Vrindavan was beautiful, and it had one dead corner. A deep lake of the Yamuna, a full yojana across, black and still as the open sea, sat a krosa north of the cowherd village, and nothing living could go near it. The water was poison. Birds that tried to cross the air above it fell out of the sky; grass that drifted onto its surface burned away in a breath; any animal that drank from it by mistake dropped where it stood. Even the gods kept their distance. A ring of poisoned trees smoked around its banks, and the sages who wanted the river for their morning water had to go elsewhere. To the people of Vraja that lake was a door into death, and they had learned to pretend it was not there.

The lake belonged to Kaliya, king of serpents, and he had come to the Yamuna from the sea. Garuda, the great bird who feeds on snakes, had frightened him out of the ocean, and in this deep pool Kaliya had found a kingdom no one would enter. His venom had fouled the whole reach of the river. Down in that dark water he lived without fear, certain that nothing in the world could stand against his poison, and that certainty had grown into the deepest intoxication in him, the arrogance that assumes the whole world must bow to its power.

The poisoned lake, and the leap

One day, grazing the cattle along the river, Krishna came to the edge of that lake and stood looking into it. He knew whose water this was. He remembered the story of the serpent who had abandoned the sea rather than face Garuda and had come inland to poison a river instead, and he understood at once why no bird crossed here and no child played on these banks. This was exactly the kind of creature he had come into the world to break. He had taken birth among the cowherds and lived as one of them for this, to clear the wicked out of the places they had made unlivable. The water of the Yamuna belonged to the people of Vraja and to their cattle, and he meant to give it back to them.

He tied his cloth tight, climbed the tall kadamba that leaned over the bank, and went up to the very top. Then he let out a roar like a lion and threw himself headlong into the black pool. The water heaved and flew up on every side like torn cloud. Far below, the serpent’s lair shook with the sound. On the bank the cowherd boys saw only the surface close over him, and they turned and ran for the village, crying that the snake had taken Krishna. Nanda and Yashoda and the whole of Vraja came pouring down to the water, and when they saw the dead black lake and no sign of the boy, the strength went out of their legs.

A dance on the hoods

Down in the depths Kaliya woke. Someone had come into his kingdom, into his poison, and dared him. He rose through the water cloud-dark and furious, his eyes red, his five hoods spread and burning like fire, five vast faces breaking the surface above the pool. The water seemed to boil around him, and the Yamuna herself shrank back and ran the other way. His son and his servant-serpents rose with him, spitting venom and smoke, and together they wound their coils around Krishna until he could not move a hand or a foot. He stood among them still as a mountain. Their poison broke against him and did him no harm.

On the bank the grief turned to open wailing. The women cried out to Yashoda that her son was in the coils of the serpent king, and Nanda stood at the edge like a man who had lost his mind, his eyes fixed on the water. Only Balarama did not weep. He alone knew what his brother was, and he called across to him, steady and a little sharp: end this now, brother, these people are grieving because they take you for a mortal child.

At his brother’s word Krishna moved. He stretched, the coils that held him snapped like wet thread, and in the same motion he was up out of the water and onto the hoods. He caught hold of one great head with his hands, forced himself up onto the middle hood of the five, and began to dance. It was a dance in the fullest sense, weight and rhythm and perfect balance, and under his heels the burning hoods went pale and began to bleed. With every beat the venom was pressed out of the serpent, and with the venom went the arrogance. Kaliya began to choke. Blood and poison ran together from his mouths, and he understood at last that the boy standing on his heads was altogether beyond his power.

A life spared, and one condition

Then Kaliya himself spoke, and his voice came broken. Krishna, he said, I raised my anger against you without knowing you. Now you have beaten me and my venom is gone. Spare my life, and tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it, I and my wife and my children and my people. Krishna heard him out and answered with no anger left in him at all.

I will not have you living in this water of the Yamuna any longer, Krishna told him. Go back to the ocean, and take your wife and your kinsmen with you. None of your sons or your servants is to be seen again in this water or on this land. Let the river be wholesome for everyone now. And do not fear Garuda in the sea: when he sees the print of my feet on your heads, he will let you live. Kaliya bowed, and carrying the marks of Krishna’s feet on his hoods he slipped away out of the lake in front of all the watching cowherds, and with his whole clan he made for the deep sea he had once fled.

The water cleared. Birds crossed the air above it again, and the cattle came down to the landing stairs to drink. Krishna walked up out of the pool onto the bank, and the milkmen crowded around him and circled him and sang, half understanding what they had seen, sensing the fire in him the way you sense fire buried under ash. From that day they held him as the refuge of Vraja and the protector of their herds. Here again the same truth held: Krishna drew off the poison and the pride, gave Kaliya his life, and sent him home to the sea he had once fled.

Source: Harivamsha (the khila-parva of the Mahabharata), Vishnu Parva, chapters 55 to 56; critical edition (P. L. Vaidya, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune). Told as story, following the original sequence of events.