and infancy have been passed among the
cowherds, this was due to special reasons. His father's substitution of
him at birth for Yasoda's baby daughter was dictated by the dire perils
which would have confronted him had he remained with his mother. It was,
at most, a desperate expedient for saving his life and although the
tyrant's unremitting search for the child who was to kill him prolonged
his stay in Brindaban, his transportation there was never intended as a
permanent arrangement. A deception has been practised. Nanda and Yasoda
regard and believe Krishna to be their son. None the less there has been
no formal adoption and it is Vasudeva and Devaki who are his parents.

It is this which decides the issue. As one who by birth and blood belongs
to Mathura, Krishna can hardly desert it now that the main obstacle to his
return--the tyrant Kansa--has been removed. His plain duty is to his
parents and his castemen. Painful therefore as the severance must be, he
decides to abandon the cowherds and see them no more. He is perhaps
fortified in his decision by the knowledge that even in his relations with
the cowgirls a climax has been reached. A return would merely repeat their
nightly ecstasies, not achieve a fresh experience. Finally although Kansa
himself has been killed, his demon allies are still at large. Mathura and
Krishna's kinsmen, the Yadavas, are far from safe. He can hardly desert
them until their interests have been permanently safeguarded and by then
he will have become a feudal princeling, the very reverse of the young
cowherd who night after night has thrilled the cowgirls with his flute.

Following the tyrant's death, then, a train of complicated adjustments are
set in motion. The first step is to re-establish Krishna with his true
parents who are still in jail where the tyrant has confined them. Krishna
accordingly goes to visit them, frees them from their shackles and stands
before them with folded hands. For an instant Vasudeva and Devaki know
that Krishna is God and that in order to destroy demons he has come on
earth. They are about to worship him when Krishna dispels this knowledge
and they look on him and Balarama as their sons. Then Krishna addresses
them. For all these long years Vasudeva and Devaki have known that Krishna
and Balarama were their children and have suffered accordingly. It was not
Krishna's fault that he and Balarama were placed in Nanda's charge. Yet
although parted from their mot