One day, a year after Kṛṣṇa had appeared, mother Yaśodā was patting Him on her lap when suddenly she felt the child to be heavier than a mountain peak, and she could no longer bear His weight. Thinking that perhaps the child was being attacked by some ghost or demon, the astonished mother Yaśodā put the child down on the ground and began to think of Nārāyaṇa. Foreseeing disturbances, she called for the brāhmaṇas to counteract this heaviness, and then she engaged in her other household affairs. She felt she had no alternative but to remember the lotus feet of Nārāyaṇa.
While the child sat on the ground, a demon named Tṛṇāvarta came there disguised as a whirlwind and very easily carried the child away into the air. Obscuring the whole land of Gokula with dust, Tṛṇāvarta began vibrating a greatly fearful sound everywhere. In a moment the whole pasturing ground was overcast with dense darkness from the dust storm, and mother Yaśodā was unable to find her son where 'she had placed Him. Greatly disturbed, she fell down on the ground and began to lament very pitifully, like a cow who has lost her calf.
When the force of the dust storm and the winds had subsided, the gopī friends of mother Yaśodā heard her pitiful crying and approached her. Not seeing Kṛṣṇa, they too felt very much aggrieved and joined mother Yaśodā in crying, their eyes full of tears.
Having assumed the form of a forceful whirlwind, the demon Tṛṇāvarta took Kṛṣṇa very high in the sky, but when Kṛṣṇa became heavier than the demon, the demon had to stop his force and could go no further.