When the women arrive they marvel at Krishna’s beauty.  ‘He is Nanda’s son,’ they say.  ’We heard his name and everything else was driven from our minds.  Let us gaze on this darling object of our lives.  O Krishna, it is due to you that we have seen you and thus got rid of all our sins.  Those stupid Brahmans, our husbands, mistook you for a mere man.  But you are God.  As God they offer to you prayers, penance, sacrifice and love.  How then can they deny you food?’ Krishna replies that they should not worship him for he is only the child of the cowherd, Nanda.  He was hungry and they took pity on him, and he only regrets that being far from home he cannot return their hospitality.  They must now go home as their presence is needed for the sacrifices and their husbands must still be waiting.  So cool an answer dismays the women and they say, ’Great king, we loved your lotus-like face.  We came to you despite our families.  They tried to stop us but we ignored them.  If they do not take us back, where shall we go?  And one of us, prevented by her husband, gave her life rather than not see you.’  At this Krishna smiles, reveals the woman and says, ’Whoever loves God never dies.  She was here before you.’  Krishna then eats the food and assuring them that their husbands will say nothing, sends them back to Mathura.  When they arrive, they find the Brahmans chastened and contrite—­cursing their folly in having failed to recognize Krishna as God and envious of their wives for having seen him and given him food.

Having humbled the Brahmans, Krishna now turns to the gods, choosing Indra, their chief, for attack.  The moment is his annual worship when the cowherds offer sweets, rice, saffron, sandal and incense.  Seeing them busy, Krishna asks Nanda what is the point of all their preparations.  What good can Indra really do? he asks.  He is only a god, not God himself.  He is often worsted by demons and abjectly put to flight.  In fact he has no power at all.  Men prosper because of their virtues or their fates, not because of Indra.  As cowherds, their business is to carry on agriculture and trade and to tend cows and Brahmans.  Their earliest books, the Vedas, require them not to abandon their family customs and Krishna then cites as an ancient practice the custom of placating the spirits of the forests and hills.  This custom, he says, they have wrongly superseded in favour of Indra and they must now revive it.  Nanda sees the force of Krishna’s remarks and holds a meeting.  ’Do not brush aside his words as those of a mere boy,’ he says.  ’If we face the facts, we have really nothing to do with the ruler of the gods.  It is on the forests, rivers and the great hill, Govardhana, that we really depend.’  The cowherds applaud this advice, resolve to abandon the gods and in their place to worship the mountain, Govardhana.  The worship of the hill is then performed.  Krishna advises the cowherds to shut their eyes and the spirit of the hill will then show itself.  He then assumes the spirit’s form himself, telling Nanda and the cowherds that in response to their worship the mountain spirit has appeared.  The cowherds’ eyes are easily deceived.  Beholding, as they think, Govardhana himself, they make offerings and go rejoicing home.