Krishna - The Dark Lord of Dwaraka

Chapter 25 - Pralambhasura

Kamsa was broken. He just could not believe the pathetic existence that he was reduced to. Every single person that he had sent to Vrindavan had never returned. Now, there was absolutely no doubt in Kamsa's mind that somehow Vrindavan had become the home to the eighth child of Devaki. The biggest problem was that Kamsa had no one to share his fear with. Just his minions. And they were all disappearing.

Finally, Kamsa sent Pralambhasura to Vrindavan, as a last ditch effort to curtail the eighth child of Devaki.

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Pralambhasura realized that the asuras who were sent before had all openly attacked Gokul. Probably, that was the reason they were not successful.

Pralambha decided to try something slightly more subtle.

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"Let us play a new game!" Krishna said with twinkling eyes as he saw the cows grazing peacefully in the Bhandiravana forests.

"What game?" Sudama asked eagerly.

"We form teams. One team catches the other. The loser will have to carry the winner on their back." Krishna said.

Even as he spoke, he heard movement behind them. Krishna turned to see a huge boy coming in the forest towards them.

"Can I join?" The boy asked the boys. He thumbed behind as Krishna and his friends saw some lazy cows in the background.

Sudama and Vrushabha went to Balarama's team. The new boy was in Krishna's team.

The boys began to play and were running through the forests joyously and sometime later, Balarama's team won.

As part of the bargain, Krishna carried Sudama on his shoulders.

Saying nothing, the new boy carried Balarama on his shoulders.

Before the boys could even understand what was happening, the boy strangely began to grow in size and he started running away from the place.

The Gopa boys gasped as they saw boy grow huge.

Balarama was shocked. For a huge second. But then he recovered himself. He kept an iron grip on the neck of the creature and shook it, trying to get off.

But then the boy had grown too huge for Balarama to actually do any damage. Besides Balarama was being shaken badly as the creature just kept running.

Balarama caught the hair of the asuras which were thick as coils as he pulled himself up to the head of the creature.

The creature just kept running as Balarama reached the head of the creature and hit it on the head with a loud thud.

The creature was stopped with the blow. At least its speed faltered as it was trying to recover and tried pulling the boy from his head.

But Balarama hit the monster again and again.

The creature fell on its knees as Balarama scrambled and fell down. A vicious fight ensued between Balarama and the creature that had been growing all this time. As they were fighting, the other boys came running and watched the fight with baited breath.

But despite the fact that the creature was bigger, Balarama was a better fighter. He killed the creature by his sheer brute strength.

And so Pralambhasura met his end too.

(As an offshoot of this story, the cows and calves had wondered off during the fight of Balarama and Pralambhasura.

The boys went in search for the cows and that was when the forest caught fire. So the Gopa boys and the cows were all trapped in the fire.

It is said that Krishna asked the boys to close his eyes and he swallowed the fire to save his friends. It may also be noted that this is the second time that Krishna had swallowed a forest fire which was threatening his friends - the first time was just before the attack of Dhenukasura.)