Bhagavatam · Banasura and Aniruddha

The Ganga’s current shivered in the morning light. Parikshit sat in silence for a while, then spoke. “Bhagavan, yesterday you spoke of the queens the Lord freed from Narakasura’s prison. One thing has stayed lodged in my mind. I have heard that once Shankara himself stood against Krishna on the field of battle, and that Hari and Shankara fought a great and grinding war. How can this be, sage? How do two gods do battle with each other? Tell me the whole of it.”

A faint light came into Shukadeva’s eyes. “Rajan, where there is devotion, the Lord does not hold back, even if another Lord stands in the road before him. This is a katha of love, and of protection too. Listen.”

Banasura was a king among the asuras, the eldest of the hundred sons of Bali. It was Bali who once gave away the whole earth to the Lord when he came measuring the worlds in the small body of the dwarf, and out of that same open-handed line came Bana, forever absorbed in the worship of Shiva. The world held him in high regard; his generosity and his intelligence drew praise, his given word never bent, and he was truly a man who kept his promises. In those days he ruled from the lovely city of Sonitapur. He had a thousand arms, and in those arms lived so much strength that his hunger for battle never went quiet.

One day, while Lord Shiva was lost in his Tandava dance, Banasura pleased him by playing every kind of drum and instrument at once with his thousand hands. Shiva was delighted, and the Lord who is the one master of all beings, tender to his devotees and the shelter of those who seek him, said to Banasura, “Ask of me whatever you wish.” Banasura said, “Bhagavan, stay here and guard my city.” And so, by Lord Shiva’s grace, even Indra and the other gods served Banasura like hired attendants.

But this very assurance had left Banasura restless. When Mahadeva himself is your protector, no enemy worth the name is left to face you. One day he touched Shiva’s feet and said, “God of gods, you are the guru and the lord of all that moves and does not move, the wish-granting tree that completes every unfinished longing. You gave me these thousand arms, yet they have become nothing but a weight on me. In all three worlds, apart from you, I find no warrior my equal who can stand against me in a fight. Once the itch took me and I marched against the great elephants who guard the directions, but even they turned and fled in fear. That day I broke and shattered many mountains with the blows of my arms.” Shankara said, with a touch of anger, “You fool. The day your banner snaps and falls, on that day you will meet a warrior my equal, and he will grind your pride to dust.” Banasura’s mind had soured so far that this news only gladdened him, and he began to wait for the very war in which his strength was destined to be undone.

Banasura had a daughter, Usha. She had grown up in the inner chambers of the palace, a stranger to the world.

One night Usha had a dream. A young man, dark of complexion, with eyes like lotuses, dressed in yellow silk and impossible to look away from, came to her, and within the dream he stayed with her and gave her the sweet honey of his lips to drink. She had not yet drunk her fill when he left her adrift on an ocean of longing and went away, she knew not where.

When her eyes opened she cried out, “Beloved of my heart, where are you?” But no one was near. Overcome, she sat up, and seeing that she was among her friends, she flushed with shame. The one she had not even touched, without him the nights had turned hard to pass.

In the morning her friend Chitralekha came, the daughter of the minister Kumbhanda, and Usha’s constant companion. Seeing Usha’s fallen face, she sat down beside her, curious. “Lovely one, princess, I see that no one has yet taken your hand in marriage. So whom are you searching for, and what is the shape of this longing of yours?”

Usha said softly, “Friend, in a dream I saw a most beautiful young man. His complexion is dark, his eyes are like the petals of a lotus, and yellow silk flutters about his body. His arms are long, and he is a thief of women’s hearts. First he gave me the sweet honey of his lips to drink, but before I could drink my fill he cast me into an ocean of sorrow and went away, I know not where. It is that beloved I am searching for, and I do not even know his name.”

Chitralekha said, “Friend, if this thief of your heart exists anywhere in the three worlds, and you can recognize him, I will surely calm this ache of separation. I will draw portraits; you pick out your beloved and tell me. Then, wherever he may be, I will bring him to you.”

So saying, Chitralekha drew portraits of many gods, gandharvas, siddhas, charanas, serpent-folk, daityas, vidyadharas, yakshas and human beings. One after another the faces rose up on the paper. Usha kept shaking her head, “No, not this one… not this one either…”

Then among the humans she drew the Vrishnis: Shura, the father of Vasudeva, then Vasudeva himself, Balarama, and Lord Krishna, and others. At the sight of Pradyumna’s portrait Usha grew shy. And when Aniruddha’s portrait rose up, her head bowed low with modesty. Her palm came to rest on that portrait of its own accord. Smiling faintly, she said, “This one. My beloved is this one, this one.”

