Interpretation of Baladeva and Yamunā at Harivaṃśa 83

In Harivaṃśa chapter 83, Kṛṣṇa’s brother Baladeva changes the course of the river Yamunā, using his plough. This article reviews previous interpretations of Baladeva’s deed by André Couture and Lavanya Vemsani and develops in detail an interpretation briefly proposed by A. Whitney Sanford, whereby the deed is viewed, among many superimposed views, as at some level a sexual assault. This angle is explored in the article in various ways, with close reference to the Sanskrit text. The article includes discussion of the dialogue between Baladeva and the personified Yamunā, Baladeva’s connection to plough agriculture, the dynamic between Baladeva and Kṛṣṇa, and Vaiśaṃpāyana’s commentary on the events.


Introduction
Most of the Mahābhārata tells the story of the Pāṅḋavas' war against their cousins, which they fought and won because Kṙṡṅa made them. 1 That story is told to King Janamejaya, descendant of Arjuna Pāṅḋava, by Vaiśaṁ pāyana. After the Pāṅḋavas have gone to heaven and their story has concluded, in the Harivaṃśa Janamejaya asks Vaiśaṁ pāyana to say more about Kṙṡṅa and his people the Yādava-Vṙṡṅis, and Vaiśaṁ pāyana does so.
This article focuses on one chapter of the Harivaṃśa, one episode, and one incident that invites a sexual-metaphorical interpretation. In this episode, narrated at Harivaṃśa chapter 83, Kṙṡṅa's brother Baladeva, 2 while on a friendly visit to the cowherders in Vṙndāvana among whom he and Kṙṡṅa grew up, causes the river Yamunā to change course and come close to him by dragging her with his plough. The passage includes a description of the river as she is being dragged  and a speech that she makes to , asking him to put her back where she was, a request which he refuses.
The salient passage will be presented in full in English translation. Then various interpretations of the incident will be discussed, based on specific pieces of secondary literature. These are a mythological interpretation, a religio-historical interpretation, and two metaphorical interpretations in terms of sexual violence. The nature of interpretation of poetry is that different types of interpretation do not compete but are complementary and cumulative. Indulging and exploring one type of interpretation is not discouragement of other types of interpretation, as long as each avenue of interpretation is close and fair to the text.
The mythological and religio-historical interpretations have their limitations, yet the sexual-metaphorical interpretation is underdeveloped in the literature. Hence, after the literature review, the article fleshes out this interpretation by focusing more broadly on the surrounding Harivaṃśa narrative about Baladeva and his brother Kṙṡṅa, and then more tightly on key passages of Harivaṃśa 83. The article is speculative, but it encourages and facilitates the sexual interpretation with close reference to the Harivaṃśa text. Art-historical evidence is not discussed, since, as far as I know, the only surviving artistic representations of this story date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and most of them are not congruent with the Harivaṃśa version. 3 Other versions of the story in other texts are discussed only in passing. The focus is upon the Harivaṃśa version and how it operates within the Harivaṃśa narrative.
When Kṙṡṅa's elder brother Baladeva drags the Yamunā, he is on a visit back to Vṙndāvana after he and Kṙṡṅa have left Vṙndāvana and moved to Mathurā.
From infancy, Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa lived in the cowherd community (Harivaṃśa 49). When they were adolescents, they were taken to Mathurā by Akrūra on the occasion of King Kaṁ sa's bow festival , and there they (that is, mostly Kṙṡṅa) broke the bow and killed Kaṁ sa's elephant Kuvalayāpīḋa, Kaṁ sa's wrestlers Cāṅūra and Muṡṫika, and Kaṁ sa himself. They were reunited with their father Vasudeva whom Kaṁ sa had been punishing, and Kaṁ sa's previously deposed father Ugrasena was restored to the kingship in Mathurā . After that, Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva went to Avanti to be trained by Sāṁ dīpani in, among other things, the martial arts (Harivaṃśa 79), and since returning from strong and mighty Rāma was vexed. He took his plough in his hand and lowered its tip for dragging (30). Lotus garlands tumbled onto the drinking ground and released their own special pollen-colored fluid from their blossom stores (31).
Keeping its tip lowered, Rāma used the plough to grab the great river Yamunā by the bank and drag her, as if she were a wife straying from her duty (32).
The flow of the river's waters was disturbed, she gathered and poured into pools, and she changed course, fearfully following the path of the plough (33). As the plough pulled her path she followed its crooked impetus like a woman in a state of disorder, trembling in fear of Saṁ karṡaṅa (34).
Her ripe red lips were the sandy shores of the riverbed, her belt was the line of foam pressed out by the pounding waters, her tell-tale signs were the smiling creatures along her banks (35), her crown was the rough waves, her erect nipples were the brahminy ducks, her limbs were the deep and twisting currents, and her birds and fish were anxious (36). The glances from the corners of her eyes were the geese, her discarded linen clothing was the kans grass, and her tossed locks of hair were the plants on the banks. The flow of her waters was interrupted (37), and the plough scratched the corners of her eyes. The agitated river was like a drunk woman staggering along the royal road (38). The flow of her current was interrupted, and her course was taken off-course: she was dragged off forcefully by way of Vṙndāvana Forest (39). The river Yamunā was brought through the middle of Vṙndāvana, and the birds that lived on her banks followed, screeching (40).
When the river Yamunā had come across to Vṙndāvana Forest, she took the form of a woman and said to Rāma (41): "Have mercy, Rāma! This irregular deed frightens me. My water's taken the wrong shape (42), strong-armed son of Rohiṅī. By dragging me you've made me crooked in mid-river-you've made me into someone who's strayed from her own true path (43). When I've carried my diverted waters and arrived at the sea, my co-wives are bound to mock me with their foamy laughter, proud of their own speed (44). Kṙṡṅa's virile older brother, take pity on me, I implore you! You're hurting me with your ploughing weapon. Resist your passion! (45). I bow my head to your two feet, Halāyudha. I want the course I was assigned. Where else am I to go, strong-armed man?" (46). Bala watched, armed with his plough, as Yamunā, the wife of the restless ocean, made her speech. Then, tired and overcome with drunkenness, he replied (47): "Your path is as my plough has drawn it. Refresh this whole region of ours with the gift of your waters, good-looking-for my sake (48). You've been given your instructions, illustrious river with the lovely eyebrows, so flow in peace. Move along pleasantly, and my fame will surely endure as long as the worlds endure" (49).
When they witnessed the dragging of the Yamunā, all the cattle station's inhabitants voiced their approval and bowed down before Rāma (50). But Rohiṅī's son dismissed the fast-flowing river and all the cattle station's inhabitants, and then he thought things over in his mind, came to a decision, and returned to Mathurā immediately (51). 4

Literature Review
Scholarly studies of the Harivaṃśa, and of the character Baladeva within it, will be introduced below as required. 5 But the relevant background for this scene in the secondary literature also includes studies of rivers and Indian river mythology. Almost all Indian rivers are female and are also auspicious goddesses. 6 In the Mahābhārata, the goddess Gaṅgā subsists in human form for the duration of her eight-child marriage to Ś aṁ tanu. She works on different planes simultaneously. Yamunā is not so highly characterized, but she has the same generic powers and she would have been mythologized immemorially. In the Harivaṃśa, Kṙṡṅa fancies Yamunā and Baladeva pulls her. A story about Kṙṡṅa marrying Yamunā appears only in later texts.
This section discusses four previous interpretations of the Harivaṃśa 83 scene in English, with occasional explanatory tangents. These interpretations are, approximately, a mythological interpretation (André Couture), a religio-historical interpretation (Lavanya Vemsani), and two sexual-metaphorical interpretations (A. Whitney Sanford).
(1) André Couture's (2017) 7 comments on the scene are brief and are a small part of a wider study. Couture stresses that both Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva are manifestations of Viṡṅu (Harivaṃśa 45.38,56.26) and that Baladeva specifically manifests Viṡṅu's aspect as Ananta-Ś eṡa. Ś eṡa is the serpent who supports the earth while the cosmos is in process (Mahābhārata 1.32) and who, in between one cosmos and another, supports the sleeping Viṡṅu in the single ocean and embodies the cosmic "remainder" (Śeṣa) which will later be reactivated (Harivaṃśa 58.36-48, 70.17-32, 90.1-4;Sharma 1986). Baladeva's role on earth, in keeping with his theological identity, is to complete and complement the actions of his brother Kṙṡṅa (Couture 2017: 240, 243, 257).
When Couture discusses the scene with Yamunā at Harivaṃśa 83, he stresses that at this point Baladeva is separated from Kṙṡṅa: The point I want to emphasize here is that, alone in the forest, far from his brother, Saṁ karṡaṅa gets intoxicated and completely destabilized.…What is going on in this forest is exactly what happens at the end of the world when 4 All Harivaṃśa translations are adapted from Brodbeck 2019. The Sanskrit of specific verses of this passage is presented as and when they are discussed below. 5 For a text-historical study of Baladeva in Mahābhārata 1-18 (but not the Harivaṃśa), see Bigger 1998. For critiques of Bigger's postulated stages of textual development, see Feller 1999: 813-14;von Simson 2009: 72-73;Adluri and Bagchee 2018: 45-117. Bigger's methodology seems unlikely to have yielded reliable results. 6 On Gaṅgā, see Darian 1978;Eck 1996;King 2005;on Yamunā, see Haberman 2006;Kumar and James 2009; on rivers of Maharashtra, see Feldhaus 1995. For a list of male rivers, see Salomon 1984: 160. 7 First published in French in 2010 things are inverted and the cosmic order disappears. Reminding the reader of the periodic dissolution, Saṁ karṡaṅa draws everything toward himself by an action contrary to the usual course of things, thereby reducing the world to the state of a remainder or śeṣa. When he diverts the flow of the Yamunā from her regular course by this violent act, the peaceful Rāma is momentarily transformed into an angry deity (ugra).…The solitary Saṁ karṡaṅa can appear on the one hand as a powerful being able to support the entire world, and on the other hand manifest himself in a sort of second state and cause a complete upheaval of the usual course of the world with his ploughshare (2017: 248).
