Krishna's Lineage by Simon Brodbeck

Krishna's Lineage by Simon Brodbeck

Author:Simon Brodbeck
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780190279189
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-07-02T06:00:00+00:00


61. The Lifting of Mount Govardhana

1 Vaishampāyana said:

When his festival was cancelled, Shakra the master of the thirty gods was furious, and he addressed himself to the group of rainclouds that’s famous for destroying the world. He said:

2 Here, elephant clouds! You surely prioritise loyalty to your king and must do my pleasure, so listen to what I say. 3 Cowherd Nanda and the other cowherds came to Vrindāvana, but they’re devoted to Dāmodara and they’ve turned against my festival. 4 Cows are their main means of subsistence—that’s why they’re known as cowherds—so you must harass those cows with rainstorms and gales for seven days and nights. 5 As for myself, I shall mount my elephant Airāvata and send a violent storm, with rain and a wind as strong as my thunderbolt. 6 And after you’ve battered those cows with vicious rain and rushing wind, they and their herding troupe will give up their earthly lives.

7 That was how the mighty Punisher of Pāka commanded all the rainclouds after Krishna had countermanded his edict. 8 Terrifying mountainous dark rainclouds then spread across the sky all around, making horrible noises. 9 The clouds emitted flashes of lightning and were decorated with rainbows, and they covered the sky with darkness. 10 As those bull clouds moved into the sky some of them looked like sea-monsters, others were joined together like elephants, and others were like snakes. 11 They linked up with each other’s bodies like ten thousand herds of elephants, and they made a thick dark layer, obscuring the sky.

12 The clouds rained everywhere, with raindrops that looked like human hands, or elephants’ trunks, or bamboo canes. 13 Although those watching with human eyes thought that the ocean had been lifted into the sky, the great rainstorm had no shores or shallows, and it was dangerous to bathe in. 14 While the mountainous clouds thundered all over the sky, the birds stopped flying and all the deer fled. 15 And while the cruel clouds made the sky look as if the sun and moon were both asleep, the excessive rain made the world look unnatural.

16 With no visible stars or planets and no sunshine or moonbeams, the sky seemed to lose its light. The banks of cloud made it go quite dark. 17 And because of the rain that was constantly pouring from the clouds, everything there on earth looked as if it was made of water. 18 Peacock-cries rang out there, along with the fainter sound of crested cuckoos in the sky.* Rivers became swollen, frogs came in floods, 19 and the grasses and trees shook as if they were scared of the growling of the clouds and the clatter of the rain. 20 Groups of fear-stricken cowherds said that since the earth had become a single restless ocean, the end of the worlds had come.

21 Mooing pitifully, the cattle stood motionless, without twitching their ears or thighs or raising their muzzles or hooves. It was as if they were held down.



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