Krishna Kills Vatsasura and Encounters Bakasura (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
The forests of Vrindavan, Krishna’s childhood refuge, could protect the young god from his wicked uncle for only so long. Eventually, Kansa discovered his nephew’s whereabouts and dispatched a long succession of demons (asuras) to kill him. Krishna would, of course, defeat them all. This delightful picture shows two of these demon encounters, described sequentially in the Bhagavata Purana. On the left, Krishna is tending cattle with Balarama as he recognizes one of Kansa’s assassins disguised as a calf. Sneaking up behind this calf-demon, Vatsasura, Krishna grabs him by the hind legs, whips him around violently, and throws him up in the tree at the painting’s center. In the second scene, depicted at right, the famed brothers and their cowherd companions encounter the next of Kansa’s would-be killers, the great crane-demon, Bakasura.
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