Insofar as Kṙṡṅa is not present, Couture links the Harivaṃśa 83 scene with the subsequent one in which Baladeva loses his temper and kills Rukmin at a dicing match during the wedding celebrations for Kṙṡṅa's grandson Aniruddha (Harivaṃśa 89.17-46;Couture 2017: 249, 279-80). According to Couture, in both cases (and others) Baladeva's separation from Kṙṡṅa results in violence that fits his deeper theological identity, since it corresponds to the pralaya, the end of the world, which marks Ś eṡa's change of role from supporter of the world to container of its remainder: In other words, the transition from the figure of a powerful being entirely devoted to his svadharma (i.e. the Snake Ś eṡa supporting the earth) to that of a Remainder during the [interval between one cosmos and another] 8 …takes place through a counterthrust, that is, an action made the wrong way (pratiloma, against the hair) (2017: 281).
This interpretation is commendable for its mythological depth. When applied to this scene it also seems slightly speculative and incomplete, but perhaps those are inevitable features of any interpretation. It implies that Viṡṅu and Śeṡa are temporarily parted during the pralaya and that Śeṡa is the primary agent of the pralaya. Both of these propositions seem to be largely unsupported, not just by Couture but also by the text.
With regard to the idea that Ś eṡa is the primary agent of the pralaya, Couture says that Ś eṡa "is able to maintain the existence of the worlds as well as annihilate them at the end of a kalpa, also allowing them to revive at the beginning of another cycle" (2017: 251). Here Couture gives Ś eṡa a regular destructive role, whereby Ś eṡa does not just allow cosmic annihilation to occur, but does it himself. However, Couture does not provide supporting references. Mahābhārata 12.47.20c says that "at the time of destruction he [Nārāyaṅa] is called Saṁ karṡaṅa" (kṣaye saṃkarṣaṇaḥ proktas ;Fitzgerald 2004: 271), but this is not really enough to support the interpretation.
Even if one were to grant that Ś eṡa is the agent of the pralaya, the commonality between Baladeva in this scene and Śeṡa during the pralaya is said by Couture to be the action of drawing everything towards oneself, 9 but Baladeva only draws Yamunā towards himself. Her relocation is described in terms of disorder, but it is localized disorder, since apart from her and the creatures that live in and around her, everything else is unaffected. The analogy would require Yamunā here to represent the cosmos as a whole, but that is not a role she normally plays and nor does it correspond to any deeper mythological aspects of her identity.
Couture's interpretation here also takes Baladeva's action to be a generally destructive one, but this is at odds with its positive reception by the cowherders (Harivaṃśa 83.50); in fact, nothing is destroyed or absorbed. 10 Thus, Couture's interpretation, although it highlights an important perspective on the character of Baladeva, is not generally convincing in terms of this scene. Other angles are necessary, to supplement it. When characters have explicit divine counterparts it can be useful to interpret their deeds in light of the identities and deeds of those counterparts, if possible; but here it is not possible to any great extent without stretching the text. And even if Baladeva does have a tendency to become unruly when separate from Kṙṡṅa, his deeper identity as Ś eṡa does not quite explain that tendency-not least because, as aspects of Nārāyaṅa, Ś eṡa and Viṡṅu are not really separate. The tendency also has to be explained in psychological terms.
(2) Lavanya Vemsani (2006: 112-28) 11 interprets the Yamunā episode in terms of Baladeva's association with fertility and his role as a provider of resources. This fits with her overall historical theory that the figure of Baladeva developed out of local nāga and yakṣa traditions as they were absorbed into an expanding Vaiṡṅavism. 12 Vemsani refers to Baladeva's visit to Vṙndāvana as "the affectionate visit of Balarāma as an adult to Vraj to refertilize it" and says that "In the HV, the main purpose of Balarāma's return to Vraj is to pull the river Yamunā through Vraj" (2006: 124, 112). But the Harivaṃśa never says that moving the Yamunā (and the associated effect upon the region and its cowherders) is a purpose of the visit. Rather, the moving of the river seems to be a result of Baladeva's drunken desire to bathe (snātum icche; Harivaṃśa 83.28b) and of Yamunā's implicitly impolitic nonresponse to his request. Beneficial effects upon the population are retrospectively implied when the cowherders applaud Baladeva's deed, but those effects seem to be incidental to the intention behind it. According to Vemsani, "When Balarāma pulled Yamunā through Vraj animals and humans are said to rejoice on the banks of the river (HV. 83. 39-40)" (2006: 124); but I cannot find that in the text. At the end of her discussion Vemsani says that "In the HV, it is clear that the intention of Balarāma in pulling the Yamunā was to refertilize Vṙndāvan" (2006: 128). Couture has the same impression: he says Baladeva drags Yamunā "so that the 9 Couture (2017: 285-86) sees this pralaya action as the basic sense of Baladeva's name Saṁ karṡaṅa. On this name, see also von Simson 2009: 75, 79-80, 82. 10 Couture (2017 also identifies Baladeva as pradhāna and Kṙṡṅa as puruṣa, but he does not flesh out these Sāṁ khya-style identifications or anchor them in the text. 11 Vemsani 2016 is a reprint of Vemsani 2006 with minor changes (including pagination changes).
12 Compare Jaiswal 1967: 51-60;Dandekar 1975-76: 186;Schmid 2010: 253-313, 735- forest can be watered and fertilized again" and that Yamunā is "dragged up to that forest in order to water it" (2017: 279, 283). But this is not stated in the text. As Couture (2015: 164, 168-73) 13 has correctly shown, in the Harivaṃśa the word vraja does not refer to a specific location, but to the cowherders' settlement, wherever it happens to be. Vemsani (2006: 114) notes this too, referring to Couture. At this point in the story, the vraja is in Vṙndāvana, and so when the words vraja and vṛndāvana occur in Harivaṃśa 83, they effectively refer to the same place, Vṙndāvana being the name of the specific forest in which the vraja is located. Thus, Vemsani says that "in this story Vraj is referred to interchangeably with Vṙndāvan" (2006: 114). In the later tradition, however, Vraja is the name of the larger region in which Vṙndāvana is located (Bryant 2003: 507), and Vemsani uses the word in this sense too, which also allows the two words-both now proper nouns-to be used interchangeably when the part of Vraja being referred to is Vṙndāvana.
In the Harivaṃśa, the first place described as vraja is the place where the cattle station was before it was moved to Vṙndāvana. After a while, that former place was environmentally dilapidated and exhausted (Harivaṃśa 52.8-28), and hence Kṙṡṅa emitted wolves from his body in order to provoke the cowherds to abandon it and move to Vṙndāvana. Because she takes vraja as the name of a region Vraja, Vemsani manages to explain the alleged need for Baladeva's action against Yamunā (Harivaṃśa 83) in terms of the dilapidation of the environment at "Vraja" as described in that earlier passage (Harivaṃśa 52), as if Baladeva's moving of the river were to refecundate that environment (Vemsani 2006: 127-28).
Sanford later takes up Vemsani's mistake and compounds it when she says that "the rendition of this story [of Balarāma moving the Yamunā] appearing in the Hindu narrative Harivamsha states that Braj had become barren since Balaram and Krishna's departure" (2012: 84). In fact, this is stated neither of Vṙndāvana nor of the cattle station's previous location. That previous location had become barren before Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa left it, and it is not to there that Baladeva brings the river, but to Vṙndāvana.
Vemsani's discussion of the scene thus involves some interpretive creativity. On the whole she seeks to explain the scene in terms of religious history. She speaks of "Balarāma's early cult" and "the process of his assimilation into Vaiṡṅavism," and she takes the scene to represent concerns with fertility and sustenance that characterized that "early cult" (Vemsani 2006: 111). From this perspective, the scene is allotted an expressive or totemic function and is mobilized to serve within a story told by the scholarly literature, about the alleged development of Vaiṡṅavism. That is fine in its way, even if the scholarly story is speculative and difficult to prove. But once the scene is mobilized into that expressive function, its own agenda and terms of reference are transcended and the scholarly interpretation is then not really an interpretation of the text's story. To interpret the story directly, we must focus on what it says about the past that it explicitly narrates, not what it says about the past that the scholars narrate (and would like the text implicitly to narrate on their behalf). The matter is complicated because both of these pasts include "the development of Vaiṡṅavism" in differing ways: the text's narrated past has Vaiṡṅavism developing through Viṡṅu's appearance and reception on earth as Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa, and the historical past has Vaiṡṅavism developing as an encompassing amalgam of local cults and figures. Vemsani (2006: 117-19) presents a very useful chart that juxtaposes the details of the story as told in the Harivaṃśa with the details of the story as told in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, the Brahma Purāṇa, and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. 14 In the Harivaṃśa column of the chart, Vemsani notes that "The pulling of Yamunā is described as akin to violating a woman. This aspect is not mentioned in any other version" (2006: 118-19). Vemsani's note fits with Sanford's sexual-metaphorical interpretation, explored in detail below.
