their pipes.  In this manner participating in various feelings and emotions, and affectionately attached to each other, they wandered, sporting and happy, through the wood.  At eveningtide came Krishna and Balarama, like to cowboys, along with the cows and the cowherds.  At eveningtide the two immortals, having come to the cow-pens, joined heartily in whatever sports amused the sons of the herdsmen.’[21]

One day as they are grazing the cows, they play a game.  Krishna divides the cows and cowherds into two sides and collecting flowers and fruits pretends that they are weapons.  They then stage a mock battle, pelting each other with the fruits.  A little later Balarama takes them to a grove of palm trees.  The ass demon, Dhenuka, guards it.  Balarama, however, seizes it by its hind legs, twists it round and hurls it into a high tree.  From the tree the demon falls down dead.  When Dhenuka’s companion asses hasten to the spot, Krishna kills them also.  The cowherds then pick the coconuts to their hearts’ content, fill a quantity of baskets and having grazed the cows, go strolling home.

The next morning Krishna rises early, calls the cowherds and takes the cows to the forest.  As they are grazing them by the Jumna, they reach a dangerous whirlpool.  In this whirlpool lives the giant snake, Kaliya, whose poison has befouled the water, curdling it into a great froth.  The cowherds and the cattle drink some of it, are taken ill, but revive at Krishna’s glance.  They then play ball.  A solitary kadam tree is on the bank.  Krishna climbs it and a cowherd throws the ball up to him.  The ball goes into the water and Krishna, thinking this the moment for quelling the great snake, plunges in after it.  Kaliya detects that an intruder has entered the pool, begins to spout poison and fire and encircles Krishna in its coils.  In their alarm the cowherds send word to Nanda and along with Yasoda, Rohini and the other cowgirls, he hastens to the scene.  Krishna can no longer be seen and in her agitation Yasoda is about to throw herself in.  Krishna, however, is merely playing with the snake.  In a moment he expands his body, jumps from the coils and begins to dance on the snake’s heads.  ‘Having the weight of three worlds,’ the Purana says, ‘Krishna was very heavy.’  The snake fails to sustain this dancing burden, its heads droop and blood flows from its tongues.  It is about to die when the snake-queens bow at Krishna’s feet and implore his mercy.  Krishna relents, spares the snake’s life but banishes it to a distant island.[22] He then leaves the river, but the exhaustion of the cowherds and cowgirls is so great that they decide to stay in the forest for the night and return to Brindaban next morning.  Their trials, however, are far from over.  At midnight there is a heavy storm and a huge conflagration.  Scarlet flames leap up, dense smoke engulfs the forest and many cattle are burnt alive.  Finding themselves in great danger, Nanda, Yasoda and the cowherds call on Krishna to save them.  Krishna quietly rises up, sucks the fire into his mouth and ends the blaze.