Little Krishna, butter still on his mouth, argues his innocence to his mother. It's one of the funniest and tenderest songs in Braj poetry.
Sung by Anup Jalota · Red Ribbon Musik on YouTube
It plays from YouTube, so ads may appear.
Tap any word for its meaning.
maiya mori main nahin makhan khayo
Mother, my mother, I did not eat the butter.
Stories of the child Krishna stealing butter from the homes of Braj, and of the women complaining to Yashoda, are told in the Bhagavata Purana. Surdas's poems turn those episodes into the child's own voice.
Source: Bhagavata Purana, Book 10
bhor bhayo gaiyan ke pachhe Madhuvan mohin pathayo
At dawn you sent me off to Madhuvan, walking behind the cows.
char pahar Bansibat bhatakyo sanjh pare ghar aayo
I wandered around the flute banyan all day, and only came home when evening fell.
main balak bahinyan ko chhoto chhinko kihi bidhi payo
I'm a little boy with little arms. How could I reach the pot hanging up there?
gwal baal sab bair pare hain barbas mukh laptayo
All the cowherd boys have it in for me. They smeared it on my mouth by force.
tu janani man ki ati bhori inke kahe patiayo
Mother, you are too trusting. You believe what they tell you.
jiy tere kachhu bhed upaji hai jani parayo jayo
Something must have come between us in your heart, as if you thought I was someone else's child.
Krishna's accusation has a hidden edge, because it is true. In the story he is born to Devaki and Vasudeva in prison at Mathura and carried by night to Yashoda and Nanda in Gokul. The listener knows that, and Yashoda doesn't.
Source: Bhagavata Purana, Book 10
yah lai apni lakuti kamariya bahutahin nach nachayo
Here, take your herding stick and blanket back. You've run me around quite enough.
Surdas tab bihansi Jasoda lai ur kanth lagayo
Surdas says: then Yashoda burst out laughing and hugged him to her chest.
Ask your elders
“When you were little, what is the best excuse you ever gave your mother, and did she believe you?”
This is the voice of a small child caught out. Krishna insists to his mother Yashoda that he didn't eat the butter, offers an alibi, blames his friends, and then, when that doesn't work, goes for her heart. The poem is loved because any parent has heard this argument.
The song is sung in the name of Surdas, a 16th-century poet of Krishna devotion, and is usually placed with the huge collection called the Sursagar. But attribution of individual Surdas padas is uncertain. Scholars such as John Stratton Hawley have shown the collection kept growing for centuries: the oldest dated manuscript, from 1582, has only a few hundred poems, while later editions run to thousands. We have not traced this one to an early manuscript. Other poems with nearly the same opening also go under his name.
It is written in Braj Bhasha, the speech of the Mathura and Vrindavan region, which was one of the main languages of North Indian poetry for centuries. Its forms are close to Hindi but not the same: khāyo for khāyā, morī for merī, bhorī for bholī. Printings differ on small spellings too.