Vemsani's chart is expanded upon in her wider comparative project. In this article we are focusing just on the Harivaṃśa version, but nonetheless I report briefly on the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and Bhāgavata Purāṇa versions here.
In the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, the episode occurs after Kṙṡṅa has disposed of Kālayavana and brought his army to Dvārakā. It is set later in time than the Harivaṃśa version, and so it would have Baladeva traveling to Vṙndāvana not from Mathurā but from the much more distant Dvārakā. In Vṙndāvana, the gopīs quiz Baladeva about Kṙṡṅa, wondering if he has forgotten them. "So saying, the Gopís, whose minds were fixed on Krishńa, addressed Ráma in his place, calling him Dámodara and Govinda, and laughed and were merry" (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.24.19; Wilson 1840: 570). 15 Later, when Baladeva drunkenly tells Yamunā to "Come hither," he does so "not knowing what he said" (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.25.8; Wilson 1840: 571). When she does not come, and as he is using his plough to make her, he says, "'Will you not come, you jade? will you not come? Now go where you please (if you can).' Thus saying, he compelled the…river to quit its ordinary course, and follow him whithersoever he wandered through the wood" (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.25.10-11; Wilson 1840: 572). Yamunā then appears in bodily form, but in contrast to the Harivaṃśa, her speech, in which she "entreated him to pardon her, and let her go" (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.25.12; Wilson 1840: 572), is presented only summarily by the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. We hear his answer: "I will drag you with my ploughshare in a thousand directions, since you contemn my prowess and strength"-which, as far as we can tell, she has not done. He lets her go only after she has "watered all the country" (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.25.13-14; Wilson 1840: 572). Wilson's footnote, written before any of the critical edition projects, says that "The Bhágavata and Hari Vanśa repeat this story; the latter very imperfectly.…The legend probably alludes to the construction of canals from the Jumna, for the purposes of irrigation" (1840: 572n3). After letting Yamunā go and having his bath, Baladeva is decorated by Lakṡmī, spends two months there, then returns to Dvārakā and marries Revatī.
In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, too, the episode occurs after the move to Dvārakā, but unlike in the Harivaṃśa and Viṣṇu Purāṇa, it also occurs after Baladeva's marriage to Revatī. The gopīs are pleased to see Baladeva, but they also weep because they miss Kṙṡṅa and he left them so suddenly. Baladeva consoles them. 16 "Bhagavān Balarāma lived there for two months-Madhu and Mādhava-bringing pleasure to the gopīs in the nights" (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10. 65.17;Bryant 2003: 281). One drunken night, Baladeva summons Yamunā in order to play in the water, gets offended by her lack of response, and drags her there with his plough, saying he will bring her in a hundred pieces. Her speech is quoted in two verses: O Balarāma, O mighty-armed Balarāma, I did not understand your power. This world is supported by one fraction of you, O Lord of the universe. O Bhagavān, please release me-I am ignorant of your Lordship's transcendent nature, O Soul of the universe. You are compassionate towards your devotees, and I submit (to you) (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.65. 26-27;Bryant 2003: 282).
Baladeva releases her, bathes, and is visited by Lakṡmī. "Even today, O king, the Yamunā can be seen to flow where she was dragged, as if manifesting the infinite prowess of Balarāma" (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.65.31 ;Bryant 2003: 283).
Neither of these two Purāṅa versions mentions the cowherders' response to the movement of the river, as the Harivaṃśa version does. Both Purāṅas change the order of events, the Bhāgavata having Baladeva visit Vṙndāvana after he has married Revatī. And as Vemsani notes, none of the Purāṅas describe the attack "as akin to violating a woman" (2006: 119). This fact, recorded in Vemsani's chart, provokes and justifies this article's focus on the Harivaṃśa version as important on its own terms-which are thus, effectively, the terms of the sexual metaphor. Vemsani does not pursue the matter of violating a woman beyond this one remark, and her interpretation of the incident, as discussed above, is apparently unrelated to it. Yet the remark is apt. Because of how Vaiśaṁ pāyana describes Yamunā's response to Baladeva's deed in the Harivaṃśa, he seems to invite the human audience member-Janamejaya and Ś aunaka most immediately-to think of the episode in terms of two superimposed events: a divine superhero relocating a river, and a drunken man sexually assaulting a nonconsenting woman.
How is "The pulling of Yamunā…described as akin to violating a woman" in the Harivaṃśa, as per Vemsani's chart? Let us explore the metaphor. After Baladeva has told Yamunā to come because he wants to bathe and after she has ignored his request, "Keeping its tip lowered, Rāma used the plough to grab the great river Yamunā by the bank and drag her, as if she were a wife straying from her duty" (sa halenānatāgreṇa tīre gṛhya mahānadīm | cakarṣa yamunāṃ rāmo vyutthitāṃ vanitām iva ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.32). 17 When he discusses this verse, Couture says that Baladeva is "bringing her back to him as a woman deviating from the rules" (2017: 247), as if Baladeva's act were to correct Yamunā's deviation, not cause it. But Yamunā is compared with a straying wife as she is being dragged by Baladeva; and according to what she herself says on the matter (see below), she would be like a straying wife insofar as she moves from her former and proper path. As she is dragged, she is described as "trembling in fear of Saṁ karṡaṅa like a woman in a state of disorder" (saṃkarṣaṇabhayatrastā yoṣevākulatāṃ gatā ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.34cd).
An extended allegorical description of the Yamunā as a woman was presented at Harivaṃśa 55.28-39 as witnessed by Kṙṡṅa, with different features of the river standing for different features of a woman; and the description here in Harivaṃśa 83 builds on that earlier description. Harivaṃśa 83.35-37 include aquatic analogues for Yamunā's lips, belt, tell-tale signs (cihnaiḥ), crown, nipples, limbs, sidelong glances, discarded clothing, and tossed locks of hair. This is clearly a repertoire of erotic images. As she is dragged, Yamunā is "like a drunk woman staggering along the royal road" (matteva kuṭilā nārī rājamārgeṇa gacchatī ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.38cd).
Do as she might, her path is altered. At this point she is still a river. But then she assumes a woman's body (strīvigrahā bhūtvā; Harivaṃśa 83.41c) and makes a speech to .
Yamunā is worried about the consequences, for her, of what Baladeva has done. She blames him for making her into a svamārgavyabhicāriṇī-a woman who has strayed from her own true path (Harivaṃśa 83.43d). The true path seems to be, at some remove, the path of marital fidelity, an interpretation that is encouraged by the earlier comparison of Yamunā with a straying wife (vyutthitāṃ vanitām iva; Harivaṃśa 83.32d) and by Yamunā's own reference to her co-wives (sapatnyo; 83.44b). The reference to her co-wives depends upon the common poetic characterization of all rivers as wives of the male ocean. Immediately after her speech, Vaiśaṁ pāyana confirms that Yamunā is a wife of the ocean (arṇavavadhū; Harivaṃśa 83.47c). 18 Pursuing the metaphor, one might note that Yamunā thinks of herself as a wife of the ocean even though nominally she does not flow all the way to the sea (ceding to Gaṅgā at Prayāga). 19 One might also wonder whether Yamunā, this distance upstream, sees her marriage to the sea as something that obtains in the present or only in the future. The scenario she envisages with the co-wives seems to be one of competition to arrive at the ocean first, and in these terms Yamunā discernsgeographically correctly-that her new route will slow her down. To arrive first, if it makes sense to think of a river doing such a thing, could be to be one's husband's first wife, or his most favored, or most loyal. In any case, after Baladeva's intervention Yamunā is anxious for her prospects and for her status in relation to other women, and she demands that he take pity on her and restore her to the course she was previously assigned (mārgam ādiṣṭam icchāmi; Harivaṃśa 83.46c). 18 Compare Harivaṃśa 43. 17-45, 55.39a, 59.37d, 86.35, 86.38b, 100.45;Feldhaus 1995: 43. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (10.58.13-29) has an episode in which the Yamunā becomes Kṙṡṅa's wife, but this is not in the Harivaṃśa. The Harivaṃśa mentions Kālindī Mitravindā as one of Kṙṡṅa's wives (88.41, 93.48, 98.4, 98.13), who lives in a palace in Dvārakā and so is apparently not Yamunā. This could be Yamunā by the name Kālindī only if Kālindī and Mitravindā were different wives; but then the stated count of eight main wives of Kṙṡṅa would be breached and Mitravindā would want some of Jāmbavatī's listed children. Regardless of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa story, the Harivaṃśa seems to understand Kālindī Mitravindā as one woman. 19 Haberman notes that "many devotees of the Yamuna continue to regard the combined rivers as the Yamuna" (2006: 170), and he also refers to a tradition whereby after the confluence the two rivers flow side by side (256-57n88); but these seem to be minority opinions.
Interpretation of Baladeva and Yamunā at Harivaṃśa 83 323 Pursuing the metaphor leads to strange considerations, due to the limits of, and interference between, different aspects of the metaphor of a moved river as a wife violated, forced into infidelity, and compromised as a result. The reductio suggests from one perspective that it is a metaphor and that what really happens here is that Baladeva moves a river. But nonetheless the metaphor is embodied as more than just a metaphor, since Yamunā takes form as a woman and speaks.
The interpretations of Couture and Vemsani prioritize the nonsexual event that is most straightforwardly on the surface of the text and underplay the sexual event that metaphorically accompanies it. However, for the individual male or female audience member, with their own sexual history and experience, the metaphorical accompaniment may have a special existential charge.
