Krishna Story 13

Two More Demons Die

by J.K. Sivan

 Hope you enjoyed reading the 12 stories so far written for you.!!
"Misfortune doesn’t come singly", they say! It was so in the case of Kamsa. He was worried and frustrated when he learnt of the miserable death of Baka. But he could not relent. He immediately called for an urgent council of demons to discuss and select who should be the next to proceed to Brindhavan to kill Krishna.

Almost all the demons who assembled there volunteered to go and kill Krishna, the small wonder boy. Out of them Agasura however, was found fit as he had special reason for avenging the death of his sister Boothanaa,(the demoness who tried to breastfeed Krishna with poison tainted breasts and met with her death.)
He proceeded to Brindhavan, selected a spot where it will be favourable for him to draw Krishna and kill him. On the one end of Yamuna there were many rocks bordering the deep dense forest. Agasura took the shape of a huge black giant snake with its wide open mouth. He took such a shape that anyone would mistake the mouth of the black big snake to be a mountain cave as the coiled serpent looked like a rock positioned in between two huge rocks.

The cowherd children were playing on the banks of Yamuna that day and initially no one noticed the new “cave”. One of the boys saw this and drew the attention of the rest calling them “ let us go into the cave and see what is there in side” Their calves were resting under trees ,after grazing, chewing the cud.

The boys went near the cave and the still unmoving snake passed for a small rock cave. One of them went near and just peeped inside. There was nothing but a hollow passage. He was emboldened and stepped inside the open mouth of the snake and walked in. Two more boys followed the pioneer. Slowly and steadily almost all the boys now were inside the mouth of the snake. Agasuran was watching for Krishna’s movement. Krishna initially hesitated and looked at the rocks carefully. He has not seen this rock with its cave entrance before! However he smiled within himself and entered the cave after all the boys went inside.

The moment Krishna entered its mouth, Agasura closed his mouth and began twisting his body to crush the boys in his stomach. The boys shouted and cried in shock and fear of death. Krishna realized he did not have much time to save the boys. He immediately enlarged his size and added weight to his body. He now was too big for the space in the stomach of Agasura and started kicking the walls of the stomach firercey. Agasura tried to crush him but the pain created by Krishna made him suffer a lot. He was about to burst anytime which was what Krishna planned. Within a few moments, the snake’s body burst out and the children were ejected by Krishna’s powerful hands. Agasura was writhing in unbearable pain and was on his last throes until he was dead soon.

We need to deal with another demon who followed Agasura before ending this story.

Every demon seemed to have some clever idea of approaching the small boy Krishna hoping to kill him but the skill was not enough. This demon was named Vyomaasura. He was the son of a clever demon named Maayasura. He could take any form and shape.

Instead of taking the form of any bird, animal or reptile, Vyomaasura thought he would be able to kill Krishna as “one of the playmates”. He therefore came to Brindhavan with a novel idea.

One day when Krishna, Balarama and the other boys were playing "hide and seek" he was one of them. Initially nobody noticed him as a stranger among them. They were all playing for long and it was becoming dark as the evening advanced to night. "This is the time" thought Vyomaasuran. While playing with other boys he had already schematically chased a few boys and hid them in the forest. Krishna suddenly observed that the number of boys they started the game with, was slowly dwindling. He wondered "why some friends were missing?" He carefully looked at all the playmates.

When Krishna suspected something different with a boy, he slowly followed him and the demon was very happy that he was able to isolate Krishna from the rest, while running and chasing him in the game. When he found Krishna was running towards the deep forest, he happily chased Krishna. When Krishna was cornered, he held Krishna’s hands. The force which the "new boy " applied in holding Krishna’s hands made him realise that he has another demon to combat with that evening. Krishna pretended to be weak and surrender. He acted as if he was unable to free himself from the demon’s grip.

The demon took his real form now and laughed. “Atlast your end is through my hands!!” the demon cried in joy. Krishna decided to kill him before it was late and too dark. So he made himself strong. He caught hold of the demon's hands and twisted it. Unexpecting such a resistance the demon came with a force closer to Krishna to lift him up. Krishna avoided his approach by bending down and instantaneously caught hold of one of his legs and dragged him. The demon fell down. Krishna immediately caught hold of both his legs and swung him up in the air fast in circles and struck him down on a nearby rock, with a force. The demon crashed down on the rock with a thudding noise. He broke his bones and limbs bleeding all through with the impact. His condition was deplorable. He looked like a tender cucumber crushed under an elephant’s feet!!.

When the other boys rushed to the scene they were utterly shocked. They could hardly believe that one of the boys who played with them that evening was in fact a demon and Krishna as usual identified him and put him to death. The missing boys were released by Krishna and the entire village was discussing that night Krishna’s supernatural prowess.

The author can be reached at: jksivan@gmail.com