Bhagavatham Stories

By the time Krishna reached the age of four or five, his pastimes began to take on an increasingly sweet and enchanting character. The miracles of his infancy, while dramatic and awe-inspiring, gave way to pastimes that revealed a different aspect of divine nature—not the overwhelming cosmic consciousness, but the intimate, relatable, infinitely charming presence of the eternal person. It was during this period that Krishna began to manifest the qualities for which he would become most beloved: his playfulness, his mischief, his capacity to love and be loved in the most personal ways.

One afternoon, as Krishna was playing in the forests of Vrindavan with the other children, he encountered a butterfly of extraordinary beauty, its wings shimmering with colors that seemed to contain the entire rainbow. The butterfly danced through the air with a grace that captivated Krishna, and he began to chase it through the forest. The other children followed, caught up in the magic of the moment. The butterfly led them deeper into the woods, through groves of trees, beside crystal streams, until finally it came to rest on a flower. Krishna reached out gently, but the butterfly eluded him, continuing to dance just beyond his reach. When Krishna finally caught it, he gazed at it with wonder, then gently released it back to the sky, watching as it disappeared into the sunlight.

The elders of the village recognized in this seemingly simple incident a profound teaching. The butterfly, they understood, was a symbol of the individual soul (atman) and its eternal dance of seeking the divine. Krishna's gentle pursuit and release of the butterfly represented the divine's relationship with the soul—always near, always calling, always inviting, yet allowing complete freedom. The pursuit itself was the goal; the catching was not the point. This interpretation would become part of the spiritual philosophy that emerged from the region, a philosophy centered on the principle that the divine pursues the soul not to capture it but to invite it into a dance of eternal love.

Around this same time, Krishna began his association with the cowherd boys who would become his eternal companions. These boys—particularly Balarama, his elder brother, and friends like Sridama and Sudama—would become inseparable from Krishna's pastimes. Their friendship transcended ordinary childhood bonds; it was a spiritual connection that had been ordained before the beginning of creation. The boys would tend cows together in the forests, and these innocent pastoral scenes would become the subject of the most profound spiritual poetry and philosophy. The cows themselves, sacred in the Hindu tradition, seemed to recognize something divine in Krishna's presence. They would gather around him, and their milk would be sweeter, their temperament calmer, their health more robust.

It was during one of these pastoral episodes that Krishna first began to manifest a skill for which he would become eternally famous: playing the flute. The young Krishna would fashion a simple flute from bamboo, and when he began to play, something extraordinary occurred. The sound of the flute was not merely pleasing to the ears; it resonated at the level of the soul itself. When Krishna played, all of Vrindavan seemed to stop and listen. The birds ceased their chirping to hear the divine melody. The animals paused in their movements. Even the wind seemed to carry the sound of the flute to every corner of creation. The mothers of Vrindavan would pause in their household tasks, their minds suddenly far away, touched by something they could not understand but only feel.

The gopis began to associate the sound of Krishna's flute with something that stirred their hearts in ways they found both compelling and confusing. The melody seemed to speak directly to some inner yearning that they had carried all their lives without naming it. This yearning was not quite romantic love, though it had elements of that; it was not quite devotion, though it contained that; it was a call from the eternal to itself, the soul recognizing its source, the finite crying out for the infinite. Some of the gopis would later explain that when Krishna played the flute, they felt as though the boundaries of their individual identity were dissolving, and they were merging into something larger than themselves.

During this period, Krishna's mischievous nature also began to fully manifest. He would steal butter from the houses of the gopis, a seemingly simple act of childhood naughtiness that would become the subject of infinite poetic elaboration. Krishna would sneak into the kitchens of Vrindavan where the gopis had hung the butter in pots suspended from the ceiling, and with the help of his friends, would create elaborate schemes to steal the butter. He would be caught, scolded, and threatened with punishment, yet he would continue this play again and again. The gopis found themselves both exasperated and enchanted by this divine thief. The act of stealing butter became a metaphor in spiritual philosophy—Krishna, the Supreme Lord, steals the hearts of his devotees, robs them of their autonomy, takes from them everything they thought they possessed, yet in this robbery is the greatest gift.

The scholars and wise ones of the time began to recognize that something unprecedented was occurring in Vrindavan. The birth of an extraordinarily beautiful and mysterious child, his miraculous displays of power, his enchanting flute music, his complete innocence combined with otherworldly wisdom—these could not be coincidences or the mere talents of an exceptional child. Yet how to understand what was unfolding? The realization that the Supreme Lord himself had taken birth in their midst was not yet openly acknowledged, though it was secretly understood by those with spiritual vision. The pastimes of these childhood years were creating the foundation for the greatest spiritual revolution in the history of consciousness—a revolution that would center on the principle that the infinite could be intimate, that the Supreme could be personal, that absolute transcendence and relative affection were not opposites but expressions of the same reality.