Shree Shookdeo Jee said,--O great king! listen attentively, and I
will narrate how Shree Krishnù Chund killed Kesee, and Narud came and
eulogized the act; and afterwards how Huri destroyed Byomasoor. At
dawn of day, Kesee came to Brindabun in the form of an immense horse
of terrifying aspect; and began to paw the ground, and dig up the
earth; having blood-shot eyes, and uplifted nostrils, and ears and
tail erect; and continued neighing and writhing its shoulders and
kicking.
On seeing the animal, the cowherds’ children were frightened, and ran
off and told Krishnù, who came to the spot: and on beholding it, made
preparations for an encounter, and striking the upper parts of his
arms, roared like a lion, exclaiming, “If you are a great friend of
Kuns, and have come here in the form of a horse, why do you run after
others? Come and fight with me, that I may see your strength? How long
will you wander about, like a moth circling round a lamp? Your death
is at hand.” On hearing these words Kesee was enraged, and began to
say to himself, “To-day I will make trial of his power, and laying
hold of him and chewing him like sugar-cane, will do what Kuns
wishes.” He then rushed forward with his mouth open, as though he
would devour the whole world. On his first approach he attacked
Krishnù with his mouth, who drove him back; when he rushed forward
the second time with his mouth open, after having recovered from the
first shock, Shree Krishnù thrust his hand into his mouth, and so
enlarged his hand, which was like an iron club, that it blocked up the
ten passages of the horse’s body. Kesee was alarmed, and began to say
to himself, “My body is now bursting, how has this happened? I have
admitted my own death into my mouth, and have lost my life, as a fish
loses its life by swallowing a hook.”
He then attempted many plans of extricating the hand, not one of which
succeeded. At length, he ceased to breathe, and his belly burst, so
that he fell backwards. The blood streamed from his body like a river.
At this time the cowherds’ children came to see what had happened; and
Shree Krishnù Chund advanced into the jungle, and stood under the
shade of a kudum tree. In the mean while Narud, the sage, arrived with
a lute in his hand. Having made an obeisance, he stood up, and playing
on the lute, and singing of the past and future sports and exploits of
Shree Krishnù Chund, he said, “O lord of compassion! your sports are
unlimited. Who has power to describe your actions? But through your
favour I know so much, that you frequently descend and are manifest
upon the earth to confer happiness on your worshippers, protect
virtuous men, destroy demons and evil spirits and remove the burthens
of the world.”
On hearing these words Krishnù permitted Narud, the sage, to depart;
and he bowed his head and went away. Krishnù took all the cowherds’
children and his companions with him; and sitting under a fig tree, he
made one a minister, another a counsellor of state, a third the chief
of an army, and being himself a Raja, they all began to play a game in
imitation of royalty, and afterwards at blind man’s buff.
Having recited so much of the history, Shree Shookdeo Jee said,--O
lord of the earth! Kuns having heard that Kesee had been killed, early
in the morning, raving and trembling, said to Byomasoor, “O powerful
Byomasoor! the extirpator of enemies, great is your fame in the world!
As the son of Poonuvú (the ape Hunooman) is Ram’s messenger of death,
so are you mine. Destroy the sons of Basoodeo, effect this object for
me to-day.”
Byomasoor with joined hands said in reply, “O great king! to-day I
will do all in my power. My body is yours. They, who are fond of life,
shrink from sacrificing it for their masters. The good name and virtue
of servants and wives consist in giving up their lives for their
lords.”
Having thus spoken, and taken up the beera of betel in token of
undertaking the project, proposed by Kuns, against Krishnù and
Buldeo, Byomasoor made an obeisance to Kuns, and set out for
Brindabun. On the road he assumed the appearance of a cowherd, and
arrived in that disguise at the place where Huri was playing at blind
man’s buff with the cowherds’ children and their companions. When, as
he was going along, he said to Krishnù from a distance with his hands
joined, “O great king! allow me also to play with you,” Huri invited
him to come near, and said, “Do not conceal any wish you may have
formed, but play with us at any game you prefer?” He was delighted,
and replied, “The wolf and rams is a good game.” Shree Krishnù Chund
smiled and said, “Very good, you be the wolf, and the cowherds’
children shall be the rams.”
Byomasoor was rejoiced at these words, and became a wolf, and the
cowherds’ children were rams, and they began to play the game
together. The demon took them off one by one, and placed them in the
cave of a hill, and shut them up there, by placing a stone across the
entrance. When he had thus placed them all there, and Shree Krishnù
alone remained, he called out, “I will to-day accomplish Kuns’
business for him, and destroy all the family of Judoo.”
Having thus spoken, and abandoned the appearance of a cowherd, and
having been transformed into a real wolf, he rushed upon Krishnù, who
seizing him despatched him by means of suffocation and blows, in the
way the sacrificial goat is killed.