Shloka 3
Gokula’s Wonder, Kṛṣṇa’s Bhakta-vaśyatā, the Move to Vṛndāvana, and the Slaying of Vatsāsura and Bakāsura
उलूखलं विकर्षन्तं दाम्ना बद्धं च बालकम् । कस्येदं कुत आश्चर्यमुत्पात इति कातरा: ॥ ३ ॥
ulūkhalaṁ vikarṣantaṁ dāmnā baddhaṁ ca bālakam kasyedaṁ kuta āścaryam utpāta iti kātarāḥ
Kṛṣṇa, the little boy bound by a rope to the ulūkhala, the wooden mortar, was dragging it along. The cowherd men, alarmed and doubtful, wondered: “Whose doing is this, and from where has this astonishing event arisen?”
The cowherd men were very much agitated because the child Kṛṣṇa, after all, had been standing between the two trees, and if by chance the trees had fallen upon Him, He would have been smashed. But He was standing as He was, and still the things had happened, so who had done all this? How could these events have happened in such a wonderful way? These considerations were some of the reasons they were agitated and bewildered. They thought, however, that by chance Kṛṣṇa had been saved by God so that nothing had happened to Him.
FAQs
This verse highlights that Kṛṣṇa, though the Supreme, appears as a child bound by a rope, increasing the wonder of Vraja and illustrating how the Lord allows Himself to be ‘captured’ by loving devotion.
Because it looked impossible and ominous—an extraordinary sight of a bound child pulling a heavy mortar—so they questioned whose child it was and whether it signaled an unusual portent.
Approach God with simple, affectionate devotion and humility—this līlā teaches that loving bhakti, not force or status, is what truly draws the Divine close.