Krishna and the Stolen Butter

In Gokul, every morning brought the same complaint.

"Yashoda! Your Kanha has emptied my butter pot again."

So Yashoda hung the pots high on a swinging shelf. Kanha built a ladder out of his friends — one boy on another's shoulders — and the pot came down from there too. He never ate it alone: some went to his friends, and some to the monkeys sitting on the roof.

One day Yashoda caught him red-handed. Butter on his face, pot in his hands.

"What is this?" she demanded.

Kanha answered with perfect calm: "Maiya, I did not steal anything. This is Braj's butter, and I belong to Braj too. And look — I didn't even eat it alone. I fed the monkeys."

Yashoda laughed, then remembered she was supposed to be scolding. She picked up a rope and went to tie him to the heavy grinding mortar.

The rope fell two fingers short.

She knotted on a second rope. Two fingers short again. A third, a fourth, every rope in the house tied end to end — and every time, exactly two fingers too little.

At last she stood there exhausted, her hair loose, her face damp. And then Kanha smiled and let himself be tied. The one no rope could bind was bound the moment his mother grew tired. From that day he carried a new name — Damodara, the one with a cord around his belly.

For little hearts: Kanha stole butter, but he always shared it. And God is not bound by force — only by love.