The Two Trees

Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva, the sons of Kubera, lord of wealth, had become attendants of the god Śiva and were swollen with pride. One day in a grove on Kailāsa, Śiva's mountain, beside the Mandākinī, they drank wine until their eyes rolled, and went down into the river among the lotuses with young women, playing like bull elephants with their cows. Nārada happened to see them. The women, seeing him, were ashamed of their nakedness and, afraid of a curse, put on their clothes quickly. The two sons of Kubera did not, though they were naked too.

Nārada saw the two drunk with wine and blind with the pride of wealth, and meaning to curse them for their own good, he spoke. Of all the things that ruin the judgment of a man given to pleasure, high birth and all the rest, none is like the pride of wealth, which brings women and dice and wine with it. For a man blind with the pride of wealth, poverty is the best ointment for the eyes. A poor man sees others as himself; a man pierced by a thorn does not wish that pain on any other creature. These two, sons of a guardian of the world, are so sunk in darkness and pride that they do not even know they are naked. Let them become trees, so that they will not be like this again. But by my grace let them keep their memory. When a hundred years of the gods have passed, they will come near to Vāsudeva, find devotion, and go back to heaven.

Then Nārada went to the hermitage of the Lord Nārāyaṇa, and Nalakūbara and Maṇigrīva stood as twin arjuna trees. Long afterward, when the Lord was living in Gokula as the child Kṛṣṇa, his mother tied him to a mortar for breaking a pot of curds and stealing the butter. Then Kṛṣṇa went slowly to the two trees to make the sage's word come true, thinking, The divine sage is dearest to me, and these are the sons of Kubera; I will do just as that great soul said. He went between them, the mortar caught crosswise behind him, and as he dragged it he pulled the trees down, and the two sons of Kubera came out of them, free.