Makhan Chor Leela: Krishna the butter thief of Braj

Where the story comes from

The Bhagavata Purana tells the butter stories in its tenth canto. The complaints of the gopis and the little thefts appear in chapter 8, around verses 28 to 31, and Yashoda's binding of the child is the subject of chapter 9, called Mother Yashoda Binds Lord Krishna. Much of the colour that Braj adds, the songs and the names of friends, comes from the devotional poets who followed.

Where a detail below is from local telling and not from the verses themselves, the text will say so, so that the story can be enjoyed without confusion.

The thief who was never caught

In Nanda's village every house churned its own butter, and every pot was hung from the ceiling to keep it from the cats. The gopis would come to Yashoda with complaints: the pot was broken, the curd was gone, even the calves had been let loose before milking time. The Bhagavatam describes how the boy found his way into a dark room and reached the hanging curd and milk, with his friends helping.

Local tradition adds the monkeys. Krishna, it is said, would feed them butter too, and when he was found out he would say that he was only sharing. A story that is told lightly in every Braj home says that he wiped his hands on a sleeping calf to hide the evidence.

Earth in the mouth

One day his friends ran to Yashoda and said that Krishna had eaten mud. She came and asked him to open his mouth. The Bhagavatam tells that in the mouth she saw the whole universe, with all its worlds and stars, in verses that follow just after the butter complaints in the same chapter 8.

Her love, however, did not allow her to hold on to the vision for long. The Lord, in his mercy, drew a veil over her memory, and she took him in her lap as only a mother can. This is the heart of the Braj mood: God as a child, and the mother who forgets, gladly, that he is God.

Yashoda and the rope

In chapter 9, Yashoda herself is churning butter when the boy comes crying for milk. She leaves the pot on the fire to feed him, and in her absence the milk boils over. He, annoyed, breaks the churning pot and runs off to eat the butter in secret.

She finds him and decides to tie him to a heavy wooden mortar. But every rope falls short by two finger-widths (verses 15 and 16). When she is nearly worn out, he allows himself to be bound. The Bhagavatam says that he was bound by her love, not by the rope. From this lila comes the name Damodar, the one with a rope around his belly.

The mortar and the two trees

The child, tied to the mortar, crawled between two arjuna trees and pulled until they fell, setting free two shining beings who had been cursed by the sage Narada to stand as trees. The villagers heard the crash and found the boy laughing between the fallen trunks. This is told in chapter 10.

The spot is shown in Gokul as Okhal. Local tradition at Mahavan says the courtyard of Nanda's house of 84 pillars was where the trees stood. The age of the pillars is not documented, so it is best enjoyed as a story told by the place.

Where the story lives now

Nand Bhawan, with its cradle, and Gokulnath ji, the Pushtimarg haveli, are the principal places for the butter stories. Mahavan's Chaurasi Khamba is a short drive away. Both feel best on a quiet weekday morning, when the lanes are calm and the old women are still at their doors.

Many Braj temples offer butter and sugar candy, makhan misri, as prasad in honour of this leela, and Janmashtami and Nandotsav bring special offerings. Ask at the shop what was made that day.

Why children (and elders) never tire of it

The butter leela asks nothing of the listener. You need not know Sanskrit, nor any philosophy. A mother who has chased a naughty child through a courtyard understands it fully.

It is also the first lesson of the yatra: that the divine is not far away on a throne, but near, mischievous and willing to be caught by love.

Questions, answered