a great passion, she said to him, "Now, you naughty boy, get away from hence if you can." She then went about her domestic affairs. As soon as she had departed, the lotus-eyed Krishńa, endeavouring to extricate himself, pulled the mortar after him to the space between two Arjuna trees that grew near together: having dragged the mortar between these trees, it became wedged awry there, and as Krishńa pulled it through, it pulled down the trunks of the trees. Hearing the crackling noise, the people of Vraja came to see what was the matter, and there they beheld the two large trees, with shattered stems and broken branches, prostrate on the ground, with the child fixed between them, with a rope round his belly, laughing, and shewing his white little teeth, just budded. It is hence that Krishńa is called Dámodara, from the binding of the rope (dáma) round his belly (udara) 3. The elders of the cowherds, with Nanda at their head, looked upon these circumstances with alarm, considering them as of evil omen. "We cannot remain in this place," said they; "let us go to some other part of the forest; for here many evil signs threaten us with destruction; the death of Pútaná, the upsetting of the waggon, and the fall of the trees without their being blown down by the wind. Let us depart hence without delay, and go to Vrindávana, where terrestrial prodigies may no more disturb us."

Having thus resolved, the inhabitants of Vraja communicated their intention to their families, and desired them to move without delay. Accordingly they set off with their waggons and their cattle, driving before them their bulls and cows and calves; the fragments of their household stores they threw away, and in an instant Vraja was overspread with flights of crows. Vrindávana was chosen by Krishńa, whom acts do not affect, for the sake of providing for the nourishment of the

kine; for there in the hottest season the new grass springs up as verdantly as in the rains. Having repaired, then, from Vraja to Vrindávana, the inhabitants of the former drew up their waggons in the form of a crescent 4.

As the two boys, Ráma and Dámodara, grew up, they were ever together in the same place, and engaged in the same boyish sports. They made themselves crests of the peacocks' plumes, and garlands of forest flowers, and musical instruments of leaves and reeds, or played upon the pipes used by the cowherds: their hair was trimmed like the wings of the crow 5, and they resembled two young princes, portions of the deity of war: they were robust, and they roamed about, always laughing and playing, sometimes with each other, sometimes with other boys; driving along with the young cowherds the calves to pasture. Thus the two guardians of the world were keepers of cattle, until they had attained seven years of age, in the cow-pens of Vrindavan.