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BIRTH OF RAMA, KṚṢŅA, AND ARISTANEMI
somewhat slow, Bala spoke harshly, for the sake of a prologue to the story of the murder of Govinda's brothers, "Say, have you forgotten now your former state as a slave that you do not carry out our order quickly?" Sātvata (Rama), devoted, took Kṛṣṇa, who was pale at that speech, to the river Yamuna for his bath.
He said to him, "Why, my boy, do you appear pale, like a mirror touched by the wind and cloud of the rainy season?" Govinda said to Baladeva in choking words, "Why do you speak contemptuously to my mother, brother, saying to her, 'You are a slave'?" Rāma said to Janardana who was pleasing_to_women: Yasoda is not your mother and Nanda is not your father. But Devaki, King Devaka's daughter, is your mother; and Vasudeva, the sole hero of the universe, fortunate, is your father. Every month Devaki comes here to see you under pretext of cow-worship, tearful, the surface of the ground being sprinkled from her breasts.
Vasudeva, who has stayed in Mathura at Kansa's insistence, is our father, the sole ocean of gallantry. I am your elder brother with a different mother. I came here at the order of the honored father to protect you as he feared some misfortune to you." Asked by the younger brother, Why was I sent here by father?" he told the whole story of the brothers' murder, et cetera, committed by Kansa.
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Hearing that, Kṛṣṇa was angered and, cruel as a fire, vowed to kill Kansa. He entered the river to bathe. Kaliya, a serpent, his body submerged in the Kälindi's water, attacked Janardana, like a friend of Kansa, intending to bite him. While Rāma was saying, "What's this?" because of the glitter of the jewel in his hood, Kṛṣṇa rose up and seized it like a blue lotus. Kṛṣṇa mounted the snake and rode it for a long time in the water by a lotus-stalk in its nose like an ox being led by a nose-cord. Leaving it crushed as if lifeless, Kṛṣṇa left (the river) and was surrounded by Brahmans who had come from curiosity, asking whether the bath had been auspicious. Surrounded by cowherds, Rāma and Kṛṣṇa, very powerful, went to Mathurā
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