Chitralekha studied the portrait closely and said softly, “Do you know who this is? This is Aniruddha, the son of Pradyumna, the grandson of Krishna, a prince of Dwarka.” Usha’s face fell; Dwarka was so far away. Chitralekha took her hand. “Do not lose heart. Tonight I will bring him here.”

As the night deepened, Chitralekha used her yogic power to reach Dwarka, the city guarded by Krishna. There Aniruddha lay asleep on a beautiful bed. By the force of her yogic attainment she lifted him and carried him to Sonitapur, and gave her friend Usha the sight of her beloved.

Finding her beautiful beloved before her, Usha’s face bloomed like a lotus in joy. The two of them kept gazing at each other, as though the thread of a dream had suddenly come into the hand while waking.

Usha began to spend her days with Aniruddha in her inner palace. With costly garments, garlands of flowers, perfumes and scented oils, incense and lamps, fine seats, sweet drinks and food, charming words and every kind of tending care, she honored Aniruddha, and with her love she made his heart her own. Hidden in that maiden’s chambers, Aniruddha forgot himself. He did not even notice how many days had passed since he came there.

Usha’s maidenhood could no longer be hidden. Signs appeared on her body that spoke plainly and could not be concealed by any means. The guards understood that she must have taken up with some man. They went to Banasura and said, “Rajan, the ways of your unmarried princess threaten to stain the family’s name. We keep watch over the palace day and night, our shifts unbroken; no outsider can so much as look at her. How then has she come to be marked?”

Shaking with rage, Banasura stormed up to the chamber himself with his soldiers, and there sat Aniruddha, the son of Pradyumna, who was Love himself come to earth again, dark of hue and clad in yellow, a wreath of spring jasmine caught between his arms and still stained with the saffron from Usha’s breast, throwing dice with her as though no army in the world could reach that room. Aniruddha alone took up an iron club and held the soldiers off, and like Death itself standing there with the rod of doom, whoever sprang forward to seize him he struck down, the way the leader of a herd of boars kills off a pack of dogs. But then Banasura loosed his nagapasha, his serpent-noose sorcery. The bonds of snakes gripped the young man fast, and he was left a prisoner. Hearing of it, Usha broke down in grief and despair, and a stream of tears ran from her eyes.

In Dwarka, meanwhile, there was an uproar. The prince gone from his bed, no trace, no clue. The four months of the rains passed and no one learned a thing; Aniruddha’s household was sick with grief.

Then Narada arrived, as he always does in a time of trouble. He told Dwarka where Aniruddha was, how he had been carried off to Sonitapur, and in whose nagapasha he lay bound.

Then the Yadus, who held Krishna alone as their chosen deity, set out for Sonitapur. With Krishna and Balarama went Aniruddha’s father Pradyumna, and Satyaki, Gada, Samba, Sarana, Nanda, Upananda and Bhadra, at the head of twelve akshauhinis, and they laid siege to Sonitapur from every side.

When Banasura saw the Yadu army tearing down the city’s gardens, ramparts, watchtowers and great gates, a light came into his eyes. This was the very war he had craved from Mahadeva. He too marched out of the city at the head of twelve akshauhinis, and fell down before Shiva in his temple.

“Prabhu, do you remember your word? The Yadus are at the gate. Now keep the honor of your servant.”

Shiva was bound by his word. He sent the army of his Pramatha hosts, put his son Kartikeya at the front, and, mounted on Nandi, came and stood on the field of battle himself.

And then came the hour that halted the gods of all three worlds in the sky to watch.

Shri Hari and Shankara, face to face.

Within them both the same supreme reality, and between them a deep regard. Yet in this hour one stood on one side and the other on the other.

The battle broke open. On one side the Yadus and Pradyumna’s bow; on the other Shiva’s Pramatha hosts and the spear of Kartikeya. Shankara fought Krishna, and Kartikeya fought Pradyumna. Kumbhanda and Kupakarna closed with Balarama, Samba with Banasura’s son, and Satyaki with Banasura himself.

Arrows fell in sheets and covered the sky. Celestial weapons flew, struck one another, and went out.

Between Krishna and Shiva there was a wondrous and grinding war, such that the watching gods thrilled to see it. Shankara loosed weapon after weapon of every kind from his Pinaka, and Shri Hari, without the least astonishment, quieted each one with the weapon that countered it. Against the Brahmastra a Brahmastra, against the Vayavya the Parvata, against the Agneya the Parjanya, against the Pashupata the Narayana.

Shankara’s followers too rushed at Krishna, but with the sharp arrows of his Sharnga bow Krishna struck and drove off the bhutas, pretas, pramathas, guhyakas, dakinis, yatudhanas, vetalas, vinayakas, hosts of ghosts, the mother-spirits, pishachas, kushmandas and brahma-rakshasas.

