As far as Krsna's transcendental qualities are concerned, they can be divided into three groups: qualities pertaining to His transcendental body, qualities pertaining to His transcendental speech, and qualities pertaining to His transcendental mind.

Krsna's age, His transcendental bodily features, His beauty, and His mildness are qualities pertaining to His body. There is no difference between Krsna and His body, and therefore the transcendental features pertaining to His body are the same as Krsna Himself. But because these qualities stimulate the devotee's ecstatic love, they have been analyzed as separate causes of that love. To be attracted by the qualities of Krsna means to be attracted by Krsna Himself, because there is no real distinction between Krsna and His qualities. Krsna's name is also Krsna. Krsna's fame is also Krsna. Krsna's entourage is also Krsna. Krsna and everything related with Krsna which gives stimulation to love of Krsna are all Krsna, but for our understanding these items can be considered separately.

Krsna is the reservoir of all transcendental pleasure. Therefore, the impetuses to love of Krsna, although seemingly different, are not actually distinct from Krsna Himself. In the technical Sanskrit terms, such qualities as Krsna's name, fame, etc., are accepted both as reservoirs of and stimulation for love of Krsna.

Krsna's age is considered in three periods: from His appearance day to the end of His sixth year is called kaumara; from the beginning of the sixth year up to the tenth year is called pauganda; and from the tenth to the sixteenth year is called kaisora; after the beginning of the sixteenth year, Krsna is called a yauvana or a youth, and this continues with no change.

As far as Krsna's transcendental pastimes are concerned, they are mostly executed during the kaumara, pauganda and kaisora periods. His affectionate pastimes with His parents are executed during His kaumara age. His friendship with the cowherd boys is exhibited during the pauganda period. And His friendship with the gopis is exhibited during the age of kaisora. Krsna's pastimes at Vrndavana are finished by the end of His fifteenth year, and then He is transferred to Mathura and Dvaraka, where all other pastimes are performed.

Srila Rupa Gosvami gives us a vivid description of Krsna as the reservoir of all pleasures in his Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu. Here are some parts of that description.

Krsna's kaisora age can be divided into three parts. In the beginning of His kaisora age-that is, at the beginning of His eleventh year, the luster of His body becomes so bright that it becomes an impetus for ecstatic love. Similarly, there are reddish borders around His eyes, and a growth of soft hairs on His body. In describing this early stage of His kaisora age, Kundalata, one of the residents of Vrndavana, said to her friend, "My dear friend, I have just seen an extraordinary beauty appearing in the person of Krsna. His blackish bodily hue appears just like the indranila jewel. There are reddish signs on His eyes, and small soft hairs are coming out on His body. The appearance of these symptoms has made Him extraordinarily beautiful."

In this connection, in the Tenth Canto, 21st Chapter, 5th verse, of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sukadeva Gosvami tells King Pariksit: "My dear King, I shall try to describe how the minds of the gopis became absorbed in thought of Krsna. The gopis would meditate on Krsna's dressing Himself just like a dancing actor and entering the forest of Vrndavana, marking the ground with His footprints. They meditated on Krsna's having a helmet with a peacock feather and wearing earrings on His ears and yellow-gold colored garments covered with jewels and pearls. They also meditated on Krsna's blowing His flute and on all the cowherd boys' singing of the glories of the Lord." That is the description of the meditation which the gopis used to perform.

Sometimes the gopis would think about His soft nails, His moving eyebrows and His teeth, which were catechu colored from chewing pan. One description was given by a gopi to her friend: "My dear friend, just see how the enemy of Agha has assumed such wonderful features! His brows are just like the brows of Cupid, and they are moving just as though they were dancing. The tips of His nails are so soft-it is as if they were dried bamboo leaves. His teeth are reddish, and so it appears that He has assumed a feature of anger. Under the circumstances, where is the chance for a young girl not to be attracted by such beautiful features and not to be afraid of becoming a victim to such beauty?"

Krsna's attractive features are also described by Vrnda, the gopi after whom Vrndavana was named. She told Krsna: "My dear Madhava, Your newly-invented smile has so captivated the hearts of the gopis that they are simply unable to express themselves! As such, they have become bewildered and will not talk with others. All of these gopis have become so affected that it is as if they had offered three sprinkles of water upon their lives. In other words, they have given up all hope for their living condition." According to the Indian system, when a person is dead there is a sprinkling of water on the body. Thus, the statement of Vrnda shows that the gopis were so enchanted by the beauty of Krsna that because they could not express their minds, they had decided to commit suicide.

When Krsna arrived at the age of thirteen to fourteen years, His two arms and chest assumed an unspeakable beauty, and His whole form became simply enchanting. When Krsna attained thirteen years of age, His two arms were challenging the trunks of elephants, His rising chest was trying to come to peace talks with doors of jewels, and His two arms were minimizing the value of the bolts found on doors. Who can describe the wonderful beauty of these features of Krsna? The special beauty of Krsna's body was His mild smiling, His restless eyes and His world enchanting songs. These are the special features of this age.

