THE STORY OF CHILD’S POSE AND COW-FACE POSE | Lord Krishna and His Cows
BALASANA AND GOMUKHASANA | Child’s/Balarama’s Pose and Cow-Face Pose
Gomukhasana, aka Cow-Face Pose (don’t worry, that sunburn is healed by now, lol)
Sorry for the delay in posting another story! I’ve been sick and also my cat has gone missing, so needless to say I’ve been feeling very down–but I woke up today remembering someone who always makes me feel better: Krishna, the joyful, playful, rascally, trickster of a god, another avatar of Vishnu.
Sri Krishna
There are a few poses named after stories of Lord Krishna, and they involve these other lovely, sacred beings:
Cows <3
If you’ve ever wondered why cows are honored in India, these stories might give you an idea.
Continuing from my last story, after the time-frame of the Ramayana, Vishnu returned to earth in the form of Krishna, on the eve of another great battle that I’ll talk about another day (spoiler: it’s the story told in the Mahabharata/Bhagavad Gita).
What stands out about Krishna is that, throughout his life on earth, he was so light-hearted, so silly, so fun, that people and gods alike often didn’t realize he was a god. When you see images of Krishna, he’s surrounded by peacock feathers (pretty, frivolous things), he’s playing music, he’s dancing, he’s hangin’ with the ladies, he’s in the mix with the common folk–he’s generally having a ball. Krishna shows us how to enjoy the game of life (lila).
Krishna with the gopis (milk-maids)
“Go” means cow in Sanskrit, and from the time Krishna was a baby, he loved his family’s cows. In his youth, Krishna was called “Gopala,” which means “protector of cows,” and later “Govinda,” the “herder of cows.”
As a toddler, Krishna was a lovable rascal–constantly getting into trouble, but making everyone laugh. The cow-milkers, called “gopis” or milk-maids in Krishna’s childhood town, absolutely adored him and his prankster nature. Everyone knew how much Krishna loved to eat butter, and he’d often sneak into the gopi’s homes to steal butter for his less fortunate friends, but the gopis secretly delighted in his visits, feeling honored that he would choose their homes to enter. To this day, Sri Krishna is sometimes referred to as Makhan Chor, or the butter thief. It’s believed that, by making himself punishable, he made himself approachable as a god to humans.
Baby Krishna the butter thief
In a similar story, the child Krishna was out playing with his brother, Balarama, and some friends. Balarama suddenly came running to their mother, accusing Krishna of eating mud. Their mother was horrified, and Krishna tried to play innocent. But when his mother opened Krishna’s mouth to see if there was mud inside, instead, she saw the entire universe there within his throat. She was stunned by the sudden realization of her son’s divinity, and both she and Balarama cowered in fear. On seeing this, Krishna decided, kindly, to return the “veil of motherly love” to his mother’s eyes, so that she would once again only be able to see him as her son, and not as god.
The Universe in Krishna’s Mouth
But Balarama had the strength to serve Krishna as both brother and god. It’s believed to be this moment that gave child’s pose, balasana, its name. Bālā is the Sanskrit word for a very young boy child, but bala (without the extended A’s) means “strength,” and is the root word of Balarama’s name. Different traditions write and say the pose name differently, but either way, it’s generally regarded as referring to Balarama as a young boy hiding from the universe in Krishna’s mouth.
Balasana, aka child’s pose or “Balarama’s Pose”
As a teenager, Krishna continued working the cow-fields with the other boys, and he would play music on his flute for his cows and his friends. It’s said that his family raised 900,000 cows, and that Krishna knew every single one of them by face and name. If one cow would go missing he would venture out until he could guide it home safely with his music. The gopis (milk-maids) fell more and more in love with him, and to this day, they’re upheld as examples of perfect devotees of god. So Krishna spent his youth socializing as friends with all the cow-herders and cow-milkers of Vrindavan.
Seeing how Krishna acted–like a common cow-herder, joking and playing music and dancing–the god Brahma became suspicious about whether Krishna actually was god, or just a poor cow-hand. So the four-headed god Brahma decided to test him. One day, while Krishna was relaxing with his back turned, Brahma flew in and stole all of the cows and cow-herders from Krishna’s pasture and hid them in a cave. Then, he returned to the field to watch Krishna inevitably lose his cool when he noticed his beloved cows were missing.
Brahma hides the cows and herders in a cave
Instead, when Brahma returned to the pasture, all of the cows and gopis and cow-herds were still there, as if nothing had happened. Brahma went back to the cave, and they were there as well. How could they be in two places at once?
It turns out that Krishna had been one step ahead the whole time. Secretly aware of Brahma’s plan, Krishna had duplicated himself many times over, taking on the face of the cows and the workers–and it was these duplicate Krishnas that Brahma had hidden away in the cave, while the original cows remained unharmed in the field.
Krishna duplicating himself
If you look at the yoga pose, gomukhasana, you may see the shape of the cow’s face within it–the knees like a cow’s lips, the arms like its ears (one up, one down). “Go” means “cow” and “Mukha” means face. But this pose is also often related to this story of Krishna taking on the faces of his cows in order to outsmart Brahma. The hands clasped behind the back represent Brahma hiding the cows behind Krishna’s back, the twisted up legs represent the old switcheroo, and all the while, Krishna is straight-faced and open-hearted, with nothing to hide, unaffected by the trickery of life.
Cow-Face Pose (Gomukhasana)
This pose reminds us (and me, right now, sick and sad about my cat) to remain light and open-hearted like Krishna as we face life’s challenges. This light-heartedness is encompassed in the Sanskrit word “lila”–the play of life. When we can see beyond the veil of “maya,” the illusion that clouds our ability to see the ultimate reality of the universe (that we are all divinely interconnected beings), life becomes light and playful. It’s all just a game. We’re all just here to play.
Alright. I’m going to go out and joyfully look for my cat now, as if I’m Krishna guiding a cow home. Send me luck!
————
Most of these stories of Krishna’s youth come from the Vishnu Purana, with some also appearing in the Shrimad Bhagavata Purana and the Mahabharata itself. Please do share versions you’ve heard! And for those wondering, I’ve spent the last 12 years teaching yoga, 9 of those while living in Asia, with the last 6 in Bali studying the Hindu epics with my priestess for the purpose of connecting with the spiritual depths of the practice, and teaching fellow yoga teachers how to weave these stories into their classes.