The demoness sent by Kaṁsa to destroy extraordinary male infants and to abduct extraordinary female ones. In Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Lalita-mādhava she seizes Rādhā and Candrāvalī, is put to flight by a rakṣoghna-mantra, and loses one of the girls over Vidarbha; Rādhā is recovered only after Pūtanā is killed. The popular version in which she drops both girls onto lotuses in the Yamunā is not Rūpa Gosvāmī’s account.
