"Have you seen the son of Nanda?"

"I have never seen such a beautiful child in my life."

"It is not just that he is beautiful. Watching him is such a beautiful feeling."

When the cowherds heard the birth of the son of Nanda, they were overjoyed. They just could not stop talking.

There was a grand celebration and it was believed that Nanda gifted two million cows in alms at the occasion.

Rohini, another wife of Vasudeva and the mother of Balarama had also come to the occasion and she was looking after the guests who had come to Nanda's home.

In that beautifully happy occasion, the people just could not stop watching the new born baby.

He was black – darker than the night itself and his eyes were expressively beautiful and no one – not one person could take their eyes off their child. Once anyone laid eyes on Nanda's child, they could hardly see anything else.

Sage Garga was a great sage of the Vrishnis.

Just before the naming ceremony of his son, Sage Garga had come to the home of Nanda.

Nanda was pleased, but he invited the sage and looked after him well.

"It is going to be the naming ceremony of my son, sir." Nanda said with quiet pride. "I think your arrival just before that time is very auspicious." He looked at the sage with slight anxiety. "Can you just look at the horoscopes of the children and suggest names for them?"

The sage shook his head slowly. "Kamsa is on the lookout for young children. I have heard about his plans. If he hears that I am performing the ceremony for the children here, he may grow suspicious."

Nanda frowned. "Then please narrate the mantras in secret."

Sage Garga agreed to this.

First he looked at the horoscope of the older boy – the son of Rohini. "This boy will be extremely charming – so he should be called Rama. (Rama means someone of a very charming nature) He will be extremely strong so he should be also called "Bala" (Bala means physically very strong.) So this child should be called Balarama."

Rohini who was listening to the words of the sage smiled.

Garga continued. "This child marks a meeting between the family of Nanda and Vasudeva – so this child should also be called as "Sankarshana"."

Everyone was very happy as the sage looked at the horoscope of the other child. "This child is special." Garga said in a glowing voice. "He has qualities which I have never seen before. He is dark in colour, so he should be called as Krishna."

Yashoda lifted the young baby and smiled at it as Garga nodded to himself. "This child needs to be called Vasudeva."

All of them blinked at the sage, but the sage did not say that this child was the son of Vasudeva and hence should be called as such.

The sage had glowing words to be said about the younger child. In the end he had a word of caution. "This child needs to be brought up with great care and caution."

And during the naming ceremony, because he was dark, the child was named Krishna – meaning the Dark One.

*******

After the function was over, Nanda called up his people and asked them to guard the villages and collected the money he had received as taxes because the same had to be deposited to Kamsa. (There are two curious things about this particular description – one that Nanda felt the need to call on his people to protect the village – which meant that they either forsaw trouble – whether this trouble is from Kamsa or some other source, is left to our imagination.

Secondly, the payment of tax was made to Kamsa. So that meant that the Yadavas had accepted Kamsa as their ruler, which was why they were paying the taxes to him. And as an answer to the previous question, probably the taxes was paid as a form of protection – so that Kamsa did not invade their lands.)

After meeting Kamsa and paying the money to him, Nanda met Vasudeva.

Vasudeva worriedly enquired about the well-being of his wife Rohini and his son – Balarama and looked like he regretted not being around to watch Balarama grow up.

At no point does Vasudeva enquire about Nanda's son during the entire talk.

Within a very short talk, Vasudeva bade goodbye to Nanda saying that there were disturbances all over the kingdom and that Nanda needed to get back home as soon as possible.

******

It was around this time that a spot of worry started for Yashoda.

She had left Krishna under a bullock cart.

She had many guests in her home and she was busy attending to them.

The baby cried for attention but his mother was preoccupied to attend to him. That was when without any warning the baby kicked the cart.

Astonishingly, the cart broke – piece by piece.

The people in Gokul were worried with the incident. None of them believed that Krishna could have kicked the cart and they thought that this was the work of some demons.

They performed some more ceremonies to ward off the evil around their village.