A tale of illusions

Bhanumati was the grand-daughter of Lord Krishna. In her childhood, while spending time with her friends in the Raivataka forest, she blindly ran and bumped into Sage Durvasa. He got angry and cursed her stating that she will be kidnapped by a demon. Sage Narada saw this and asked him to calm down. Durvasa felt sorry that he had cursed Bhanumati in anger. He told she will eventually be rescued and would get married to a worthy man. A few years later, Bhanumati grew into a beautiful maiden. When she was spending time with her friends in her garden, the demon Nikumbha kidnapped her. Her panic stricken friends then informed others about this. Then Lord Krishna, Arjuna and Pradyumna went to rescue her. They fought with him for a while then Nikumbha along with Bhanumati became invisible. But, Pradyumna could expose the invisible and was able to locate them. But this time Nikumbha turned himself into a yellow vulture and fought with them. After sometime, he became exhausted and fell to the ground. Pradyumna immediately took Bhanumati into his chariot. Nikumbha then flew towards his city Shatpura and hid himself. Pradyumna taunted him for a while and he came to fight again. This time Lord Krishna raised his discus. In fear, the demon Nikumbha left his body. Everybody thought he was dead. But Pradyumna told he had escaped from his body. Soon his body vanished and he split each fraction of his body into separate bits and covered each bit with an illusory body and there were thousands of Nikumbhas. Lord Krishna and the others did the same and a great fight ensued between them. When all of Nikumbhas forms fused into one, Lord Krishna with his discus killed him. Sage Narada then arrived and asked them to get Bhanumati and Sahadeva (one of the Pandavas) married. They did so and lived happily ever after.

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