their hospitality. They
must now go home as their presence is needed for the sacrifices and their
husbands must still be waiting. So cool an answer dismays the women and
they say, 'Great king, we loved your lotus-like face. We came to you
despite our families. They tried to stop us but we ignored them. If they
do not take us back, where shall we go? And one of us, prevented by her
husband, gave her life rather than not see you.' At this Krishna smiles,
reveals the woman and says, 'Whoever loves God never dies. She was here
before you.' Krishna then eats the food and assuring them that their
husbands will say nothing, sends them back to Mathura. When they arrive,
they find the Brahmans chastened and contrite--cursing their folly in
having failed to recognize Krishna as God and envious of their wives for
having seen him and given him food.

Having humbled the Brahmans, Krishna now turns to the gods, choosing
Indra, their chief, for attack. The moment is his annual worship when the
cowherds offer sweets, rice, saffron, sandal and incense. Seeing them
busy, Krishna asks Nanda what is the point of all their preparations. What
good can Indra really do? he asks. He is only a god, not God himself. He
is often worsted by demons and abjectly put to flight. In fact he has no
power at all. Men prosper because of their virtues or their fates, not
because of Indra. As cowherds, their business is to carry on agriculture
and trade and to tend cows and Brahmans. Their earliest books, the Vedas,
require them not to abandon their family customs and Krishna then cites as
an ancient practice the custom of placating the spirits of the forests and
hills. This custom, he says, they have wrongly superseded in favour of
Indra and they must now revive it. Nanda sees the force of Krishna's
remarks and holds a meeting. 'Do not brush aside his words as those of a
mere boy,' he says. 'If we face the facts, we have really nothing to do
with the ruler of the gods. It is on the forests, rivers and the great
hill, Govardhana, that we really depend.' The cowherds applaud this
advice, resolve to abandon the gods and in their place to worship the
mountain, Govardhana. The worship of the hill is then performed. Krishna
advises the cowherds to shut their eyes and the spirit of the hill will
then show itself. He then assumes the spirit's form himself, telling Nanda
and the cowherds that in response to their worship the mountain spirit has
appeared. The cowherds