Once upon a time, there lived an evil king named Kamsa. It was predicted that the eighth child of his sister, Devaki would kill him someday and hence he took the drastic measure of killing all of Devaki’s children. But, however he missed killing the eighth child, which was none other than Lord Krishna himself. To finish the job, he went to a demoness called Putana. She was known to be a powerful demon who was feared by many. Kamsa ordered her to kill all the babies in the kingdom who were less than 10 days old. Putana readily accepted the job as she would be feared more now after committing this hideous act.
Putana went immediately and started locating all the babies who were less than 10 days old. Upon identification, she killed them all and eventually came to a village where everyone was talking about one child. They were speaking so much about him, that she knew that it was him she was looking for. Instantly, she transformed herself into a beautiful woman, looking literally like a goddess and walked into the village. She also filled her breasts with poison. The people there were stunned by her beauty and thought she was a goddess. Putana went straight to the village of Yasodha (Lord Krishna’s foster mother) and asked whether she could see Lord Krishna. Yasodha agreed immediately, mistaking Putana for a goddess just like the others and handed baby Krishna to her.
Putana took baby Krishna to the backyard and started to breastfeed him. After some time, Putana started to feel weak. Little Krishna was not just drinking her milk, but her life itself! Putana tried to throw him away, but was unsuccessful. She even changed into her original form, but that did not scare little Krishna at all. She tried flying high into the air, but that too did not scare him. He eventually sucked the entire life out of her, with the poison having no effect and Putana fell dead. When Yasodha and the others came to see what was happening, they were shocked to see Lord Krishna playing on the corpse of Putana.
Thus ends the story of one of the many unsuccessful attempts by Kamsa to kill Lord Krishna.