This metaphor is particularly complex because of the mythology of Indian rivers and their relations with men. Gaṅgā, for example, is the ocean's chief wife , but she is also maritally linked to the great gods Viṡṅu and Ś iva (Eck 1996: 146-47, 150;King 2005: 167) as well as temporarily to King Ś aṁ tanu. The link between Gaṅgā and Ś iva is also generalized into a trope whereby Ś iva represents the mountain at a river's source. Anne Feldhaus says that "the relationship between Ś iva and rivers has a sexual element to it. But the imagery is not as explicitly or directly sexual as some might expect" (1995: 26). Feldhaus (1995: 53) also notes that the rivers of Maharashtra are all referred to by the term suvāsinī, which usually denotes a woman in the auspicious phase of life, with a living husband. But Feldhaus characterizes the ocean as a merely "theoretical" husband: The overwhelming evidence is that the rivers, and the goddesses of rivers, are considered suvāsinīs even though there is hardly ever any particular husband figure with whom they are connected. In this they are like female temple dancers (devadāsīs) or prostitutes, or like the heavenly counterpart of such human females, the apsaras. None of these beings can be widowed, because none of them is married to a mortal. Hence, all of them are extremely "auspicious"-they stand, that is, for beauty, sexuality, prosperity, plenty, and other good things of life in this world.…The model for all the other sorts of river divinities, as well as for the femininity of the rivers themselves, is the apsaras, the heavenly nymph whose beauty and sexuality make her the natural opponent of the ascetic (1995: 58).
At the time of the Harivaṃśa, Yamunā seems to fit this pattern: her marital or amorous link to Kṙṡṅa is a later development (Haberman 2006: 110-20;Kumar and James 2009: 819). But she clearly identifies herself as the ocean's wife. However, although her response to Baladeva's deed is expressed in terms of her marriage, the more immediate narrative issues are obedience and consent.
Yamunā's birth as Yamī is described in Harivaṃśa 8, in connection with the solar lineage. Her parents were Vivasvat (the sun) and Saṁ jñā, and she had an elder brother, Manu, and a twin brother, Yama (Harivaṃśa 8.6-7). It is said that "the glorious girl Yamī…became the supreme river Yamunā, the weal of the world" (yamī kanyā yaśasvinī | abhavat sā saricchreṣṭhā yamunā lokabhāvanī ∥ Harivaṃśa 8.46bcd). Yamunā's family background as presented here recalls Ṛg Veda 10.10, in which Yamī proposes that her twin brother Yama have sex with her and he argues against this (Kulikov 2017). That Yamī's proposal is congruent with her own sexual desire is clear from Ṛg Veda 10.10.7 and 10.10.11; and Stephanie W. Jamison andJoel P. Brereton (2017: 1382) suggest, referring to Ṛg Veda 10.13.4, that Yama did eventually comply. In the Ṛg Veda (10.10.4) the parents of Yama and Yamī are a gandharva and a water nymph, not Vivasvat and Saṁ jñā; but the Yama and Yamī in the Harivaṃśa are apparently intended to be the Yama and Yamī known in the Ṛg Veda. Nonetheless, the Harivaṃśa does not have to stress Yamunā's identity as Yama's twin sister Yamī, since it also knows Yamunā as Kālindī, the daughter of Mount Kalinda down whose slopes she first flows . 20 The existence of two different Yamunā origin myths fits Duryodhana's statement that "The origins of heroes and rivers are obscure" (śūrāṇāṃ ca nadīnāṃ ca prabhavā durvidāḥ kila ∥ Mahābhārata 1.127.11cd).
Baladeva's Māhātmya ("Praise-Song") mentions the Yamunā incident: The great river was heading for the salty sea crowned with waves and surges of swift water when Yama's sister Yamunā was dragged by the plough and fetched to face the town.
This is the only mention of the incident after Harivaṃśa 83. This description of Yamunā as Yama's sister matches the identification of Yamī and Yamunā in Harivaṃśa 8. As in Harivaṃśa 8, it evokes her Vedic sexual history; and here it does so explicitly in connection with the Baladeva incident. This provides support for the sexual-metaphorical interpretation. Perhaps Vaiśaṁ pāyana's subtext is that Yamunā's sexual history is relevant to this interpretation and would tend to reduce the perceived gravity of Baladeva's offense. 22 (3) Two sources by A. Whitney Sanford are discussed in this article (Sanford 2000(Sanford , 2012. In the earlier of those two sources, Sanford does not discuss the Harivaṃśa as such; her particular concern is the mythology of the two brothers Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa as it plays out in the lyrics of the sixteenth-century poet-singer Paramānanda. That is perhaps more than a thousand years later than the Harivaṃśa account. Nonetheless, the interpretation in Sanford 2000 is applicable to the Harivaṃśa account, in particular Sanford's identification of Baladeva's act as, at some level of connotation (as described above), a sexual attack. I quote several passages: 20 See also Mahābhārata 1.90.28,2.9.18,4.5.1. 21 This is one of only twenty-six non-anuṣṭubh verses in the critically reconstituted Harivaṃśa, thirteen of which occur in a block at the very end of the text. 22 In recent times, legal opinion has been divided on the question of whether, and under what circumstances, the alleged victim's sexual history should be admissible as evidence in rape cases. See Heenan 2003;Levanon 2012;McGlynn 2017. With his plough, he [Balarāma] forcefully relocates the river Yamuna, an act which appears somewhat antithetical to pastoral representations of Braj. (Though such terms might automatically invoke Freud, they do not necessitate a Freudian analysis.) Contrasting Balarāma and Kṙṡṅa's sexuality bears out this point: Although critics have called Kṙṡṅa wanton in reference to his erotic dalliances with the gopīs, Kṙṡṅa's sexuality fits into the pastoral mode; references to his sexuality are always nuanced and discreet, veiled in the guise of rasa and aesthetics. As the exemplar of the cultivated rustic, Kṙṡṅa reveals the softer edges of the refined rustic, while aspects of Balarāma illustrate the "unconstructed" rustic. Balarāma's love of wine and lust, for example, deviate from the pastoral, the urbane rasika, and represent those qualities which are less urbane and less benign. In Balarāma lurks those dangerous qualities and urges which are not constructed and sanitized by the Braj pastoral mood.
Balarāma as a Nāga represents uncontrolled and aggressive urges.
Balarāma's act [against the Yamunā] has obvious connotations of rape, 23 and the plough represents a penis, both linguistically and thematically.
Sanford's remarks are made in view of a contrast between Kṙṡṅa's sexual experience and Baladeva's. The sexual-metaphorical interpretation that Sanford proposes here fits Vemsani's chart and will be explored further below, beginning after the literary review with a closer look at the story of the two brothers Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa as presented in the Harivaṃśa before this scene.
(4) The second source by Sanford discussed here is her book Growing Stories from India (2012), which mobilizes ethnographic work in Baldeo just east of the Yamunā-the land Baladeva today protects as its lord-into a critique of industrial farming narratives and practices. In Baldeo, Baladeva is revered as a provider of agricultural fertility, along the lines sketched above when discussing Vemsani's interpretation. In this mythology, Baladeva's deed against the Yamunā is his commandeering the fertility of the earth for the benefit of the community he dutifully protects. His deed subordinates the providing female other.
In this respect, Baladeva repeats the founding deed performed in the Harivaṃśa by the first king, Pṙthu Vainya, against the earth. 24 Pṙthu's scene is as horrific as Baladeva's. Pṙthu, seeking economic security for his subjects, takes up his bow and 23 Regardless of specific usages and legal definitions of the word "rape" in twenty-first-century discourse, the concept is transferable to ancient India. In the Rāmāyaṇa, Sītā withholds her sexual consent from Rāvaṅa, and he cannot rape her due to a curse, cast upon him after he previously raped Rambhā, that his head will shatter if he ever does such a thing again (Rāmāyaṇa 7.26; Mahābhārata 3.264.58-59). See also Harivaṃśa 91.7-8 for a similarly negative portrayal of Naraka's rape of Kaśeru. 24 Sanford (2012: 63, 94-95, 111, 120) discusses the story of Pṙthu in connection with Baladeva's action against Yamunā. (On page 94 Sanford refers also to the work of Herman [1979].) On the story of Pṙthu, see also Fitzgerald 2004: 131-35;Brodbeck 2016: 400-406. arrows against the earth, who runs away across the worlds in the form of a cow to no avail and has to beg for her life against the terrorist male. In the process, she reminds him that he depends upon her and that women may not be killed, and promises him bounty if he treats her right . A productive partnership is then agreed, and Pṙthu initiates ploughing and grain agriculture (Harivaṃśa 6.11-15). But from one perspective, his is a disrespectful, exploitative attack: he demeans and corrupts the earth-whose proper bounty would have been forthcoming anyway-and corrupts himself in his own elevation.
If we try to relate the agricultural role that Baladeva plays in the mythology of Baldeo (as researched by Sanford) to the Harivaṃśa, that agricultural role seems to be played by Pṙthu in this text, not by Baladeva. As Georg von Simson says, "early texts like the MBh, HV or Kauṭalīya-Arthaśastra do not associate Balarāma with agriculture" (2009: 79n59). In the Harivaṃśa, after Baladeva has moved the river the cowherders praise him for it, but there is no suggestion that they are about to abandon cowherding and take up plough agriculture. Presumably it just means they and their cattle will not have so far to walk to the river. This is an important point. In the context, apart from his use of the plough and the resonances from the Pṙthu story, there is nothing to mark Baladeva's action as agricultural. Robert P. Goldman says that "Balarāma with his plough seems somehow an anomalous figure among the Vrajas who, at least according to a verse in the HV (52.18), do not practice cultivation" (1980: 177n10). Couture says: The assumption that Kṙṡṅa's elder brother might be an ancient agricultural deity more or less well integrated to Hinduism dates back to the nineteenth century only, an issue that merits more attention.…Christian Lassen…already considers Saṁ karṡaṅa as an agricultural deity, especially on account of the ploughshare and the pestle associated with him. 25 It is not the Indians, but the first Western mythologists who connected the name of Saṁ karṡaṅa with ploughing (kṛṣi) and rapidly transformed the hero into an agricultural deity (2017: 219, 285).
