The Night Krishna Was Born

Long ago in the city of Mathura there ruled a king named Kamsa, and he was very afraid.

He was afraid because on the day of his sister Devaki's wedding, a voice had come out of the empty sky. "Kamsa," said the voice, "the eighth child of this sister of yours will be the one to end your cruelty."

Now, a wiser person might have thought, "Then let me stop being cruel." But Kamsa did not think that at all. He threw his own sister Devaki and her husband Vasudeva into a prison cell, locked the door with heavy iron chains, and set guards outside it day and night.

Years went by inside that small dark room. And then, on the eighth night of the dark fortnight of Bhadrapada month, at exactly midnight, something began to happen.

Outside, the rain was falling in great grey sheets. Thunder rolled over the rooftops of Mathura. And inside the prison cell, a soft light began to grow — a light the colour of a rain cloud with the sun behind it.

Devaki and Vasudeva looked down, and there in their arms was a baby boy. His skin was dark as the monsoon sky. He did not cry. He simply looked at them, and the whole cell smelled of flowers.

"You must carry him to Gokul, across the river," a gentle voice told Vasudeva. "Take him to Nanda and Yashoda. There he will be safe."

Vasudeva looked at the chains on the door and his heart sank. But as he stood up with the baby, something wonderful happened.

*Click.* The iron chains fell open on their own.

*Creak.* The prison door swung wide.

And the guards outside — every single one of them — had fallen fast asleep, sitting straight up with their spears still in their hands.

Vasudeva placed the baby in a flat basket, lifted it onto his head, and walked out into the storm. Nobody stopped him. Nobody even stirred.

But then he came to the river Yamuna, and his heart sank again. The Yamuna was in flood. Black water rushed past, so high and so fast that no boat could have crossed it.

Vasudeva took one step in. The water rose to his knees. Another step — his waist. Another — his chest, his shoulders, his chin. He held the basket high above his head and kept walking.

And then the strangest thing of all happened. The baby stretched out one small foot from the basket, and his toe just touched the water.

At once the Yamuna grew quiet. The roaring stopped. The water drew itself back on both sides, the way a crowd steps aside for someone it has been waiting for, and left a clear path of wet sand right across to the other bank.

Somewhere above him, a great serpent named Shesha spread his hoods like an umbrella so that not one drop of rain fell on the child.

Vasudeva walked across, reached Gokul, and quietly laid the baby beside Yashoda, who was fast asleep. Then he carried Yashoda's newborn daughter back across the river, back through the open door, and sat down again in the prison cell. Behind him, the chains locked themselves.

In the morning Gokul woke up to find a new baby in Yashoda's arms — a dark, laughing, bright-eyed boy. Nanda Baba was so happy that he gave away cows and gold, sprinkled everyone with turmeric water, and threw sweets from his rooftop until the whole village was sticky and singing.

They named the child Krishna.

And every year since then, on that same eighth night of Bhadrapada, families stay awake until midnight, rock a little cradle, and sing "Nand ke ghar anand bhayo" — joy has come to Nanda's house — just as Gokul sang on that very first morning.