Shloka 25
Brahmā’s Bewilderment and Kṛṣṇa Becoming the Calves and Cowherd Boys
Brahma-vimohana-līlā
गोगोपीनां मातृतास्मिन्नासीत्स्नेहर्धिकां विना । पुरोवदास्वपि हरेस्तोकता मायया विना ॥ २५ ॥
go-gopīnāṁ mātṛtāsminn āsīt snehardhikāṁ vinā purovad āsv api hares tokatā māyayā vinā
From the very beginning the gopīs felt motherly affection for Kṛṣṇa, greater even than for their own sons. Formerly they still made some distinction between Kṛṣṇa and their children, but now, by the Lord’s māyā, that distinction vanished.
The distinction between one’s own son and another’s son is not unnatural. Many elderly women have motherly affection for the sons of others. They observe distinctions, however, between those other sons and their own. But now the elderly gopīs could not distinguish between their own sons and Kṛṣṇa, for since their own sons had been taken by Brahmā, Kṛṣṇa had expanded as their sons. Therefore, their extra affection for their sons, who were now Kṛṣṇa Himself, was due to bewilderment resembling that of Brahmā. Previously, the mothers of Śrīdāmā, Sudāmā, Subala and Kṛṣṇa’s other friends did not have the same affection for one another’s sons, but now the gopīs treated all the boys as their own. Śukadeva Gosvāmī, therefore, wanted to explain this increment of affection in terms of Kṛṣṇa’s bewilderment of Brahmā, the gopīs, the cows and everyone else.
FAQs
This verse explains that the gopīs’ and cows’ maternal affection toward Kṛṣṇa became unusually intensified, not from any worldly reason, but by the Lord’s divine arrangement—revealing the extraordinary nature of Vraja vātsalya-bhakti.
Because the Lord’s māyā that makes Him appear “only a little boy” was withdrawn; their vision of Him became more spiritually unveiled, so His divinity was no longer obscured.
It suggests praying for purified perception: as devotion deepens by grace, one gradually sees the Lord’s presence and guidance beyond ordinary, material judgments.