As Couture says, the issue merits more attention.
Sanford emphasizes the gendered mythological overlap between Baladeva versus Yamunā and man versus nature. 26 In terms of man versus nature, plough agriculture is a more violent and intrusive type of land use than any combination of grazing, browsing, gathering, and basic horticulture. As the dharmic butcher said to the brahmin: 25 See Lassen 1867: 766-68. Couture (2017: 285) also quotes Langlois (1834: 262n7), writing to similar effect. 26 On man versus nature, with emergent explanation of how and why the gender-specific word "man" is appropriate here, see Griffin 1978;Merchant 1989. They hold that plowing is good, but it is well enough known what injuries it inflicts. Men who furrow with plowshares kill many creatures that lie in the ground, as well as plenty of other living things, what do you think? (Mahābhārata 3.199.19; van Buitenen 1975: 624). 27 Sanford says that "when the earth and the female body are viewed as property and resources to be exploited, they become commodified and viewed solely in terms of production or the capacity to fill others' needs"; thus Baladeva's deed "normalized patterns of entitlement to the earth's-and women's-fertility and productivity that are enacted in multiple agricultural and social scenarios" (2012: 59, 81). In its mythology of kingship, the Mahābhārata makes it clear that the protective role involves violence and control; and if that role is extended to Baladeva, it seems obvious to interpret his deed against Yamunā as a reprise of Pṙthu's actions against the earth. For Sanford (2012: 116, 194-224) it is then possible, particularly in view of how polluted the Yamunā has now become, to view the narrative as a kind of tragedy and to use it as a prompt for developing a new agricultural narrative of reciprocity and citizenship rather than domination.
Baladeva's use of the plough, to which we will return in due course below, invites such an association even if the Harivaṃśa narrative does not build on it. But in view of the differences between Baladeva in the present-day mythology of Baldeo and Baladeva in the Harivaṃśa, if we seek to interpret Baladeva's deed against Yamunā in Harivaṃśa 83, then Sanford's discussion in Growing Stories, for all its undoubted importance, seems out of range. Its focus on agriculture is largely beside the point of Baladeva's deed in the Harivaṃśa, and its application to the female body is also not a neat fit, since Yamunā, as the wife of another, is not in any special relationship with Baladeva (as the earth would be with the king). If the plough is to signify here not with its otherwise obvious agricultural connotations, and not in terms of the dharmic operations within a marriage, and not even as a weapon used in combat against an armed other, then its interpretive range seems to be very limited.
To sum up this long section. Couture has suggested a mythological interpretation of the Harivaṃśa scene, and Vemsani a religio-historical interpretation. Sanford has suggested two sexual-metaphorical interpretations, neither of them based on the Harivaṃśa scene: the first is based on Paramānanda's lyrics and contrasts Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa, and the second is based on recent fieldwork and pairs Baladeva with the earth. The rest of this article expands upon Sanford's first sexual-metaphorical interpretation with reference to the Harivaṃśa. The following section explores Sanford's suggested contrast between Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa in terms of the Harivaṃśa data, and then, using that data as context, the section after that fleshes out the interpretation by reviewing the scene and highlighting certain details.

Kṛṣṇa and Baladeva
Before considering Baladeva's sibling relations in the Harivaṃśa, it is worth mentioning his prenatal experience-for that is for Baladeva, as it is for us all, the basis upon which postnatal experience builds (Cendrars 1972: 120). Devakī became pregnant by her husband Vasudeva in Mathurā, and that unborn child was Baladeva. In the seventh month, Viṡṅu's female companion, the goddess Nidrā (Sleep), extracted Baladeva from Devakī's womb and inserted him into the womb of Vasudeva's other wife Rohiṅī (Harivaṃśa 47.30-31, 48.2-7), who then gave birth to him in the cattle station (49.1) and raised him as her own, as Rauhiṅeya. The violence enacted upon the unborn Baladeva (and his mothers), which in the Harivaṃśa (47.31, 48.6) is the reason for his name Saṁ karṡaṅa the Extraction, could prefigure his violence upon the Yamunā. He was violently displaced, and he violently displaces. In view of this similarity, perhaps it is significant that the transferral of Baladeva from one womb to another was effected by a female. Although Nidrā and Yamunā are different characters, the two attacks could be interpretively related. 28 On to Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva. Before the Yamunā scene, these two have been great childhood companions and have often acted together, but Kṙṡṅa, the younger of the two, has performed more miraculous deeds than Baladeva and has received more praise and attention as a result. This fits with their divine identities, since Kṙṡṅa is Viṡṅu-Nārāyaṅa and Baladeva is merely his aspect as Ś eṡa. But both are now human. Baladeva seems to be less continuously aware of his divinity than Kṙṡṅa is: at Harivaṃśa 58.35-49 Kṙṡṅa reminds Baladeva of his divinity, which he has seemingly forgotten (aho 'yaṃ mānuṣo bhāvo vyaktam evānugṛhyate | 58.35ab). So Baladeva is no doubt subject to human emotions and responses, and accordingly he might feel slightly overshadowed and overstepped by his younger brother.
Before Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva were taken to Mathurā for the bow festival, Kṙṡṅa's first sexual experiences were narrated, but Baladeva's were not. Harivaṃśa 63 describes how Kṙṡṅa enjoyed himself, but it does not mention Baladeva: Gorgeous women pressed their breasts against him with nipples erect, and gazed at him from faces with fluttering eyes. Though their fathers, brothers, and mothers told them not to, the cowherder women pursued Kṙṡṅa at night, bent on pleasure.…Their bodies smeared with dung and dust, they surrounded Kṙṡṅa, delighting him as cow elephants in heat delight a bull elephant. Some women, doe-eyed, unsated, drank Kṙṡṅa in with eyes bright with love, smiles on their faces. Other cowgirls, still thirsty after gazing upon his face, found another kind of pleasure in the night and, lost in passion, drank him in. When Dāmodara cried out those gorgeous women were thrilled, and they seized upon the sounds he made and the words he willingly spoke. The hair of the cowherd women was parted and plaited, but disordered by their passionate thoughts, it came loose and fell beautifully onto their nipples. And that's how 28 Narrative symmetry between cause and effect is often seen in the Mahābhārata, albeit the words "cause" and "effect" are too strong. See the examples discussed in Mehendale 1984(compare Goldman 1978): Pāṅḋu at Mahābhārata 1.109, etc. Kṙṡṅa, adorned by a ring of cowgirls, enjoyed himself with pleasure in the moonlit autumn nights (63.23-24, 63.30-35).
Much of the language in the Kṙṡṅa scene is ambiguous, but there seems to be a clear contrast between the cowgirls who drank Kṙṡṅa just with their eyes and the cowgirls who were not satisfied with that and also drank him some other way. In the Harivaṃśa there is no suggestion that Kṙṡṅa's sexual activity should be interpreted as a theological metaphor: in this scene he acts as a human with other humans (Coleman 2010: 387-92). 29 The following chapter, Harivaṃśa 64, which describes Kṙṡṅa's killing of the demon bull Ariṡt˙a, directs our interpretation of Kṙṡṅa's sex scene. Its description of Ariṡṫa's molestation of the cows mentions Ariṡṫa's sexual behavior: as well as being violent and unruly, he was "swift in mounting cows" (gavāroheṣu capalas; Harivaṃśa 64.6a). "The wild bull went around making the cows miscarry their calves. On he went, swiftly helping himself to the heifers" (pātayāno gavāṃ garbhān dṛpto gacchaty anārtavam | bhajamānaś ca capalo gṛṣṭīḥ saṃpracacāra ha ∥ Harivaṃśa 64.8). 30 The adverb anārtavam ("unseasonably") could do double duty in this verse, implying that pregnant cows miscarried and/or that Ariṡt˙a helped himself to cows not in season. In any case, the violence that precipitates Ariṡṫa's death clearly includes the violence of unwanted sexual activity. The word capala occurs twice, implying that Ariṡt˙a was so swift that the heifers could not evade him. These bestial details, for which he was killed, contrast with the human sexual activity in the previous chapter, underlining the fact that Kṙṡṅa's sexual partners welcomed and enjoyed his attentions.
Harivaṃśa 63 and 64 thus depict the contrast between consenting and nonconsenting female sexual partners (Matchett 2001: 53). So when Baladeva's forest party is described twenty chapters later in Harivaṃśa 83, it has been set up as a doublet with Kṙṡṅa's sex scene.
Manusmṛti 4.184 says that a male's older brother is equivalent to his father. 31 Perhaps this is among the things that Baladeva learned only in his orthodox education under Sāṁ dīpani (Harivaṃśa 79). Goldman (1978Goldman ( : 328, 1980 has discussed deference to the elder brother in his Oedipal studies of Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa stories. 32 Goldman (1978: 343) quotes G. Morris Carstairs who says that "younger brothers are required to enact a symbolic self-castration" (1957: 160).
