Krishna - The Dark Lord of Dwaraka

Chapter 18 - Putana, the Baby Killer

The reason the attack of Trinavartha had scared the cowherds so badly was that this was not the first time that this was happening.

With trembling hands, Yashoda picked up the young baby lying on the dead asura.

The words of Sage Garga during the naming ceremony of Krishna and Balarama crashed through Yashoda's mind as she was trembling even worse.

This child needs to be brought up with great care and caution... Those were the words, those were the very words of Sage Garga as he had looked at Krishna.

But more importantly, Yashoda was thinking about the previous attack on Krishna.

That was as bad an attack as this one – probably the previous one was even more horrible – because none of them had suspected anything.

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A hauntingly beautiful woman had walked inside the town. In fact she looked so enchanting that people genuinely believed that she was Goddess Sri herself. The cowherds believed that the Goddess had heard the description of the son of Nanda and the Goddess had been unable to stop herself and had come to look at the child.

The cowherd followed the woman and predictably, she had come to Nanda's home. She looked at the cowherds and smiled as she walked inside Nanda's home.

With her dazzling smile, all the cowherds forgot something important. That for the past fifteen days or so, babies all over the kingdom were being killed – they were all being poisoned and killed.

The cowherds had heard the news. But looking at the dazzling smile of the woman, none of the cowherds remembered it.

The woman talked with Yashoda and even Yashoda had fallen under the spell of the woman. The woman had taken the young Krishna in her hands and she had breast fed the baby some milk.

Even now, Yashoda got terrified when she remembered the scream which followed, after the woman had taken Krishna.

Yashoda did not know what to look at, as the woman ran from her home screaming like crazy.

Worse, the woman's face turned to something ugly...Far too ugly.

The child was still in her bosom and Yashoda had been scared as she was trying to take away the young child away from the woman.

But Yashoda had been unsuccessful. The woman changed form and looked like a horrifying asura woman and the woman kept growing in size.

Yashoda screamed trying to get her baby back, but the woman ran away from the place and she seemed to be a lot of pain.

Yashoda ran after the woman – until the woman dropped dead just outside the village.

No one knew why but the child was unhurt. Completely unhurt.

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What really worried Yashoda about the incident was that the woman had changed size as she was screaming in pain while breast feeding her son. She had grown huge before she had fallen dead.

The villagers had cut up her body and burnt it. And strangely enough the burning of the body gave a fragrant smell which wafted through the entire village.

As Yashoda picked up her son from Trinavartha's body and realized that this made it two attacks in a month.

For the first time, Yashoda was horrified as she realized that her son was really in danger. Grave and clear danger.

(There are three stories connected with this episode.

This woman was called as "Putana" - Putana the baby killer. Plenty of babies in the kingdom of the Yadus had fallen prey to the woman.

She is generally considered as the henchwoman of Kamsa and said that she was looking to kill new born infants trying to keep Kamsa safe from the eighth child of Devaki.

Purely from the stand point of medicine, it is entirely possible that Putana was probably a disease which afflicted children and that children from the Yadu kingdom were prone to an epidemic at this time.

Krishna probably survived the epidemic and could have been the first one to do so – probably which was why his survival was regarded as a miracle.

From the point of view of other puranas, over time, Putana was made into a horrible demoness, who had changed her appearance to make herself beautiful to gain entrance into Nanda's home.

The stories have varied slightly which even shows Putana to steal Krishna from his home.

But an interesting story about this incident can be found in Garga Samhita.

Lord Vishnu had been born once as the son of Sage Kashyap and Aditi. In this birth, Lord Vishnu had been born as Vamana, the dwarf.

Vamana had come to the earth to get rid of Bali, the asura.

It was said that Bali had a daughter called Ratnamala. When Ratnamala saw Vamana for the first time, it was said that her maternal instincts surfaced and she wanted to mother the child.

However, when Vamana pushed Bali to the underworld, Ratnamala was filled with hatred and she wanted nothing more than to kill Vamana.

It was said that Ratnamala incarnated as Putana and she fulfilled both her desires with Krishna.

Finally, the incident was Putana's burning giving out a fragrant smell is considered to be an act of complete devotion.

It was made such that though with evil intentions, Putana had still mothered Krishna and Krishna had cleansed her of all sins. That was believed to be the reason, why Putana's body gave out such a fragrant smell on her death.)