Narada receives his musical instrument ( Vina )

While staying once with Krsna at Dvaraka, Narada and the former went out on a tour in an aerial chariot. On the way they saw a stream and Krsna stopped the chariot there as Narada wanted to quench his thirst at the stream. Narada drank water from the stream disobeying Krsna's injunction that he should bathe before drinking water, and lo! the next moment Narada was turned into a woman and when `she' looked around neither Krsna nor the chariot was to be seen. She wandered about in the forest and at last reached an asrama.

When the Rsi of the asrama awoke from his samadhi he saw standing before him a beautiful woman who requested him to accept her as his disciple. He readily granted her request. The preceptor married the disciple and in due course of time she became the mother of sixty children. One day all the sixty children and their father expired together. The grief-stricken widow felt too weak to perform the obsequies of the dead. An extraordinary hunger also held her in its grips. She raised her hand to pluck a fruit from the mango tree that stood nearby but could not reach the mango above. She placed together the corpses one on the other, mounted upon the heap of dead bodies and plucked the mango-fruit Immediatelv a brahmin arrived on the spot and exhorted the widow on the impropriety of taking food without bathing after the death of husband and children.

Then the widow entered the stream and dived in its waters holding above water the hand in which was held the mango, and to ! it was Narada who came out from the water. Only the hand, which had been held above water and did not therefore get wet, remained like that of a woman with bangles thereon. The brahmin, who stood thereon the banks of the stream transformed himself into Krsna. As ordered by Krsna Narada again dived with the whole of his body in the water when the hand also turned into that of a man. The mango held in the hand turned into an excellent Vina. And Krsna told Narada: "The Rsi who lived with you as your husband and who is no more is Kalapurusa; and the sixty children are years Prabhava, Vibhava etc.

Narada was an adept in the Science of Music, a virtual Nada Brahma and an authority of Swara, Grama and Murchchana.

1. Sapta Swaras: Sadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata and Nisada. 
2. Gramas are the gradual increase and decrease of Swaras; 
3. Mruchchanas: intonations and regulation of sounds by controlling the air and harmony through keys, changing keys for sound modulation and creating melodies 

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