From Shiva’s side rushed the Maheshvara-jvara, a blazing fever with three heads and three legs, burning the ten directions as it came at Krishna; before it the Yadu army began to scorch. Krishna released his own Vaishnava-jvara. The two fevers clashed, and the Maheshvara-jvara, tormented by the heat of the Vaishnava-jvara, was beaten. Finding shelter nowhere, it came in fear with folded hands to take refuge in Krishna and began to praise him. Pleased, Krishna granted it safety. “Whoever recalls this exchange between the two of us will have nothing to fear from you.”

Then came the moment when the war climbed to its height.

Krishna fixed on a rare weapon, the jrimbhana-astra, which brings on yawning and lassitude. At its touch Shiva was overcome; yawn followed yawn, and seated there on Nandi he withdrew from the fight.

The destroyer of all creation, in the middle of the battlefield, came to a stop. Seizing the moment, Krishna began to cut down Banasura’s army with sword, mace and arrows. At the same time Pradyumna wounded Kartikeya with a shower of arrows, until blood ran from every limb and he fled the field on his mount, the peacock. Balarama, with the blow of his pestle, wounded Kumbhanda and Kupakarna, and they fell on the field. Seeing their commanders struck down, Banasura’s whole army scattered.

A few moments later Shiva recovered himself. With a faint smile he looked toward Krishna.

“Govinda, that was a fine move.”

There was a smile on Krishna’s lips too. “Forgive me, Prabhu. There was no way to reach my grandson without holding you back.”

When Banasura, mounted on his chariot, saw his army scattering under the blows of Krishna and the others, a great rage took him. He rushed to attack Krishna, and drunk with battle he drew five hundred bows at once with his thousand hands, fitting two arrows to each. But Krishna cut down every one of his bows at a single stroke, brought down his charioteer, chariot and horses, and sounded his conch.

Just then Kotara came and stood before him, Banasura’s own mother. To save her son’s life she came before Krishna with her hair loose and her body unclothed. So that his eyes would not fall on her, Krishna turned his face away and looked to the other side. In that interval, his bows cut and his chariot gone, Banasura slipped away into his city.

But that pride was still alive inside him. Before long Banasura returned, mounted on a chariot again, bearing weapons of every kind, raining arrows on Krishna.

Krishna released the Sudarshana chakra. As one might trim the small branches from a tree, the discus cut away Banasura’s arms one by one, leaving only four. The burden of a thousand arms, which he had never quite been able to carry, fell from him in a moment.

Bathed in blood, Banasura bent to the ground. The discus was still poised to cut away the arms he had left.

Then Lord Shankara, tender to his devotees, stepped forward. “Govinda, hold.”

Krishna stayed the discus and looked toward Shiva.

“Prabhu, you are the Parabrahman, the very form of supreme light, hidden as the inner meaning of the Veda’s mantras. Great souls of pure heart behold your form, all-pervading like the sky and free of change. The firmament is your navel, the sun your eye, the four directions your ears, the earth your feet; we who guard the seven worlds guard them by a strength that flows wholly from you. This Banasura is dear to me above all, an object of my grace and my servant. I have granted him refuge. As your grace rests on his great-grandfather Prahlada, the king of the daityas, let the same grace rest on him. You have taken away his pride; now grant him his life.”

Krishna paused a moment, then said in a gentle voice, “Bhagavan, as you wish, I make him free of fear. Banasura is the son of Bali, the grandson of Virocana, the great-grandson of Prahlada who was king of the daityas. For that reason I will not slay him, for I gave Prahlada a boon that I would slay no one born in his line. His arms I cut away only to break his pride, and his great army I cut down only because it had grown into a burden the earth could no longer carry. The four arms that remain to him will stay ageless and undying. He will be foremost among your attendants, and though he is an asura he will have no fear of anyone in any form. Only this: let him loose Aniruddha’s bonds and send him, with Usha, to Dwarka.”

Banasura accepted with bowed head. He came to Krishna, pressed his forehead to the earth, and made his obeisance. The bonds of the nagapasha fell open. Aniruddha, for the first time in these months, could breathe the open air.

Then, with Mahadeva’s assent, Lord Krishna set out for Dwarka, placing Usha and Aniruddha, adorned in fine garments and ornaments, at the head of the column with an akshauhini of troops. In Dwarka every corner of the city was decorated, the great roads and crossings were sprinkled with sandal-scented water, and the citizens, kinsfolk and brahmins came forward to welcome the Lord with great festivity. Conches, kettledrums and dhols sounded in a tumult. The face Usha had first known in a dream and then in a portrait was now hers for life.

And Banasura, with his four remaining arms, became foremost among Mahadeva’s Pramatha hosts and stayed forever at his feet.