Pralambāsura

Pralambāsura · pralamba-asura, “the long-hanging asura”

Pralambāsura, also called Pralamba, was a rākshasa of great strength, one of the followers of Kaṃsa in his war on the Yādavas. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa calls him “the foremost of rākshasas” and a pāpī (one full of pāpa, wrongdoing), one who hated the good. Sent against Śrī Kṛshṇa and Balarāma in Vṛndāvana, he came among the gopa boys in the form of a gopālaka (a cowherd boy), meaning to carry the two brothers off. Śrī Kṛshṇa knew him at once, yet let him join the play, thinking of how he would be slain. In a game of carrying, Pralamba took Balarāma on his shoulders, ran past the turning point at the Bhāṇḍīraka banyan, and rose into the sky in his own terrible form. There Balarāma struck him on the head with one blow of his fist, hard as the vajra (Indra‘s thunderbolt), and Pralamba fell dead to the earth like a mountain. The gopa boys embraced Balarāma, and the devatās rained flowers on him.

Ever after, the slaying of Pralamba is remembered among the līlās (divine deeds) of the two brothers: by the gopas, by the people of Mathurā, by Nanda, by Śrī Kṛshṇa himself, and in Brahmā‘s account of the foes who fall to Śrī Kṛshṇa and gain Vaikuṇṭha.

A follower of Kaṃsa

Śuka tells Parīkshit that the mighty Kaṃsa had Jarāsandha, king of Magadha, as his support. With followers named Pralamba, Baka, Cāṇūra, Tṛṇāvarta, Agha, Mushṭika, Arishṭa, Dvivida, Pūtanā, Keśī and Dhenuka as his companions, and with other rākshasa kings such as Bāṇāsura and Narakāsura to help him, Kaṃsa set about destroying the Yādavas. Pralamba is the first of the followers the text names.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 2

The game at the Bhāṇḍīraka banyan

It was summer in Vṛndāvana, yet because Śrī Hari himself was present there with Balarāma, the season seemed like spring. Balarāma and Kṛshṇa, with the gopa boys, were grazing the cattle in the forest, playing as they went. Wishing to carry the two of them off, the rākshasa Pralamba came among them in the form of a gopālaka. Śrī Kṛshṇa, born in the Daśārha line, who knows all things, knew who he was. Still, thinking of how to slay him, he accepted him as a companion.

Śrī Kṛshṇa, skilled in every game, called the boys together: “Let us pair up, each with one equal to him, in two teams, and play.” The boys made Balarāma and Kṛshṇa the leaders of the two teams. They played games of “the carrier and the carried”, in which the loser carries the winner on his shoulders, and, still grazing the herds, they went on to the banyan tree famous as Bhāṇḍīraka. Balarāma’s team won. So Śrī Kṛshṇa carried Śrīdāma, Bhadrasena carried Vṛshabha, and Pralambāsura carried Balarāma, the son of Rohiṇī. Pralamba had joined Śrī Kṛshṇa’s side for this very purpose: he thought it impossible to carry Śrī Kṛshṇa, and so took up Balarāma. Running faster than all the others, he went on past the banyan where the riders were to be set down.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 18

His true form and Balarāma’s blow

Balarāma was as heavy as a mountain, and Pralamba’s speed slowed. Then the great rākshasa took on his own form. Shining like lightning with his golden ornaments, carrying Balarāma, he looked like a cloud flashing with lightning that carries the Moon, the king of the stars. His eyes blazed and his hair blazed; his body moved swiftly through the sky; his terrible fangs reached up to his eyebrows; and he wore armlets, a crown and earrings.

Balarāma, whose weapon is the plough, saw that form; and as remembrance (smṛti) came to him, he was all himself again. Pralambāsura was carrying him through the sky as if he were his own property. Then Balarāma struck his enemy on the head with his hard fist, with the force of the vajra, as Devendra strikes a mountain. At that blow the rākshasa vomited blood from his mouth; his head split apart; he lost consciousness, and at once his life left him. Like a mountain struck by Indra‘s vajra, he fell to the earth with a great noise.

The gopa boys, seeing Pralamba slain by mighty Balarāma, were filled with wonder and cried “Well done! Well done!” They blessed Balarāma and embraced him, as though he had come back from death, and with hearts moved by love they praised him. When Balarāma slew the pāpī Pralambāsura, the devatās were full of joy; they rained flowers on him and praised him: “Well done! Well done!”

The chapter heading gives the deed as “Śrī Kṛshṇa uplifts Pralambāsura”, and its colophon as “Balarāma uplifts Pralambāsura”.

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 18

His slaying remembered

• When the gopa boys came home, they told the gopīs of the two wonderful līlās of the brothers: Balarāma‘s slaying of the asura Pralamba, and Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s saving them from the forest fire. The elders and the gopīs, amazed, reflected that Śrī Kṛshṇa and Balarāma were leaders of the devas who had descended in Gokula (Skandha 10, Chapter 20).
• After the lifting of Govardhana, the gopas, recounting Śrī Kṛshṇa’s deeds to Nanda, said that he had the terrible Pralambāsura slain by the mighty Balarāma (Skandha 10, Chapter 26).
• In Mathurā, as the brothers entered the wrestling arena, the people said of Balarāma, the lotus-eyed elder brother of Śrī Kṛshṇa, that he had slain Pralamba, Vatsāsura, Baka, Dhenuka and other rākshasas (Skandha 10, Chapter 43).
• Nanda told Uddhava that here in Vṛndāvana Śrī Kṛshṇa had easily destroyed rākshasas such as Pralamba, Dhenuka, Arishṭāsura, Tṛṇāvarta, Baka and Aghāsura, all of whom had earlier won victories over the devatās and the rākshasas (Skandha 10, Chapter 46).
• Śrī Kṛshṇa, telling Mucukunda of his avatāra, said that Kālanemi in the form of Kaṃsa, Pralamba who hated the good, Agha and other rākshasas had been slain (Skandha 10, Chapter 51).
• Brahmā, telling Nārada of the līlā-avatāras of Śrī Hari, names Pralambāsura first among the foes, Dhenukāsura, Bakāsura, Keśī, Arishṭāsura, Kaṃsa and many more, whom Śrī Kṛshṇa slays in the forms of Balarāma, Bhīma and Arjuna; they merge in him, and he grants them his divine abode Vaikuṇṭha (Skandha 2, Chapter 7).
• Sūta, summing up the Purāṇa for the ṛshis of Naimisha, names the slaying of Pralambāsura among the līlās of Śrī Kṛshṇa told in Skandha 10 (Skandha 12, Chapter 12).

Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 7; Skandha 10, Chapters 20, 26, 43, 46, 51; Skandha 12, Chapter 12

Sources

• Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 7; Skandha 10, Chapters 2, 18, 20, 26, 43, 46, 51; Skandha 12, Chapter 12