There is a statement in this connection that Krsna, on arriving at this age, manifested such beautiful bodily features that His restless eyes became the playthings of Cupid, and His mild smile resembled the newly-grown lotus flower. The enchanting vibration of His songs became a great impediment to the young girls, who were supposed to remain chaste and faithful to their husbands.

At this age Krsna enjoyed the rasa-lila, exhibiting His power of joking with the cowherd girls and enjoying their company in the bushes of the gardens by the bank of the Yamuna.

In this connection there is the following statement: "Throughout the whole tract of land known as Vrndavana there were the footprints of Krsna and the gopis, and in some places peacock feathers were strewn about. In some places there were nice beddings in the bushes of the Vrndavana gardens, and in some places there were piles of dust due to the group-dancing of Govinda and the gopis." These are some of the features which are due to the different pastimes invented by Sri Krsna in the place known as Vrndavana.

There is the following statement by one gopi, describing Krsna's attractive feature during this age: "My dear friend, just see how all of a sudden in the sky of Krsna there is a powerful rising sun and how this rising sun is minimizing the rays of our chastity moon. Our attraction for Krsna is so intense that it is drying up the lotus flower of our discrimination, and we are losing our senses in deciding whether we shall continue as chaste women or be victimized by the beauty of Krsna. My dear friend, I think that we have lost all hope of life!"

In the kaisora age, beginning from the eleventh year and continuing up to the end of the fifteenth year, Krsna's arms, legs and thighs became marked with three divisional lines. At that time Krsna's chest challenged a hill of marakata jewels. His arms challenged the pillars of the indranila jewel, the three lines of His waist challenged the waves of the River Yamuna, and His thighs challenged beautiful bananas. One gopi said, "With all these exquisite features of His body, Krsna is too extraordinarily beautiful, and therefore I am always thinking of Him to protect me because He is the killer of all demons."

The idea expressed in this statement is that the gopis were comparing their attraction for Krsna to an attack by demons; and to counteract their attraction for the beauty of Krsna, they were also turning to Krsna hopefully, because He is the killer of all kinds of demons. In other words they were perplexed, because on one hand they were attracted by the beauty of Krsna, and on the other they needed Krsna to drive away the demon of such attraction.

This kaisora age can be translated as adolescence. At the end of this period all the gopis said, "Krsna is the killer of the attraction of Cupid, and as such He disturbs the patience of all newly-married girls. Krsna's bodily features have become so exquisite-it is as if they are all manifesting an artistic sense of the highest sort. His dancing eyes have dimmed the brilliance of the most expert dancer, and so there is no longer any comparison to the beauty of Krsna." Learned scholars therefore describe the features of His body at this time as nava-yauvana, newly-invented youthfulness. At this stage of Krsna's bodily features, the conjugal love affairs with the gopis and similar pastimes become very prominent.

There are six features of conjugal love affairs, called peacemaking, picking a quarrel, going to meet one's lover, sitting together, separation and support. Lord Krsna expanded an empire of these six features, of which He was the ruling prince. Somewhere He was picking quarrels with the young girls, somewhere He was scratching them with the nails of parrots, somewhere He was busy going to visit the gopis, and somewhere He was negotiating through cowherd friends to take shelter of the gopis.

Some of the gopis addressed Him thusly: "My dear Krsna, because of Your adolescent age, You have just become the spiritual master of these young girls, and You are teaching them to whisper among themselves. You are teaching them to offer solemn prayers, as well as training them to cheat their husbands and to join You in the gardens at night, without caring for the instructions of their superiors. You are enthusing them by the vibration of Your enchanting flute; and, as their teacher, You are teaching them all the intricacies of loving affairs."

It is said that even when Krsna was a boy of five He manifested such youthful energies, but learned scholars do not explain them because of the absence of suitable age. Krsna was beautiful because every part of His body was perfectly arranged without any defect. Such perfect bodily features of Krsna are described as follows: "My dear enemy of Kamsa, Your broad eyes, Your rising chest, Your two pillar-like arms and the thin middle portion of Your body are always enchanting to every lotus-eyed beautiful girl." The ornaments on the body of Krsna were not actually enhancing His beauty, but just the reverse-the ornaments were beautified by Krsna.

A person is called mild when he cannot even bear the touch of the most soft thing. It is described that every part of Krsna's body was so soft that even at the touch of newly-grown leaves, the color of the touched part of His skin would change. At this kaisora age, Krsna's endeavors were always bent toward arranging the rasa dance, as well as toward killing the demons in the forest of Vrndavana. While Krsna was engaged in enjoyment with the boys and girls within the forest of Vrndavana, Kamsa used to send his associates to kill Him, and Krsna would show His prowess by killing them.