Alf Hiltebeitel has called attention to the idea of an older brother being overstepped (ati-kram) by a younger brother in the Mahābhārata, in the case of Yudhiṡṫhira Pāṅḋava and his younger brothers Bhīma and Arjuna. Bhīma briefly 29 In Sanford's later account, "While Krishna and the gopis danced under the moonlight, Balaram hid behind a rock and watched" (2012: 79). Perhaps this detail originated in one of the many oral traditions. It is not in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as Sanford's note suggests (compare also Sanford 2005: 110n16). 30 In the Harivaṃśa edition, the last syllable of the word anārtavam has a wavy line underneath it, which indicates that the two recensions differ and that the northern version has been prioritized. Manuscripts Ś 1, K3, DS, D4.6, T2, G2-4, and M1.3.4 (that is, a few northern manuscripts as well as most of the southern ones) read anārtavat, meaning something like "without a qualm." 31 See also Manusmṛti 9. 57-58, 9.108. wants to burn Yudhiṡt˙hira's arms in protest at his behavior during the dicing match, but Arjuna warns him against overstepping Yudhiṡṫhira (Mahābhārata 2.61.1-9;Hiltebeitel 2001: 241, 248). Arjuna himself has overstepped previously, by interrupting when Yudhiṡt˙hira and Draupadī were alone together (Mahābhārata 1.204-205;Hiltebeitel 2001: 264-67;Brodbeck 2009: 182-86). This idea of overstepping is central to the Mahābhārata, where the rājasūya ritual and the Kurukṡetra war involve Pāṅḋu's junior branch asserting itself over and above Dhṙtarāṡt˙ra's senior branch (Brodbeck 2012) and where Arjuna's junior branch also then prevails over Yudhiṡt˙hira's senior branch.
The examples that Hiltebeitel uses show that this idea of overstepping rests on a specific kind of masculine paradigm and that the authority of the elder brother over his brothers is, among other things, a sexual kind of authority. The elder brother is supposed to marry before his younger brothers, who then follow in sequence Manusmṛti 3.154,11.61). This is one of the reasons why Draupadī, won by Arjuna, must also marry Arjuna's elder brothers before she marries him . As Yudhiṡṫhira says to her father Drupada when explaining the polyandric proposal: "I am still unmarried and so is Bhīmasena Pāṅḋava" (ahaṃ cāpy aniviṣṭo vai bhīmasenaś ca pāṇḍavaḥ | Mahābhārata 1.187.23ab; van Buitenen 1973: 367). The principle is clear, though here Yudhiṡt˙hira does not mention that Bhīma has already had a temporary marriage with Hiḋimbā (Mahābhārata 1.143), which thus fits with Bhīma's later outburst at the dicing match. In the Mahābhārata's presentation of Arjuna interrupting Yudhiṡṫhira and Draupadī alone together (1.204-205), the sexual ordering aspect is emphasized by the specific verb anu-pra-viś, "enter after," which Hiltebeitel notes "is used six times in this episode…and nowhere else in this sense" (2001: 266n69).
The purpose of our brief focus here upon the Pāṅḋava brothers is to exemplify the Mahābhārata's discourse about the eldest brother's precedence in sexual matters and in other matters described using sexual metaphors. This discourse must also apply to the brothers Vāsudeva, where Baladeva seems to have been overstepped by Kṙṡṅa. 33 Von Simson says of Kṙṡṅa that "Though being the younger brother, and against Indian family tradition, he overshadows his elder brother completely" (2009: 84). This seems to be a necessity on the theological level, because with Ananta-Śeṡa and Viṡṅu, Viṡṅu has to be the main man. The story might conceivably have had 33 For ati-kram, vy-ati-kram, and sam-ati-kram in the Harivaṃśa, see 5.4, 5.8 (Vena transgresses against Veda, dharma, and maryādā); 7.36 (a Manu period elapses); 10.17 (Triśaṅku transgresses against his father and his guru); 13.31, 13.38 (Acchodā transgresses by wishing Vasu was her father); 38.14 (Kālanemi says Viṡṅu has outstayed his time); 43.20 (the ocean transgresses its shore); 48.39 (Kaṁ sa was unable to transgress the will of the gods); 73.27 (the sexual transgressions of women); 75.18 (Kṙṡṅa will not transgress the rules of combat); 83.41 (Yamunā came across to Vṙndāvana); 91.45 (Kṙṡṅa crosses rocky mountains); 92.46, 92.48 (Kṙṡṅa astride Garuḋa goes beyond the range of the sun and moon and passes over the residences of the gods); 96.9 (Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva cross the room to greet Rohiṅī); 96.66 (Kṙṡṅa crosses mountains); 99.13 (in lusting after Pradyumna, Māyāvatī violates morality); 103.1, 103.13 (Arjuna and Kṙṡṅa cross mountains, rivers, lakes, and Mount Gandhamādana); 107.33 (Uṡā's transgression, in the form of an erotic dream, is not sinful); 108.13 (Uṡā transgresses by having premarital sex with Aniruddha); and 118.31 (Indra has sex with Janamejaya's wife). Though none of these usages describe a violation of the precedence of the elder brother, many contain the idea of violating proper hierarchy and a sexual component is clear in some of them.

Interpretation of Baladeva and Yamunā at Harivaṃśa 83 331
Kṙṡṅa born before Baladeva, but it does not; 34 and thus, on the human level, it involves, in Baladeva, the psychological aspects of being overstepped. Goldman (1978: 350, 362) understands Kṙṡṅa's dealings with Kaṁ sa in terms of Kṙṡṅa being something like "the western oedipal hero" in his rebellion against his father-figure Kaṁ sa. This seems hasty, since Kṙṡṅa's father-figures in this regard are rather his actual father Vasudeva and Kaṁ sa's father Ugrasena. Kṙṡṅa killed Kaṁ sa in order to liberate those two father-figures from the abuse and persecution of a demonic upstart son (Ugrasena's son Kaṁ sa), who should have respected them but did not. But nonetheless, Kṙṡṅa's activity here is not led by his elder brother. Regarding Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva, Goldman says: Kṙṡṅa…is…a member of a fraternal pair that shows signs of functioning as a composite hero.…Balarāma, although he is Kṙṡṅa's elder brother, is unquestionably his subordinate in status and power, and in the affections of the poets, theologians and devotees. Yet, despite Balarāma's obscurity and his relegation to a somewhat secondary role in the account of Kṙṡṅa's career, it appears that whatever role he has in these accounts is not so much supplemental as complementary to that of Kṙṡṅa.…Certain of Balarāma's characteristics are notably different from and even diametrically opposed to those of Kṙṡṅa and may, perhaps, as in the case of the Pāṅḋavas serve to establish a more fully rounded composite hero (1980: 151). Goldman (1980: 167-70) discusses in particular the Dāśaratha brothers, where Lakṡmaṅa seems to suppress his own sexuality as part of his younger-brother role towards Rāma. This is not the kind of treatment that Baladeva gets from Kṙṡṅa. This section has discussed Harivaṃśa chapters 63 and 64. It has proposed that Kṙṡṅa sexually oversteps Baladeva's senior privilege and that the immediately following Ariṡṫa scene is a tool for the interpretation of Baladeva's sexual scene to come.

Return to the Passage
This section reviews the passage in light of the opening provided by Sanford 2000 and in light of the wider Harivaṃśa data presented above.
By the time Baladeva returns to Vṙndāvana, he has graduated and seen active service. The cowherders have heard about all his exploits since they last saw him (Harivaṃśa 83.11-13), and they receive him with honor, touched by his visit. Baladeva lauds the bond between them and himself based on his having grown up among them , and in the course of his speech "the faces of the cowherd women lit up with pleasure" (saṃhṛṣṭavadanās tatra babhūvur gopayoṣitaḥ | 83.18cd).
There is the detail here about the lotus garlands: "Lotus garlands tumbled onto the drinking ground and released their own special pollen-colored fluid from their blossom stores" (tasyāṃ tu pānamedinyāṃ petus tāmarasasrajaḥ | mumucuḥ puṣpakośaiś ca svaṃ rajorañjitaṃ jalam ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.31). Earlier, the cowherds brought Baladeva "masses of lotus blossom, freshly lifted and picked" (sadyoddhṛtāvamuktaṃ ca prabhūtaṃ kamalotpalam ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.22cd). The fall of the lotus-blossom garlands seems to result from Baladeva rearranging himself so as to face Yamunā with his tool grasped. In particular overtones, the garlands might also be young women or clothes.
The "drinking ground" (pānamedinī) onto or into which the garlands fall could potentially be a place where the river can be easily accessed by thirsty cattle, rather than or as well as the place where Baladeva is drinking alcohol. If this were the case, then the garlands would be falling into the river, which would help us to make sense of the word jalam: the water would be colored by the pollen (rajorañjitaṃ). This image is significant because the coloring of river water happens by standard during the monsoon and is understood as the river's menstruation by analogy with the menstruation of a human woman (Feldhaus 1995: 46;Kane 1974: 660-61). In both cases, the coloring is a marker of renewed fertility, albeit on an annual rather than a monthly cycle in the case of the river. However, Richard Salomon dates this idea to a period later than the Harivaṃśa: The pollution of rivers during the rainy season noted in earlier Sanskrit texts referred only to the earth carried off by the fast-flowing currents: that is, rajas in the sense of "mud". Later on, apparently in medieval times, this physical impurity came to be symbolically associated with a seasonal "menstrual flow" 35 Elsewhere in the Harivaṃśa the uncompounded word matta describes male elephants in the condition of musth (62.2b, 74.22-23, 81.24b, 82.12c, 84.16c, 84.18b, 96.58a, 107.60b), for example, and male animals and birds showing would-be mating behaviors (59.39a, 59.45d, 62.50ab, 93.65a, 94.5a). 36 Rūpiṇī, "beautiful," is in the nominative case, though it can be translated as another vocative; either way, it is Baladeva referring to Yamunā.
