Like a malady disregarded, the swelling ocean and the roaring clouds of the rainy season that wicked-minded one is rising in power (23). I have not been able to find out the means of subduing or to understand the movements of that boy of wonderful deeds born in Nanda Gopa’s house (24). That boy is either the offspring of a god or born of any other powerful being. I however do not know any thing—but I surmise so by his superhuman deeds which even the celestials can not perform (25). While asleep in his infancy he drank up the life of Putanā (going there in the form of a) bird under the pretext of sucking her breast (26). Vanquished in no time in the lake of Yamuna, that Nāga Kalya, ranging in the region underneath, has disappeared (27). But Nanda’s son, by his Yoga power, has risen up again. Dropped down from the top of a palm tree Dhenuka has breathed his last (28). Pralamva too, whom even the gods could not surpass in battle, has been slain like an ordinary animal, by that powerful one with the strokes of his fist (29). Suppressing the festivity in honor of Indra, and putting a stop to excessive rain consequent upon his anger that boy held up the mount Govardhana for affording shelter to the kine (30). The powerful Aristha, with his horns shattered, has been slain by him in Vraja. From the actions of that boy living in the village of milk-men it appears that he is not a boy, but assuming the false guise of a child, is sporting there merely. While he stands before me for a battle, forsooth, I know that he is my Death—(the destroyer) of my former body (31–33). There is a vast difference between the birth as a wretched milkman amongst men, weak for their death and his sporting in my cow-settlement with the power of a god (34). It appears to me as certain that a god, covering his own true form with a Gopa body, is sporting here like fire in the cremation ground (35). I have heard that in the days of yore in order to accomplish the work of the celestials, Vishnu, assuming the form of a dwarf, took away the earth from Bali (36). At another time assuming the form of a lion that powerful Vishnu killed Hiranyakashipu the grand-father of the Dānavas (37). Assuming a form, surpassing the range of thought, Bhāva (Siva) the destroyer of Tripura killed all the Daityas on the Sweta mountain (38). Being shaken off his promise²⁴⁷ by his preceptor Angira’s son (Kacha) resorting to a frog’s illusion²⁴⁸ Bhrigu’s son (Sukra) caused a drought (in the land of the Dānavas) (39). Assuming the form of a boar that thousand-headed eternal deity Vishnu raised up the earth from the great ocean (40). When the gods and Asuras, assembled for (churning) for ambrosia, Vishnu, in the shape of a tortoise in the ocean, held up the Mandara mountain (41). And when there arose ambrosia he, assuming the form of a beautiful woman, created a highly terrible battle between the gods and demons (42). Assuming a wretched dwarf form in the days of yore he rescued the three worlds