Lord Kṛṣṇa Fights with Bāṇāsura

Next paragraph. Sixty-third Chapter. Subject: "Lord Krsna Fights with Banasura."

When four months of rainy season passed off and still Aniruddha did not return home, all the members of Yadu family became too much perturbed why the boy was missing for so long time. Fortunately, one day the great sage Narada came there, and he informed about the whole story of Aniruddha's disappearance from the palace and how he was carried to the city of Sonitapura, the capital of Banasura, and how Banasura had arrested him by the rope of snake, although his soldiers were defeated in the attempt. All these news were informed in detail, and the whole story was disclosed.

Then the members of Yadu dynasty, all of whom were so much affectionate to Krsna, prepared themself to go and attack the city of Sonitapura, where Aniruddha was being detained under arrest. Practically all the leaders of the Yadu dynasty-Pradyumna, Gada, Samba, Sarana, Nanda, Upananda and Bhadra-all combined together gathered eighteen divisions of aksauhini military phalanx, and all of them went to the city of Banasura and surrounded the whole city by soldiers, elephants, horses, chariots, etc.

When Banasura heard that outside the city the soldiers of the Yadu dynasty had arrived and they were creating disturbances by tearing down various walls and gates and nearby gardens and they have attacked the whole city, he immediately became very much angry and ordered for his soldiers of equal category, and he came out of the city to face them for fighting. Lord Siva was so kind upon, he personally came as the commander-in-chief of the whole military strength, assisted by his heroic sons, Karttikeya and Ganapati. When he engaged himself fighting with Lord Krsna and Balarama, Lord Siva was seated on his favorite bull of the name Nandisvara.

Now we can simply imagine how fierceful was the fight, because on one side there was Lord Siva himself with his valiant sons. On the other side was Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and His elder brother, Sri Balaramaji. The fighting was so fierceful that anyone who saw the battle was struck with wonder, and the hairs on the body stood up. Engagement was directly with Lord Siva and Lord Krsna, and on the other side with Pradyumna and Karttikeya. Lord Balarama was engaged in fighting with the commander-in-chief of Banasura, of the name Kumbhanḍa, assisted by Kūpakarna. Samba, the son of Krsna, was engaged in fighting with the son of Banasura, and Banasura himself engaged in fighting with Satyaki, commander-in-chief of the soldiers of Yadu dynasty. In this way, the fighting began.

The fighting news spread all over the universe, and demigods from different higher planetary system like Lord Brahma, great sages and saintly persons, Siddhas, the Caranas, the Gandharvas, all of them being very much inquisitive to see the fight between Lord Siva and Lord Krsna along with their assistants, and all of them were hovering on the battlefield on their respective aeroplanes.

Lord Siva as usual is called the Bhūta-natha. He was assisted by various kind of powerful ghosts and denizens of inferno, or the Bhūtas, Pretas, Pramathas, Guhyakas, Ḍakinis, Pisacas, Kusmanḍas, Vetalas, Vinayakas and Brahma-raksasas. Out of all kinds of ghosts, the ghost of the name Brahma-raksasas are very powerful. Brahmana transferred to the species of ghostly life becomes a Brahma-raksasa. The Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krsna, taking in His hand the celebrated bow Sarhga-dhanur, began to beat all of them. They were simply driven away from the battlefield, and Lord Siva himself took charge of the fighting and began to release all his selected weapons upon the Personality of Godhead.

Lord Sri Krsna without any difficulty counteracted all those selected weapons by counterweapons. He counteracted the brahmastra, similar to atomic bomb, by brahmastra. He counteracted the air weapon with a mountain weapon. The idea is when Lord Siva released his particular type of weapon which could bring in a vehement hurricane on the battlefield, Lord Krsna would present just the opposing element, a mountainous weapon, which would check the hurricane on the spot. Similarly, when Lord Sahkara released his weapon of devastating fire, Krsna counteracted such devastating fire with torrents of rain.

Then at last, when Lord Siva released his personal weapon, which is called Pasupata-astra, Krsna immediately counteracted it by the Narayana-astra. In this way, when Lord Siva was exasperated in that fighting with Lord Krsna, Lord Krsna took the opportunity of releasing His yawning weapon. When this weapon is released, the opposing fighting party simply feels tired; without fighting they begin only yawning. In this way, Lord Siva became fatigued and continued yawning, ceasing to fight anymore.

In this way, when Lord Krsna got relief from the attack of Lord Siva, he turned His attention towards Banasura and began to kill his personal soldier with swords and club. On the other hand, Lord Krsna's son Pradyumna was fighting so fiercely that Karttikeya, who is the commander-in-chief of the demigods, became wounded. As a result of the wound, Karttikeya was emanating profuse blood discharges from the body. He also left the battlefield without fighting anymore and ride away on the back of his peacock carrier. Similarly, Lord Balarama was also smashing by the stroke of His club on the commander-in-chief of Banasura, namely Kumbhanḍa. In this way Kumbhanḍa and Kūpakarna became also wounded by the weapons of Balaramaji. Both of them fell down on the battlefield. When the commander-in-chief of the Banasura's soldiers was thus fatally wounded, all the soldiers without guidance became dismantled, and they were scattered here and there.

Next paragraph.

When Banasura saw that by the constant attack of the soldiers and commanders of Lord Krsna his soldiers and commanders are being defeated, he could simply increase his temper only, anger, and he thought it wise that without fighting with Satyaki, the commander-in-chief of Krsna, he would directly attack Lord Krsna. So he was rushing toward Krsna in great haste. This time Banasura had the opportunity for using his one thousand hands, and he engaged at once his one thousand hands for working with five hundred bows and two thousand arrows, and all of them simultaneously was used for killing Lord Krsna.

Foolish person could not measure the strength of Lord Krsna. Therefore Lord Krsna immediately, without any difficult, cut into two pieces all the bows of Banasura. And in order to check him to go further, his chariot driver, horses were laid down on the ground and the whole chariot broken into pieces. After doing this, He blew His conchshell of the name Pancajanya.

There was another demigoddess of the name Kotara. She was worshiped by Banasura, and the relationship was as mother and son. Mother Kotara being aggrieved to the point of Banasura's life being in danger, she also appeared on the scene with naked body and scattered hair and stood before Lord Krsna. Lord Sri Krsna did not like to see this naked woman, therefore He turned His face without seeing her. Banasura, getting this chance of not being attacked by Krsna, left the battlefield because all the strings of his bow disconnected and there was no chariot, no driver. So he had no other alternative than to return back in his own city, losing everything in the battle.

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In this way, when Lord Siva saw that his ghostly…

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