Interpretation of Baladeva and Yamunā at Harivaṃśa 83 333 of the female rivers, and rules were formulated to prohibit bathing in these "menstruous" (rajasvalā) rivers, just as intercourse with a menstruous woman (rajasvalā) is prohibited (1984: 173).
Salomon's chronological conclusion would discourage us from understanding rajorañjitaṃ in terms of Yamunā's cyclical menstruation. A more obvious understanding might be in terms of Yamunā's generally dark hue, particularly in comparison with that of the Gaṅgā, as evident at their confluence (Haberman 2006: 12, 93, 111;Kumar and James 2009: 819). In this sense, the fall of Baladeva's garlands into the water could serve as an origin myth for the Yamunā's color. But the general problem with these interpretations, based as they are upon the "drinking ground" being part of the river, is that, according to the Harivaṃśa account, it was only after his garlands had fallen that "Keeping its tip lowered, Rāma used the plough to grab the great river Yamunā by the bank and drag her" (83.32). When the garlands fell, the Yamunā, though apparently within earshot and within the reach of his plough, was still far enough away for Baladeva to want her to come closer.
Baladeva's use of the plough to drag Yamunā calls for further comment. The plough weapon descends upon Baladeva in the battle against King Jarāsaṁ dha, two chapters before his visit to Vṙndāvana. Baladeva is once referred to by Vaiśaṁ pāyana as Halāyudha, "the one with the plough as his weapon," even before the battle against Jarāsaṁ dha, while Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa are fighting against Kaṁ sa's elephant Kuvalayāpīḋa; this reference seems to be anachronistic (Harivaṃśa 74.36). When the plough descends in the battle against Jarāsaṁ dha it is called Saṁ vartaka, and it descends along with Baladeva's club Saunanda and Kṙṡṅa's bow Ś ārṅga and mace Kaumodakī (Harivaṃśa 81.55-64). 37 These weapons help the Yādava-Vṙṡṅis to keep Jarāsaṁ dha at bay. Before that, Akrūra saw the plough and the club with the snake Ś eṡa beneath the waters of the Yamunā while taking Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva to Mathurā (Harivaṃśa 70.17). In the Harivaṃśa, Baladeva is called Lāṅgali, Lāṅgalin, Halin, and Haladhara, "he who has (or carries) a plough," and also Halāyudha, "he who has a plough for a weapon." He is well endowed, and the plough is his special weapon. But he is only an aspect of the greater Viṡṅu-Nārāyaṅa, who thus has that weapon too. When Viṡṅu goes into battle against the asuras in the Tārakāmaya war, he has a "sticking-up plough" (halodagra; Harivaṃśa 32.25a) in his armory, and when Kṙṡṅa goes into battle against Naraka without Baladeva, Naraka's Dānavas are "smashed up by his great plough" (mahālāṅgalanirbhinnāḥ; 91.48a).
The plough needs no introduction as a tool for the human taming of land. It is a metallic weapon against the wilderness. The agricultural connotation is there in the name of Baladeva's weapon. In the Ṛg Veda, the blissful and threatening female forest (or wilderness) is said to be "unploughed but full of food" (bahvannām akṛṣīvalām;10.146.6b;Brodbeck 2017: 20). One might see the forest here as an unmarried and thus dangerous goddess, 38 parthenogenetically reproducing a potentially strange fruit. From the patriarchal and Brāhmaṅical point of view, the threat of the forest is to be tamed, so the forest's threatening aspect is represented as a desire that is then consummated by the plough. The forested land is female, the hypothetical plough-person implicitly male, and the hypothetical ploughing would be their lawful sexual intercourse. A man's wife is his field, and as marital duty he iteratively ploughs that field and scatters his seed into it at the appropriate point in its cycle 9.145,, and what was once forest thus becomes more legitimately full of food, and full of more food. 39 The femininity of the forest, and more generally the femininity of the earth, 40 sets up the analogy such that the plough optionally connotes the phallus. Jan Gonda observes that "In Sanskrit, the word lāṅgala-designates the plough as well as the penis" (1993: 133). 41 If and when Baladeva uses the plough against a woman, it seems natural to consider interpreting the plough as his phallus. In the Harivaṃśa, Baladeva uses his plough in battle against men repeatedly, 42 but the incident with Yamunā is its only narrated use against a woman. 43 When Baladeva threatens the town of Hāstinapura with his plough at Harivaṃśa 90.8-15, no feminine words are used to describe the town (nagara, pura).
To return again to the passage. After being dragged by the plough, Yamunā makes her speech as quoted earlier, telling Baladeva: "I want the course I was assigned" (mārgam ādiṣṭam icchāmi; Harivaṃśa 83.46c). This demand stretches the metaphor, since it is made after the event, and thus it makes sense if one thinks of Baladeva as moving a river, which he might then conceivably move back, but it does not make sense if one thinks of Baladeva's deed as a sexual act, for in that frame what is done cannot be undone. In the text, Baladeva is "tired and overcome with drunkenness" (madākrāntālaso; Harivaṃśa 83.47d), and he says that Yamunā must stay where his plough has put her (lāṅgalākṛṣṭamārgā tvam, 83.48a; eṣa te 38 The contrast between benign (saumya) married goddesses and dangerous (raudra) independent ones has been discussed in the secondary literature. See, for example, Babb 1970;Foulston and Abbott 2009: 22-39. For critiques of this dichotomy, see Erndl 1993: 153-58;Balkaran 2019: 124-31. 39 The analogy between the annual and menstrual cycles is inexact because the annual cycle bears fruit within itself, whereas when a woman is with child (pre-and postpartum) the menstrual cycle is suspended. 40 On the feminine earth and the king in particular, see Derrett 1959;Hara 1973. 41 Application of this model to the birth of Rāma's wife Sītā in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa would be interesting but is not attempted here. Sītā's father Janaka says that she "sprang up behind my plow. I found her as I was clearing the field" (lāṅgalād utthitā mama | kṣetraṃ śodhayatā labdhvā; Rāmāyaṇa 1.65.14bc ;Goldman 2005: 337). Janaka is a king, not a Vaiśya, but there is a royal ploughing festival: see Mahābhārata 3.241.24-243.10;von Simson 2009: 80-82. Sītā's birth-story is connected with her name, "Furrow" (compare Ṛg Veda 4.57.6-7), and with her earthly disappearance . The birth incident is mentioned also by Sītā herself and by Hanumat 5.14.16). See Bulcke 1952;Brockington 2007. 42 For hierarchical conflict between men in terms of "phallic aggression," see Assante 2017: 42. 43 According to the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (but not the Harivaṃśa), when Revatī's father offered her to him in marriage Baladeva noticed she was very tall (people were bigger in her day; compare Harivaṃśa 85.55), and so before marrying her he used the tip of his plough to reduce her in size. See Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.1.72 (uccapramāṇām iti tām avekṣya svalāṅgalāgreṇa sa tālaketuḥ | vināmayām āsa) ;Sanford 2012: 74-75. subhru saṃdeśaḥ kathitaḥ sāgaraṃgame | 83.49ab). By assigning her a new course he shows himself to be at least as powerful as whoever assigned her previous course. And so he is, for he is Viṡṅu-Nārāyaṅa in both cases. He also says that Yamunā must "refresh this whole region of ours with the gift of your waters, for my sake" (imaṃ me priyadarśane | deśam ambupradānena nikhilaṃ bhāvayasva naḥ ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.48bcd). This apparent afterthought is the first mention of the possibility that Yamunā's new route might benefit anyone but himself. Perhaps at this point he might like to stay there at the party forever.
Perhaps as a result of Baladeva's state of mind, the logical connection between Yamunā's making the best of it and Baladeva's long-lasting fame is slightly ambiguous here ("and" could be "for"). Baladeva's fame will surely endure among the cowherders, who approve and revere him for what he has done (Yamunākarṡaṅaṁ dṛṣṭvā sarve te vrajavāsinaḥ | sādhu sādhv iti rāmāya praṇāmaṃ cakrire tadā ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.50). He seems to view his own future fame as connected to Yamunā and this incident, and to think this would be of some relevance to Yamunā. Does he suppose it would be a consolation to Yamunā that he is famous and that his fame depends upon her? Is she supposed to be happy because she can have greater fame because of Baladeva and this incident? The scene ends with no further word from her, and we are left to imagine that she discarded the woman's body (strīvigrahā; Harivaṃśa 83.41c) and headed towards the sea, as she has been doing ever since.
Baladeva's bath is not described as such. According to the sexual-metaphorical interpretation, the bath would be a euphemism for something that has already happened in between the lines. No explanation is given for Baladeva's having wanted a bath in the first place. He is not there to bathe at a tīrtha. It seems to have been a drunken whim, and this too strengthens the sexual-metaphorical interpretation. Water sports are a known trope in the erotic aspect of the literature. 44 What of Baladeva's fame beyond the cowherds? For audiences of the Mahābhārata, including the Harivaṃśa, and for audiences of Purāṅas such as those mentioned in Vemsani's chart, his fame does not depend on this deed. It is only one of many deeds mentioned, for example, by Vaiśaṁ pāyana in Baladeva's chapter-long Māhātmya at Harivaṃśa 90, which does not repeat those already mentioned in Mahābhārata 1-18, and at the end of which he says there are more deeds that he has not mentioned, which Janamejaya should seek in the "old story collections" (yad akathitam ihādya karma te tad upalabhasva purāṇavistarāt ∥ Harivaṃśa 90.19cd). Within Baladeva's present-day ritual and mythological tradition (as discussed by Sanford and reviewed above), his deed against Yamunā is more central to his role.
