Bhāṇḍīra (Tree)

Bhāṇḍīra

Bhāṇḍīra is a tree in the forest of Vraja where Śrī Kṛshṇa and Balarāma played with the gopas. The Brahma Purāṇa names it in the account of the slaying of Pralamba: in a game of carrying one another, the losers had to carry the winners as far as the Bhāṇḍīra tree and bring them back. On that way the asura Pralamba, disguised as a gopa, carried off Balarāma, and Balarāma slew him. Vyāsa tells the account to the munis.

The carrying game

After the donkey-asura Dhenuka was killed with his younger brothers, the palm forest became a fine place of play for the gopas and gopīs. Balarāma and Kṛshṇa, the sarvaloka-nāthas (masters of all the worlds), who had entered the earth and honoured the human state, played there the games that suit humankind: they swung on swings, wrestled, threw stones upward and enjoyed many wonderful exercises.

Then Pralamba, an asura hidden in the guise of a gopa, came among the gopas, seeking a chance to kill Balarāma and Kṛshṇa. In a game of carrying one another on the shoulders he joined against Balarāma. Kṛshṇa was paired with a gopa named Śrīdāma, Balarāma with Pralamba, and the other gopas with one another. Kṛshṇa defeated Śrīdāma, Balarāma defeated Pralamba, and the gopas on Kṛshṇa’s side defeated the others. The wager was that the losers must carry the winners as far as the Bhāṇḍīra tree and bring them back.

Pralamba carries off Balarāma

The dānava, acting as if he had lost, picked up Balarāma and went off with him, like the moon in a cloud. Then, as if unable to bear the weight, he swelled his body like a rain cloud: blazing like a mountain in a forest fire, with garlands of flowers and a crown on his head, his eyes bulging like cart-wheels, terrible in form, the earth shaking under his feet. Balarāma said: “Kṛshṇa! A rākshasa, grown like a great mountain in a māyā form of a cowherd, is carrying me off. Tell me what I should do now.”

Govinda, smiling, knowing Balarāma’s strength and valour, said: “You are the self of all, the secret of all secrets; your human form is for play. You, the master of the whole world (aśesha-jagat-prabhu), have become my elder brother for a purpose. Remember your own form, the cause of all. When the whole world became one ocean, you and I were the one Parabrahma, and to sustain this world we became separate. So, knowing yourself, kill this dānava, and do good to our people and kin.”

Reminded thus by Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, Halī smiled gently, seized Pralamba, raised him up, and struck him with his fist on the crown of the head. Pralamba’s eyes burst out, his head split, he vomited blood, fell to the ground and died. The gopas cried “well done, well done!” and praised Balarāma, and he returned to Gokula with the gopas and Kṛshṇa.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 187

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 187