The Purana now returns to Krishna’s encounters with the cowgirls, their passionate longings and ardent desire to have him as their lover.  Since the incident at the river, they have been waiting for him to keep his promise.  Krishna, however, has appeared blandly indifferent—­going to the forest, playing with the cowherds but coldly ignoring the cowgirls themselves.  When autumn comes, however, the beauty of the nights stirs his feelings.  Belatedly he recalls his promise and decides to fulfil it.  That night his flute sounds in the forest, its notes reaching the ears of the cowgirls and thrilling them to the core.  Like girls in tribal India today, they know it is a call to love.  They put on new clothes, brush aside their husbands, ignore the other members of their families and hurry to the forest.  As they arrive, Krishna stands superbly before them.  He wears a crown of peacocks’ feathers and a yellow dhoti and his blue-black skin shines in the moonlight.  As the cowgirls throng to see him, he twits them on their conduct.  Are they not frightened at coming into the dark forest?  What are they doing abandoning their families?  Is not such wild behaviour quite unbefitting married girls?  Should not a married girl obey her husband in all things and never for a moment leave him?  Having enjoyed the deep forest and the moonlight, let them return at once and soothe their injured spouses.  The cowgirls are stunned to hear such words, hang their heads, sigh and dig their toes into the ground.  They begin to weep and at last turn on Krishna, saying ’Oh! why have you deceived us so?  It was your flute that made us come.  We have left our husbands for you.  We live for your love.  Where are we to go?’ ‘If you really love me,’ Krishna answers ‘Dance and sing with me.’  His words fill the cowgirls with delight and surrounding Krishna ’like golden creepers growing on a dark-coloured hill,’ they go with him to the banks of the Jumna.  Here Krishna has conjured up a golden circular terrace ornamented with pearls and diamonds and cooled by sprouting plantains.  The moon pours down, saturating the forest.  The cowgirls’ joy increases.  They beautify their bodies and then, wild with love, join with Krishna in singing and dancing.  Modesty deserts them and they do whatever pleases them, regarding Krishna as their lover.  As the night goes on, Krishna ’appears as beautiful as the moon amidst the stars.’

As the cowgirls’ ecstasies proceed, Krishna feels that they are fast exceeding themselves.  They think that he is in their power and are already swelling with pride.  He decides therefore to leave them suddenly, and taking a single girl with him vanishes from the dance.[28] When they find him gone, the cowgirls are at a loss to know what to do.  ’Only a moment ago,’ one of them says, ’Krishna’s arms were about my neck, and now he has gone.’  They begin to comb the forest, anxiously asking the trees, birds and animals, for news.  As they go, they recall Krishna’s many winning ways, his