The Vishnu Purana
Chapters
The Vishnu Purana: Book V: Chapter IX

[paragraph continues] Balaráma with Pralamba: the other boys were coupled with one another, and went leaping away. Govinda beat his companion, and Balaráma his; and the boys who were on Krishńa's side were also victorious. Carrying one another, they reached the Bháńd́íra fig; and from thence those who were victors were conveyed back to the starting-ground by those who were vanquished. It being Pralamba's duty to carry Sankarshana, the latter mounted upon his shoulders, like the moon riding above a dark cloud; and the demon ran off with him, but did not stop: finding himself, however, unable to bear the weight of Balaráma, he enlarged his bulk, and looked like a black cloud in the rainy season, Balaráma beholding him like a scorched mountain, his head crowned with a diadem, and his neck hung round with garlands, having eyes as large as cart wheels, a fearful form, and shaking the earth with his tread, called out, as he was carried away, to his brother, "Krishńa, Krishńa, I am carried off by some demon, disguised as a cowherd, and huge as a mountain! What shall I do? Tell me, Madhusúdana: the villain runs away with speed!" Krishńa opened his mouth, smiling, for he well knew the might of the son of Rohińí, and replied, "Why this subtle pretext of merely mortal nature? thou who art the soul of all the most subtile of subtile things. Remember yourself, the radical cause of the whole world; born before all cause, and all that is alone when the world is destroyed. Dost thou not know that you and I are alike the origin of the world, who have come down to lighten its load? The heavens are thy head; the waters are thy body; earth is thy feet; thy mouth is eternal fire; the moon is thy mind; the wind thy breath; thy arms and hands are the four regions of space. Thou hast, O mighty lord, a thousand heads, a thousand hands and feet and bodies; a thousand Brahmás spring from thee, who art before all, and whom the sages praise in myriads of forms. No one but I knoweth thy divine person. Thy incarnate person is glorified by all the gods. Knowest thou not, that, at the end of all, the universe disappears in thee? that, upheld by thee, this