64 Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

multi-incarnations. All such incarnations descend in fulfillment of Your
promise in the Bhagavad-gita that You appear as soon as there are
discrepancies in the system of progressive life. When there are disturbances
by irregular principles, my dear Lord, You appear by Your internal
potency. Your main business is to protect and maintain the demigods and
spiritually inclined persons and maintain the standard of material law and
order. Simultaneous to the maintenance of such law and order, Your
violence to the miscreants and demons is quite befitting. This is not the
first time You have incarnated; it is to be understood that You have done
so many, many times before.

“My dear Lord, I beg to submit that I have been very greatly chastised
by the release of Your Narayanajvara. It is certainly very cooling, yet at
the same time very severely dangerous and unbearable for all of us. My
dear Lord, as long as one is forgetful of Krsna consciousness, driven by the
spell of material desires and ignorant of the ultimate shelter at Y our lotus
feet, one who has accepted this material body becomes disturbed by the
three miserable conditions of material nature. Because one does not sur-
render unto You, he therefore continues to suffer perpetually.”

After hearing the Sivajvara, Lord Krsna replied, “‘O three-headed one, I
am pleased with your statement. Be assured there is no more suffering for
you from the Narayanajvara. Not only are you now free from fear of
Narayanajvara, but- anyone in the future who simply recollects this fight
between Sivajvara and Narayanajvara will also be freed from all kinds of
fearfulness.”” After hearing the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the
Sivajvara offered his respectful obeisances unto His lotus feet and left.

In the meantime Banasura somehow or other recovered from his setbacks
and, with rejuvenated energy, returned to fight. This time Banasura
appeared before Lord Krsna, who was seated on His chariot, with different
kinds of weapons in his one thousand hands. Banasura was very much
agitated. He began to splash his different weapons, like torrents of rain,
upon the body of Lord Krsna. When Lord Krsna saw the weapons of
Banasura coming at Him, like water coming out of a strainer, He took His
sharp-edged Sudargana disc and began to cut off the demon’s one thou-
sand hands one after another, just as a gardener trims the twigs of a tree
with sharp cutters. When Lord Siva saw that his devotee Banasura could
not be saved even in his presence, he came to his senses and personally
came before Lord Krsna and began to pacify Him by offering the following
prayers.

Lord Siva said, “My dear Lord, You are the worshipable object of the
Vedic hymns. One who does not know You considers the impersonal
