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it came to pass, year after year, at the end of the hot weather/ that the cowherds of Brindaban would offer a great sacrifice to Indra, God of the Sky and King of Deities. And this sacrifice, it was believed, availed to make Him send the yearly rains, and was efficacious also to make Him restrain them, that they should not be sufficient to wash away the forests and make the Jumna overflow her banks. But on a certain year it happened that the Lad Krishna noticed thepreparations that were being made for this sacrifice. And His heart was hot within Him, for He was born to put an end to the worship of Indra and the weather-deities, and to establish in its place, faith in Narayan, God Himself, Lord of the souls, not of the fortunes of men. The Youth Krishna therefore reasoned with Nanda, His foster-father, and with the other cowherds, urging them to realise that good harvests or bad came to them out of their own destiny, the fruit of causes long past,

the beginning of October.
 * The hot weather in northern India means the months of May
 * nd June. In July begin the heavy tropica] rains, which last until