In the Harivaṃśa (83.51), as soon as Baladeva has been applauded by the cowherds, he decides to head home to Mathurā, where Kṙṡṅa greets him kindly. Later, after the Yādava-Vṙṡṅis move to Dvārakā, Baladeva marries Revatī (Harivaṃśa 86.80), a girl who was born there as a princess long ago but who visited Brahmā's heaven with her father and returned accelerated through time, to find the place full of Yādava-Vṙṡṅis (9.25-35). Baladeva enjoys his marriage with Revatī (reme rāmo 'pi dharmātmā revatyā sahitaḥ sukhī ∥ Harivaṃśa 9.28cd), and they have two sons, Niśat˙ha and Ulmuka (25.4,98.20). Baladeva seems to have married before Kṙṡṅa, as his marriage is mentioned before Kṙṡṅa's are. In that respect, he is not overstepped. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa sets the Yamunā incident after Baladeva's marriage to Revatī, and so effectively defuses the sexual aspect implied by the Harivaṃśa. In the Harivaṃśa, the Yamunā scene occurs when Baladeva is still presumably sexually frustrated and at some level provoked by Kṙṡṅa's behavior with the gopīs.
This section has explored Baladeva in particular in connection with the quoted passage, pursuing the kind of interpretation suggested by Sanford 2000, as set up by the previous section on Kṙṡṅa and Baladeva. Overall, at this stage, the reader might or might not grant any, some, or significant credence to that sexual-metaphorical interpretation. But it bears the exploration in the Harivaṃśa context, particularly as Sanford was not speaking of the Harivaṃśa when she proposed it.
"Misguided by Her Feminine Nature" Vaiśaṁ pāyana implies that Yamunā might have suffered a different fate had she responded differently to Baladeva's initial speech-that is, had she not been "misguided by her feminine nature" (strīsvabhāvena mohitā; Harivaṃśa 83.29d). When Baladeva says "I want to bathe…come closer to me" (snātum icche mahānadi | ihaiva mābhigacchasva; Harivaṃśa 83.28bc), interpreted in light of what follows this is not just an invitation but also a command.
Is Janamejaya supposed to think that if Yamunā misunderstands Baladeva here, then that is because she is a woman? Is he also or instead supposed to think that Yamunā understands Baladeva, but that because she is a woman, she decides not to act on his words? If the latter, then which aspect of her inaction is Janamejaya supposed to focus on? For she neither travels to Baladeva at his request, nor at this point does she speak to him. There is physical and vocal inaction. Baladeva is roused to anger and action by this, but Vaiśaṁ pāyana does not say exactly what it was about it that angered him. Vaiśaṁ pāyana implies that a response might have been possible from Yamunā whereby she would neither give consent nor be forcibly taken without it. Is Janamejaya supposed to think that if Yamunā does not see that possibility, then that is because she is a woman? Is he also or instead supposed to think that she does see that possibility, but that because she is a woman, she decides not to pursue it?
The text is mysterious as regards the precise deficiency denoted by the words strīsvabhāvena mohitā. 45 But that deficiency is in any case labeled as the kind of deficiency one would expect a female to suffer from. Here Vaiśaṁ pāyana confirms the gendering of the incident, even if the verb muh, broadly meaning to be cognitively impaired or mistaken, is something that could apply to all beings in saṃsāra. Perhaps Janamejaya is supposed to understand Yamunā as drunk too, or even as more confusedly drunk because she is a woman. When a moment later she is being ploughed from one place to another, she is described as "like a drunk woman staggering along the royal road" (matteva kuṭilā nārī rājamārgeṇa gacchatī ∥ Harivaṃśa 83.38cd), but it is not clear how close this simile would be. Baladeva is certainly drunk, whether or not he is really in saṃsāra. But once Vaiśaṁ pāyana invokes Yamunā's "feminine nature" there is a gendered stereotype in operation. The stereotype exculpates Yamunā for what happened, since she can only be what she is (that is, female), and it thus obviates what would have been an offensive conclusion, that Yamunā was somehow responsible for her own assault. But whatever else it might be, it is still a belittling, essentialist stereotype. The use of the words strīsvabhāvena mohitā to describe the speck that is Yamunā's deficiency might immediately draw the present-day reader's attention, by mirror image, to the log that is Baladeva's deficiency, 46 and that might be described as his being misguided by his masculine nature. Appeal to Baladeva's essentially masculine nature, though not explicitly made in this scene, would be the same kind of cop-out as the appeal to Yamunā's essentially feminine nature.
The sensibilities of the present-day reader cannot be avoided. But without saying so explicitly, we have been trying to understand the Harivaṃśa scene by way of historical research, in its own context and in terms of how its recipients might realistically have understood it. Our attempts in this direction are halting, and perhaps ultimately hopeless, because however much associated data we might cull from other surviving texts from that period in order to help us join the dots, we do not know what the attitude of the average text-recipient was to those texts or this text. The listeners within the text-Janamejaya and then Ś aunaka-hardly say anything, and both are elite figures. Perhaps most of the text's recipients knew it was riddled with offensive views but did not think that was quite reason enough to avoid it. We may appear to know more about the authors than about the recipients, because we have the work of the former but not the response of the latter; but attempting to interpret the work in terms of the authors without reference to the audience is very difficult and risks serious misunderstandings. In attempting to understand and translate the ancient authorial voice, the present-day commentator is 45 Ordinarily and primarily, the deficiency of strīsvabhāva would refer to the alleged fickleness and indiscriminate lustfulness of women (on which see Mahābhārata 13.38-43;Manusmṛti 2.213-214, 8.77, 9.2, 9.14-21;Leslie 1989: 246-72); but this aspect of strīsvabhāva does not fit well here, since it is apparently Baladeva doing the desiring. 46 "And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, 'Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye" (Matthew 7.3-5, "New Living Translation," http://nlt. to/Matthew.7.3-5/). The King James version (Blayney 1769) has "brother" instead of "friend." prey to all kinds of biases because of what it is currently fashionable, in his or her context, to talk about in what kinds of way. Meanwhile, sexual domination of females by males is one of the oldest recorded cultural tropes. Discursive response to male sexual violence is not a new phenomenon.
With these provisos in mind, is it possible to ask how we-massively displaced recipients of the text, trying, after suitable philological advice, to put ourselves in the place of the invisible ancient audience-are supposed to read and respond to the act that Baladeva drunkenly perpetrates upon the auspicious river goddess Yamunā with his plough? Our answers to the question of how we are supposed to respond would be speculative, ideological, and perhaps convincing and misleading in equal measure. We would be better off imagining what Janamejaya or Ś aunaka might have thought about this story than imagining what the actual audience might have thought about it, because we at least know a bit about Janamejaya and Śaunaka from the text.
It might be easy for a present-day commentator convincingly to state that the authors of the Harivaṃśa were not enlightened in the ways that we are; that they took it for granted that men push women around and that female nature is deficient in ways that male nature is not; and that the degree of criticism that is thus directed at Baladeva through this scene is very slight. Those statements are certainly compatible with the Harivaṃśa 83 episode, but they do not really emerge from it. This is partly because neither Vaiśaṁ pāyana and Janamejaya nor Ugraśravas and Ś aunaka are the text's author and audience: all four are characters within the text. Rather, such statements might be best understood in the present-day context where specialists in ancient literatures serve their audiences. But where academic service is to provide knowledge, the text's authorial service was to provide literatureliterature that is still literature and still art, and that in that respect need not tell the audience exactly what to think about it. Ambiguity is part of the point. But Baladeva does not respond well to Yamunā's ambiguity.

Conclusion
This article has contributed to a deep reading of the interactions between Baladeva and Yamunā in Harivaṃśa 83. It has introduced and presented the text of the episode in English translation and discussed previous studies of it. It has explained how there are data problems with the mythological and the socio-historical interpretations of this scene, and hence it has explored and expanded upon a sexualmetaphorical interpretation suggested by Sanford 2000, which is effectively a literary interpretation that can be pursued on the basis of the textual data. The article has not sought to prove that interpretation, but hopefully readers will not consider the subject matter too distasteful to take it seriously.
A nuanced reading of Harivaṃśa 83 must recognize gender and sexual power dynamics as definitive of the scene. For clarity, it is also important to see how these dynamics tie into the mythology of agriculture, which is not necessarily in the way one might expect. In the end, as far as the scene in the Harivaṃśa is concerned, one must attend to the sexual undertones and to the protest lodged in Yamunā's speech.
This article has shown that if one thinks of Baladeva and Kṙṡṅa as human-which they are, notwithstanding their simultaneous divinity-then the narrative context and poetic content provide support for a grimly plausible psychosexual drama that plays out alongside the surface-level event at Harivaṃśa 83. A scenario is evoked in which Baladeva, at the drunken end of his visit to Vṙndāvana, sexually assaults a woman who has not made herself available. This aspect does not conflict or compete with the surface-level event of Baladeva's moving the river; it complements it and any interpretations that prioritize it. You may say, for example, that the scene in which Baladeva moves the Yamunā is there at this juncture in the narrative in order to complement Kṙṡṅa's movement of the Yādava-Vṙṡṅi people, with Yamunā symbolically being moved hundreds of miles to Dvārakā. But recognizing and accommodating the sexual drama are requirements for any complete interpretation.
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