There was a mystery in Gokul. Butter kept disappearing.
It did not seem to matter where the women kept it. They stored their freshly churned butter inside the house. They hung the pots high above the floor. They tried placing them where small hands surely could not reach. Still, somehow, the butter disappeared.
And there was one little boy whom everyone suspected. Krishna.
Krishna loved butter. More importantly, he seemed to love the adventure of getting to it. If a pot was too high, that simply made things more interesting. Friends could help. Furniture could be climbed. And if there was more butter than one little boy could possibly eat, there were always monkeys nearby who were very happy to assist.
One morning, Krishna was with his mother, Yashoda, while she churned butter. Suddenly, she noticed that milk she had left heating was about to boil over. Yashoda quickly put Krishna down and hurried away to save it.
Krishna was not impressed. His mother had left him for a pot of milk.
Soon, the freshly churned butter caught his attention. By the time Yashoda returned, a butter pot had been broken. Krishna was nowhere to be seen.
Yashoda looked around the house and eventually found him standing on an overturned wooden mortar. He had reached another pot of butter and was happily sharing its contents with the monkeys.
Then Krishna noticed his mother. Yashoda was coming towards him. He ran. She ran after him. Around the house went Krishna, with Yashoda close behind. The boy who could cause endless trouble was still small enough to run away from his mother when he knew he had been caught.
Eventually, Yashoda caught him. She decided to tie him to the wooden mortar so that, perhaps, he might stay out of trouble for a little while.
She brought a piece of rope. It was too short. So she tied another piece to it. Still too short. She added more. Again, it was not enough. Yashoda kept trying until she was tired. Then, finally, Krishna allowed himself to be tied.
For generations, people have loved this Krishna — not only the Krishna of great battles and teachings, but the little boy with butter on his hands, monkeys for accomplices and a mother chasing him through the house.
