Krishna in Gokulam

         Parjanya Gopa resided in a religious town called Nandagon. He had 5 sons, Upananda, Abhinanda, Nanda Gopa (also, Gopa Raja Nanda Baba), Sunand and Nandan - and 2 daughters, Sananda and Nandhini. He gave in hand his middle son, Nanda to Yashoda. Years passed by, Nanda had no offspring and so, deeply worried Parjanya Gopa worshipped Narayana in the hope that Nanda would be blessed with a child. A voice from the sky announced that Nanda would have a brave son who will bring happiness to all those around him and will uphold dharma and annihilate the demons who stand in his path of defending dharma. Hearing this Parjanya and Nanda were both happy but it implanted fear in the hearts of the demons and they caused trouble to Nanda Gopa and his tribe.

        Worried, they decided to move out of the town along with his relatives and trusted tribe members and started residing in Mahavanam. River Yamuna flows close to Mahavanam and supported to behold the green and lavishing beauty of Mahavanam and thus helping the green lavish meadows for the cows to graze in. This pleased the Brajvasi Gopis to reside there. As Nanda Gopa was the Chief of Gopas, a tribe of cowherds referred as Holy Gwals, Mahavanam also came to be known as Gokulam. “Go” refers to “cow” and “Kulam” stands for “herd”. Hence Mahavanam came to be called as Gokulam, after Nanda Gopa and his clan came and resided happily in Mahavanam. Mahavanam is located in the east of Mathura and it was under the control of Kamsa, the ruler of Mathura. The Gopis traded milk and milk products to the palace of Mathura.

     Years went on. Sri Krishna was born in Mathura at midnight, behind the bars, as the eighth son of Vasudeva and Devaki. Lord Vishnu appeared before them and said that he himself has born as their eighth child to rescue them and the people of Mathura. He asked Vasudeva to carry him to the house of his friend, the cowherd chief Nanda in the village of Gokul across the Yamuna, where Nanda's wife Yashoda had given birth to a daughter. Vishnu assured them that "nothing shall bar your path". He was to exchange his boy and bring Yashoda's baby daughter back to the prison.

  

The baby girl was an incarnation of goddess Yogmaya. Sri Nanda Gopa is also stepbrother of King Vasudeva. In order to save the child from Kamsa, Vasudeva took the child and left him in the hands of Nanda and as advised by the Lord, he hurried back to the prison of Kamsa with the baby girl. Vasudeva came back to Mathura and as he entered, the doors of the prison closed themselves. Yasoda knew that a child was born to her, but because she was tired from the childbirth, she was fast asleep. When she awoke, she could not remember whether she had given birth to a male or female child.

        
     Early in the morning, all the people at Gokula rejoiced the birth of Nanda's beautiful male child. Sri Krishna lived in this place up to his age of 3 until they moved to Vrindhavan. All the leelas of Krishna as a toddler took place here. The residence of Nanda Gopa in Gokulam was named as Nanda Bhavan. It was built by Vishwakarma. It was also called as Chaurasi Khamba, as it has got 84 pillars. Chaurasi means “84”. It was here, Lord Krishna sucked out the poison together with the life force of Boodhaki  (Putana) when she disguised herself as Yashoda. He thus liberated Bhoodhaki from the body of a demoness.      

Krishna sucking poison out of Boodhaki

Another time while Lord Krishna was sleeping in his cradle when he was 3 months old, demon Sakatasura tried killing Lord Krishna by pressing the cart to the ground with Lord Krishna beneath it. But the toddler Krishna kicked his legs like any toddler would do and killed him. 

It was here in Gokulam, demon Trnavarta assumed the form of whirlwind and seized baby Krishna who was sitting beside mother Yasoda and flew into the sky. Krishna caught his neck as any baby might do, but this chocked the demon. Trnavarta’s eyes popped out from their sockets, and he fell to the earth and died.

        Of all the leela, Lord Krishna exposed the veracity to his mom by showing her the entire Universe. While playing with Balram, Krishna mischievously ate earth. Balram ran towards Yasodha and complained to her that Krishna is eating mud. Angry Yashodha went to Krishna and asked whether the complaint was true. Krishna,the impish kid denied and told her that Balram is lying jut to make him get scoldings from their mother. But, Yashoda was not convinced and insisted that he should open his mouth and show. When Krishna opened his mouth like a flower blossoming, to her surprise she saw the whole Universe, 'Vishwa', like sun, moon, planets, oceans, mountains etc., and she also saw herself with Krishna inside the cute little space of her son's mouth. Yashoda was stunned and began to wonder whether she were dreaming or actually seeing something extraordinary. She fell on the ground, unconscious. When she recovered, she realized what had happened. It was little Krishna, the incarnation of Vishnu. Yashoda took the little boy on her lap and hugged him and cried with joy.

"Millions of skies are within Me," 

   It was only here, the limitless, unattainable supreme showed the truth to his mother. The truth, the knowledge that rishis are trying to know and longing to have his dharshan by doing severe penance and performing austerity, was shown to Yashoda when he was tied to a mortar, implicating God will surrender to divine love. He whom the yogis consider as the Paramathma and the devotees call as The Supreme, succumbed to Yashoda's words and love.