Parāçara said:—Listen, O Maitreya, to another achievement accomplished
by the powerful Balarāma. The great Asura, Naraka, the enemy of the
friends of the celestials, had a friend of exceeding might in a monkey
named Dwivida, who was worked up with implacable hostility against the
celestials, and vowed to revenge on all of them the destruction of
Naraka by Krishna at the instigation of the king of the celestials, by
preventing sacrifices and bringing about the total destruction of the
world. Blinded by ignorance therefore, he interrupted all religious
practices, put down all righteous observances, and brought about the
death of living creatures; he set fire to forests, to villages and
towns; sometimes he deluged cities and villages with a downpour of rocks
or lifting up mountains in the waters he cast them into the ocean; then
placing himself in the midst of the deep, he agitated the waves until
the foaming sea rose above its confines and swept away the villages and
cities situated upon its shores. Dwivida, who was capable of assuming
shapes as he liked, enlarged his bulk to an immense proportion, and
rolling and tumbling and trampling amidst the corn-fields, he crushed
and spoiled the harvest. The whole world, disorganised by this vicious
monkey, was deprived of sacred study and religious ceremonies, and was
greatly afflicted.
Once on a time Halāyudha was drinking in the groves of Raivata along
with the illustrious Revati and other beautiful females; and the
celebrated Yadu whose glories were sung and who was pre-eminent amidst
graceful and sportive women, resembled Kuvera, the god of riches, in his
palace. In the meantime, the monkey Dwivida came there and stealing the
ploughshare and the club of Balarāma, grinned at and mocked him, and
laughed at the women and threw over and broke the cups filled with wine.
Enraged at this, Balarāma threatened the monkey; but the latter
disregarded his threats and chattering noise. Thereupon Balarāma started
up and seized his club in anger, and the monkey laid hold of a large
rock which he hurled at the hero. And casting his club at it as it
approached him, Bala broke it into a thousand pieces, which together
with the club, fell upon the ground. Beholding the club thus fallen, the
monkey sprang over it and struck the Yādava violently on the breast with
his paws. Bala returned it with a blow of his fist upon the fore-head of
Dwivida which felled him, vomiting blood and lifeless to the earth. The
crest of the mountain on which he fell was sundered into a hundred
pieces by the weight of his body, as if the Thunderer had shivered it
with his thunder-bolt. The celestials threw down a shower of flowers
upon Rāma and approached him and praised him for the glorious feat he
had performed.
"Well has the world been freed" said they "by thy prowess, O hero, of
his vile ape, who was the enemy of the celestials". Then well pleased,
they and their attendant spirits returned to heaven. Many such
inimitable deeds were performed by the illustrious Baladeva, the
impersonation of Sesha, the supporter of the earth.