Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.26.4
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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tokena
—
by the young child
Instrumental of toka (infant). Bhāgavatam stresses the infancy because it makes the deed unaccountable in worldly terms — a child without teeth dispatches a witch with limitless strength. Aiśvarya inside the smallest form of mādhurya.
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ā-mīlita
—
almost closed
Prefix ā (almost) + mīlita (closed). The eyes are barely open — Kṛṣṇa is not even fully looking at His enemy. Gauḍīyas read this as the supreme aiśvarya gesture concealed inside infant helplessness.
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pūtanāyāḥ
—
of the witch Pūtanā
Genitive of Pūtanā. Her name from pūtana — one who purifies (ironic) or one who is purified (Gauḍīya reading). Viśvanātha Cakravartī teaches she received the destination of Yaśodā's co-wives among Kṛṣṇa's nurses.
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kālena
—
by the force of time
Instrumental of kāla. Kāla is one of Kṛṣṇa's energies — His destructive feature. The verse declares the infant and Time to be the same agent in different scales, a perfect Bhāgavata teaching of bhedābheda.
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vayaḥ
—
the life span
Vayaḥ means the bloom of life. Time drinks vayaḥ from every embodied jīva; the infant drinks it from Pūtanā in one feeding. The simile is not loose — both are the same act of the same Person.
The word vayaḥ in this verse indicates youth or life span in general. With irresistible power, time takes away our life, and that time is actually Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself. Thus in the case of the powerful witch Pūtanā, Lord Kṛṣṇa accelerated the time process and within an instant withdrew the duration of her life. Here the cowherd men mean to say, “How could a mere infant who could barely open His eyes so easily kill a very powerful demoness?”
How could he when he was a baby with half closed eyes sucked out her life air with the milk. "Half closed eyes" indicates that this was done unseen by others, just as, unnoticed, time sucks up youth from the body.
Though he performed many acts which were difficult to understand and which could cause doubt when he was very young, such as killing Pūtanā, by seeing him directly lift Govardhana at this time, all these become causes of doubt. This is explained in nine verses. He killed Pūtanā with his eyes completely closed, very easily, or being very young. How he drank her life air is difficult to understand. Therefore an example is given. He drank her life airs just as time drinks the years from the body. This indicates the baby’s great power. Katham from the previous verse should be understood for all the verses following. By all the astonishing activities, birth in a lowly family could not be suitable. Or, katham need not be understood in these verses. The verses illustrate the previous statement that his activities were most astonishing (verse 2).
- Where am I treating time as my enemy rather than as His infant form?
- What in me would change if I addressed 'time' as Kṛṣṇa rather than 'it'?
Time itself sucks the youth quietly out of every body — a slow, invisible drain no one fights. The infant Kṛṣṇa, eyes barely open at Pūtanā's breast, does the same to her in a single feeding: He is what time is, condensed into a nursing child.
Pūtanā came disguised as a beautiful woman, breast smeared with poison, to murder the infant Kṛṣṇa (SB 10.6). He drank her milk and her life with it — but because she had assumed the form of a mother, He awarded her the post of a mother in the spiritual world.
Gauḍīya ācāryas (especially Rūpa and Sanātana Gosvāmīs) cite this episode as proof of Kṛṣṇa's bhakta-vatsalatā: even a feigned motherhood, even by an asurī, yields a mother's destination when offered to Him.
My note
Source: vedabase.io