Putana

Common card · No. 447288

In Hinduism, Pūtanā (lit. 'putrefaction') is a rakshasi (demoness) who was killed by the infant-god Krishna. Putana disguises herself as a young, beautiful woman and tries to kill the god by breast-feeding him poisoned milk; however, Krishna sucks her milk as well as her life via her breasts. Putana is also considered a foster-mother of Krishna, as she breastfed him. By offering her milk, Putana had performed "the supreme act of maternal devotion", in the shadow of her evil motives. The legend is told and retold in Hindu scriptures and some Indian books, which portray her variously as an evil hag or a demoness who surrendered herself to Krishna, though she initially came with evil motives. Putana is sometimes interpreted to be an infantile disease or bird, symbolizing danger to an infant or desire, respectively, and even as a symbolic bad mother. She is included in a group of powerful and complex Hindu mother goddesses called the Matrikas and also counted among the Yoginis and Grahinis...

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