When Mother Yasoda saw that her son had used his might to turn over a mortar and then sit on it and give away butter to the monkey, she was surprised and smiled mildly.
In order to catch her son who had acted like a thief, she sneaked towards him. However, he saw her coming from a distance and quickly ran away. It is a well known fact that a thief has hundreds of eyes whereas a custodian has only two.
The proud monkey, who by now was fully satisfied by the butter he had received, suddenly saw Mother Yasoda coming towards him with a stick wrapped in a cloth in her hand, so he quickly climbed up on a tree branch.
Seeing her son also running away, Mother Yasoda started chasing him, and the flowers bound in her hair scattered everywhere. "Where do you think you're running away to, O king of thieves?" Hearing this, Krishna simultaneously cried mildly while displaying a beautiful smile.
Although she was running close to him, she could not catch him, just as a huge mass of clouds in the west blown eastward by the winds cannot catch up to a small cloud situated in the east.
Looking at a particular gate and thinking that this is not a gate used by Mother Yasoda, Krishna ran swiftly in that direction. Mother Yasoda too followed him, into places where no one was present. When Krishna ran without looking behind, he could not be caught by his mother. However, when he fearfully looked behind, she quickly caught him by the hand.
As soon as this happened, the two eyes of Krishna became moist and thus assisted him in trying to find a way out of the situation by attempting to mitigate the anger of Mother Yasoda. He also manifested trembling in his body in order to protect his misbehavior.
Whenever Mother Yasoda tried to forcibly pull his face towards her, he hid it, concealing the butter there, so that she would think his face was clean.
Thereafter, she instilled fear in him by saying, "Before you steal in your own home, take a look at this!", and showed him the stick. However, seeing that her lotus-eyed son was terrified, the queen of Vraja then gave up the stick.
Their conversation thereafter was as follows:
"Mother! Please do not beat me with that stick."
"You're a thief! You're a thief! Not only that, you're the king of all thieves!"
"Thieves are born in the family of your father, not mine!"
Hearing her son speak in such a clever way, Yasoda smiled.
Thereafter:
"How did the pot containing the yogurt break?"
"It's a punishment inflicted by the Supreme Lord."
"Who gave the ghee to that monkey?" "He who created the monkey!"
While chastising him like this, Mother Yasoda said, "I have a doubt about why it is that you always take away and eat this butter, which is an important part of all sacrifices," and then became choked with emotion.
Thereafter, she smiled in an angry way and told Krishna, "Give up all your secrecy, and tell me the truth!"
Krishna then started crying and replied, "O Mother! When you ran for protecting the milk from boiling over, your foot pushed over one of the pots and broke it. What mischief have I done in that? Moreover, that monkey, who was inspired by the Supreme Lord himself, started stealing butter from our home. When I was taking back the butter from him, you saw me. Now tell me, what mischief have I done in that? Seeing that you were carrying that heavy stick in your hands, I had no option but to run away. However, you still continued running after me like a heartless person."
Thereafter, Mother Yasoda, lamenting her actions a little, said sincerely to her son, "O most expert logician! O best amongst all thieves! Although you are the son of Vrajaraj Nanda Maharaja, you still show affection for the monkeys. Your nature is just like a monkey. Maybe you should stay in the forest."
Krishna replied, "If you think that I am like a monkey, then so be it! From today I shall go to the forest and live with them."
Hearing this, Mother Yasoda thought "He might end up doing exactly that. In order to prevent him from escaping to the forest, it is better to tie him up." In this way, Mother Yasoda tied her son to the mortar. ·
[ Srila Jiva Goswami's Gopal Champu, eighth purana. Translated by Hari Parshad Das, from the Sanskrit available at http://www.granthamandira.com ]
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