The Demon in the Cowherds' Game

The two brothers spent their days in the woods with the cows. They shouted and sang. They called each cow by her name and drove the herd out to far pastures. They slung the cows' foot-ropes over their shoulders and hung garlands of forest flowers round their necks. One was fair and one was dark, and side by side they looked like two clouds, one white and one black.

They swung on the branches of the trees. They boxed and wrestled and threw stones, like any boys in any village. Nobody watching would have taken them for gods.

That was what the demon Pralamba was counting on.

He meant to kill them both, Krishna first and then the son of Rohini. So he took the shape of a cowherd boy and walked in among the others. Nobody looked at him twice. He was one more boy with a stick.

The boys began a game called leaping like deer. It was a game for pairs. Two boys leapt along side by side, both feet at once, the way deer bound, and whoever won was carried by the loser to the great Bhandira fig and back to the start. Krishna was paired with Sridaman. Balarama was paired with the new boy.

Off they went. Krishna beat Sridaman. Balarama beat Pralamba. Krishna's whole side won.

So it was Pralamba's turn to carry. Balarama climbed onto his shoulders and sat there, fair against the dark boy, like the moon riding on a cloud.

Pralamba set off for the fig tree. He reached it, and he did not stop.

He ran on, away from the game. But the boy on his back was heavier than any boy should be, and the demon could not carry him in that small shape. So he let it go. He swelled up huge, like a black cloud in the rains. A crown came onto his head and garlands round his neck. His eyes were as big as cartwheels, and the ground shook under him.

Balarama looked down from that height at a monster running off with him.

"Krishna! Krishna!" he called. "A demon has carried me off! He was dressed as a cowherd and now he is as big as a mountain. What shall I do? Tell me, Madhusudana! He is running away with me!"

Krishna heard him and smiled, because he knew exactly how strong the son of Rohini was.

"Why are you pretending to be only a man?" he called back. "Remember yourself. You were there before everything began, and you are what is left when the world ends. You have a thousand heads. You hold up the earth. You and I came down here together to take her burden off her. Have you forgotten?"

Balarama listened.

"Remember who you are," said Krishna, "and deal with the demon yourself. Put the mortal aside for a moment, and do what is right."

Balarama laughed.

He gripped the demon hard with his knees, and struck him on the head with his fists. Pralamba crashed to the ground and lay there dead.

The cowherd boys came running and found him standing over the body.

"Well done!" they shouted. "Well done!" They crowded round him and praised him.

Then Balarama and Krishna gathered the cows and walked home together to Gokula with the others, as they did at the end of every day.

In the Bhagavata it was summer, but with the two brothers in the woods it felt like spring.

When Pralamba walked in among the boys in a cowherd's shape, Krishna saw through him at once. He said nothing. He greeted the stranger as a friend and waited.

"Two teams," said Krishna. "The losers carry the winners on their backs."

The boys chose Krishna to lead one side and Balarama the other, and they played their way to a banyan called Bhandiraka. This time Balarama's side won, with Shridama and Vrishabha on it. So Krishna, the leader of the losers, had to carry Shridama. Bhadrasena carried Vrishabha. And Pralamba, who was on Krishna's side, carried Balarama.

That suited him. Krishna, he thought, could not be beaten, so he would go after the fair brother instead.

He carried Balarama far past the place where he should have put him down. Then Balarama made himself as heavy as Mount Sumeru, and the demon staggered and slowed, and could keep up his disguise no longer. He showed his real body, blazing with golden ornaments, like a dark cloud with lightning in it.

For a moment, the Bhagavata says, Balarama seemed a little frightened. Then he remembered what was really happening, and he was not afraid at all. Nobody had to remind him. He struck the demon on the head with his fist, the way Indra's thunderbolt strikes a mountain, and Pralamba fell dead.

"Excellent! Excellent!" cried the boys, and they ran to hug him. The gods in the sky were pleased, and they threw down garlands of flowers on the fair cowherd.