Gopāṣṭamī
By Swāmī Śrī Bhaktivedānta Tripurari, excerpted from Circle of Friends.
A most auspicious day arrived unbeknown to everyone but nonetheless evident in the spirit of Kṛṣṇa’s friends. When they arrived at Nandagrāma as usual, there was a spontaneous determination in the air among them: today they would herd cows with Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. Balarāma, who had been awake with anticipation long before dawn, approved of this shared ambition. By now Rāma had attained a definite sense of leadership among the young gopas that had begun to manifest as a result of contemplating all that had occurred in his absence, starting from the liberation of Agha and ending with the epiphany and prayers of Brahmā. He developed, that is, a sense of responsibility for all of them and for Kṛṣṇa in particular that peaked on this day, at this very hour—the break of dawn.
The young sun, now rising from its bed of the eastern horizon to the chirping of birds, was about to begin wandering with its rays through the sky, illuminating the cowherd kingdom. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa, the uncaused cause behind nature, rose from his bed to the clamor of his friends, who called upon him to wander with cows throughout the forests of Vraja, shedding a light of certainty on the perpetuity of the clan of cowherds and their dharma of go-sevā. Today Kṛṣṇa would become a cow-herder!
O dear friend, wake up, wake up! O moon of Gokula.
The moon with faults, ashamed of your beauty, has departed.
And as the morning birds sing,
“Victory to the dawn, heralder of the sun,”
victory, too, to you, O son of Nanda. The cows await you.
Indeed, on this day the cows curiously refused to let down their milk, much less budge from their pens to their pasture. Somehow it became clear that without the lead of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, they would do neither. This was brought to Nanda Rāja’s attention, who hurried to the cow pens as if hightailing like a herd bull, energized as he was by this news and his newfound joy in the conviction that the time had come for Kṛṣṇa to herd his cows.
Meanwhile, Kṛṣṇa’s priya-sakhās, themselves eager to herd, insisted that they forgo their morning exercise and athletics in the courtyard and proceed with speed to the milking shed. Once there, Kṛṣṇa approached a seasoned and steady white cow and proceeded to milk her just as he had seen his elders do. Placing the pail between his legs after allowing her calf to drink, he milked her as though he had performed this sevā every day of his life. Lost at sea in a milk ocean of ecstasy, he and his friends milked out the entire herd and sent them out into a corralled pasture. They then discussed the still-unresolved concerns of Rohiṇī and Yaśodā and spoke excitedly among one another about exploring much deeper into Vraja’s forests than they had to date, determined to prove their competence and thus dispel their mothers’ concerns.
However, upon arriving back home, Kṛṣṇa, dispensing with any and all preplanned tact, simply blurted out with great emotion, “Mother, today I will herd the cows throughout the forests of Vraja.” She replied, “Son, your father owns more than nine hundred thousand cows, and under his expert management, many assistants are engaged and well paid. You are the only son of a king, not an ordinary cow-herder, and thus there is no need for you to take up such laborious duties, glorious as they may be, what to speak of wandering throughout the deep, dark, and dangerous forests of Vraja!”
As if Kṛṣṇa was Prince Siddhartha, Yaśodārāṇī desired to keep her son within the confines of her cowherd palace and curtail even his calf-herding, lest he opt, as now seemed ever more likely, for a life in the forest. What would that lead to? Nirvāṇa is nowhere! But while Kṛṣṇa had no interest in nirvāṇa, he could not live without (nir) the forest (vana) of Vṛndāvana. Oh, if only Buddha with all of his wisdom had become a cowherd!
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