The serpent Kaliya had made his home in a deep pool of the Yamuna, and his venom had turned the water black. Birds that flew above it fell dead, cattle that drank from it did not rise again, and the people of Vrindavan learned to walk the long way around the river they had always loved.

One day, while playing ball on the bank, Krishna let the ball fall into that pool, and before anyone could stop him he climbed the kadamba tree and leapt in after it. The water boiled. Kaliya rose with his hundred hoods spread and wound his coils around the boy, and on the shore the gopas and gopis wept, believing him lost.

Then Krishna grew, and grew, until the serpent could not hold him, and he rose onto the great hoods and began to dance. With every step the weight of the whole world came down upon them, and Kaliya, broken, began at last to sing praises with his many mouths. His wives, the Naga wives, came weeping and begged for his life. Krishna spared him, and told him to leave the Yamuna and go with his family to the ocean, and to carry the mark of these feet upon his hoods so that even Garuda, his ancient enemy, would not touch him again.

The Moral

Kaliya is not killed, he is moved and marked. The story says that what poisons a life is rarely destroyed by force; it is confronted, made to bow, and then sent to a place where it can do no harm. And notice where the mercy comes from: the serpent is spared when those who love him plead for him. Even the venom in us has someone praying on its behalf, and the divine dances upon it not to end it but to make it sing.

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