One warm afternoon, as Krishna played in the dusty courtyard with a group of other small children, he grew curious and began putting a handful of soft earth into his mouth.

His playmates noticed at once, and being small children themselves, they ran quickly to Yashoda to report what they had seen with great seriousness.

"Mother, Krishna has been eating dirt!" the children announced together, tugging at Yashoda's sari as she worked, eager for her to come and see.

Yashoda hurried over to her son, concern etched across her face, kneeling down beside him in the courtyard where he sat contentedly among the scattered dust.

"Krishna, is this true?" she asked gently but firmly, taking his small chin in her hand. "Have you really been eating mud again, my child?"

Krishna looked up at her with wide, perfectly innocent eyes and shook his head slowly. "No, mother, I haven't eaten any mud at all. They are not telling the truth."

But his playmates insisted loudly that they had seen it with their own eyes, and Yashoda, torn between amusement and concern, decided to settle the matter herself.

"If you haven't eaten anything," she said, trying to sound stern despite her softening heart, "then open your mouth wide and show me there is nothing inside."

Krishna hesitated only a moment before obediently opening his small mouth wide, and Yashoda leaned in close to look, expecting to find nothing more than ordinary dirt.

What she saw instead stole the breath from her lungs entirely, for within her son's small mouth, she beheld not dust, but the vast expanse of the entire universe itself.

She saw the endless sky stretching on forever, scattered with countless stars, and the sun and moon both shining together in ways that defied all natural order.

She saw oceans stretching to distant horizons, and mighty mountain ranges rising toward the heavens, and great rivers winding their way across entire continents.

She saw forests thick with every kind of creature, and cities bustling with people going about their lives, entirely unaware they were being witnessed this way.

She saw time itself unfolding, moments from ages long past and ages yet to come, all existing together within this single, impossible, boundless vision.

And astonishingly, deep within that vast and endless universe, Yashoda saw herself as well, standing right there in that very courtyard, gazing into her son's open mouth.

For one timeless moment, Yashoda's mind reeled with a wonder and fear too vast for any mother's heart to fully hold, sensing the true, infinite nature of her child.

She felt herself trembling before something far greater than she could ever comprehend, a truth about her son that shattered every ordinary understanding she had held.

But in that very same instant, out of boundless mercy for his beloved mother, Krishna gently veiled her memory of what she had just witnessed.

The vision faded as quickly as it had come, and Yashoda blinked, finding herself once more simply a mother kneeling before her small, dusty-faced little boy.

"Well," she said, shaking her head slightly as if waking from an unusual dream she could no longer quite recall, "perhaps you didn't eat any mud after all."

She gathered Krishna into her arms and held him close, a lingering, unexplainable warmth filling her heart, though the memory of the vision itself had slipped away.

Krishna nestled contentedly against her, wrapping his small arms around her neck, content simply to be held by the mother who loved him so dearly.

From that day forward, though she could never quite say why, Yashoda felt an even deeper, more profound tenderness whenever she looked upon her little son.

She continued to care for him exactly as any devoted mother would, feeding him, scolding him gently for his mischief, and delighting in his every small accomplishment.

Yet somewhere deep within her heart, a quiet knowing remained, even without clear memory, that her son was far more than he appeared to ordinary eyes.

This was, the sages would later say, the truest nature of Krishna's love: even revealing his own boundless divinity, he never once let it distance him from his mother's heart.

For above all things, he wished to remain simply her beloved child, to be scolded, fed, and cradled exactly as any small boy longs to be loved.

And so life in Gokul continued much as before, filled with mischief, laughter, and the simple, unremarkable joys of an ordinary, extraordinary childhood.

The other children, satisfied that Krishna had indeed eaten no mud after all, returned happily to their games, the mystery already forgotten in their young minds.

But somewhere among the elders and sages who heard whispers of this and other strange happenings, a quiet certainty was beginning to grow: this was no ordinary child.