Prem Sagar: Chapter LXVI

This is a passage from a devotional retelling of Hindu Puranic scripture — likely a vernacular rendering of the Bhagavata Purana — presented as the sage Shukadeva narrating to a king. The episode recounts Balarama's (Bulram's) journey from Dwarka back to Gokul/Brindavan to console the people Krishna and he left behind when they departed for Muttra and later settled in Dwarka. The text dwells on the grief of those abandoned: the cows that have stopped eating, the cowherdesses who wander dishevelled and lovesick, and the foster-parents Nund and Jusodha, whose anguish at Krishna's long absence is rendered with affecting domestic detail. A notably candid note enters when one cowherdess bitterly catalogues Krishna's apparent faithlessness — his sixteen thousand new wives, his forgotten promises, his years of silence — before the mood is redirected toward celebration. Balarama redeems the visit by spending two months dancing, feasting, and singing with the women of Bruj, and famously bends the river Yamuna with his plough when it refuses his command. The passage is of interest to readers of Vaishnava devotional literature for its frank portrayal of human longing and reproach alongside divine splendour, and for foregrounding Balarama as a warm, fleshly counterpart to the more transcendent Krishna.

Prem Sagar: Chapter LXVI

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