We now return to the narrative of the "Vishnu Purana." The river Yamuna was the home of the serpent Kaliya, who made its waters boil with the fires of passion, so that the trees on its banks were blighted by its fumes, and birds were killed by its heat. Krishna, seeing how his friends at Vrindavana were inconvenienced by this, plunged into the stream, to the dismay of the cowherds, and, after challenging the serpent to fight, was

about to slay him. Moved, however, by the intercession of the lady serpents, he allowed him to live on condition that he and his family forsook the Yamuna, and took up their abode in, the sea.

On one occasion Krishna wished to annoy Indra. Seeing the Gopas (cowherds) preparing to worship the giver of rain, he dissuaded them from it, and urged them rather to worship the mountain that supplied their cattle with food, and their cattle that yielded them milk. Acting upon this advice, they presented to the mountain Govarddhana "curds, milk, and flesh." This was merely a device by which Krishna diverted the worship of Indra to himself; for "upon the summit of the mountain Krishna appeared, saying, 'I am the mountain,' and partook of much food presented by the Gopas; whilst in his own form as Krishna he ascended the hill along with the cowherds, and worshipped his other self." Having promised them many blessings, the mountain-person of Krishna vanished. Indra, greatly incensed at the disregard shown him by Nanda and others, sent floods to destroy them and their cattle; but Krishna, raising the mountain Govarddhana aloft on one hand, held it as an umbrella and thus sheltered his friends from the storm for seven days and nights. Indra then visited Krishna and praised him for what he had done; and his wife Indrani entreated Krishna to be a friend of their son Arjuna.

Krishna did not by any means confine his attention to the wants of the cowherds amongst whom he spent his early days. On one occasion Satrajit, a worshipper of the Sun, who had received from his lord a magnificent jewel named Syamantaka, came to visit Krishna at Dwaraka, adorned with his jewel, which shone so brightly that the inhabitants thought the Sun himself

was present. It was a most marvellous gem, for its possessor received through it "eight loads of gold daily, and was free from all fear of portents, wild beasts, fire,

Click to enlarge
KRISHNA HOLDING UP MOUNT GOVARDDHANA.

robbers, and famine;" but there was this strange condition attached to its possession: "although it was an inexhaustible source of good to a virtuous person, when