in this way.
