Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/116

100 were overcome and the other side of the river was reached. There was a cowherd there named Nanda, whose wife Yasoda had brought to bed a female child. Vasudeva placed his son in the daughter’s place, while Yasoda was also under the spell of magic sleep, and quickly returned home carrying away the female child. When Yasoda awoke she found that she had been delivered of a son and she rejoiced at it.

Yasoda’s female child was now placed by Vasudeva in the bed of Devaki, no suspicions being aroused in anybody’s mind. The guards who were set to watch by Kamsa were awakened by the cry of the new-born babe and starting up they sent word at once to their master. Kamsa immediately repaired to the mansion of Vasudeva and seized hold of the infant. In vain did Devaki entreat him to spare her child; but the tyrant ruthlessly dashed it against a stone, when lo! it rose into the sky and expanded into a gigantic form and laughed aloud, striking terror into the on-lookers, and addressed Kamsa in a thundering voice—"What avails it thee, Kamsa, to have thus dashed me down with the belief that thy enemy is destroyed? He is born that shall kill thee, the mighty one