Why does baby Krishna go house to house stealing butter? Not for the butter. To stir up the flowing parental love of the elderly gopis — it is a game between them, a competition. They hide the butter higher — he piles pot upon pot and reaches it anyway. Next day they hide it higher still, then deeper, in a dark corner; and he finds it even there. Every morning a fresh round. So they come to mother Yashoda to "complain": "Your rascal was at my house again, thieving butter again. I catch him by the hand — and he looks at me and smiles in such a way that I forget everything in the world, and he is already gone." And one who had hidden her butter too well — in revenge he made a puddle on her kitchen floor, and leaving, he tossed over his shoulder: don't hide your butter from me, or I'll come and burn your house down. They come to accuse him — and go home melted. Which of them loves him more — that is their only contest.