Narakasura: Powerful Asura Fought With Krishna

      Of the various asuras who were active during the time of Mahabharata, the most powerful one was Narakasura. He was the son of Varaha Avatara of Vishnu, and Bhudevi, and Vishnu taught him the upasana of Kamakhya devi with two instructions - he must only worship Kamakhya and he must never disturb brahmins. Those days most Brahmins would actually have some serious 'brahmateja' due to intense tapas and sadhana based lifestyles so special respect to them was perfectly valid. Today matters are different. Anyway, Naraka ruled for a very long time, he is said to have made the temple of Kamakhya devi by defeated a group of devatas who ruled there, and he attained such expertise in the sadhana of Kamakhya that he was almost unbeatable.

Narakasura

      Narakasura reigned for a really long time and mastered many occult vidya's to such a degree that it was impossible for anyone be it man, deva or asura to defeat him. His evil tendencies however started as he become friends with an asura named Banasura, who planted the idea in his head that he was so good, why does he need to follow rules? Thus Narakasura started torturing brahmins engaged in upasana, and finally he abducted 16,000 women. Eventually Aditi complained to Satyabhama and both Krishna and Satyabhama rode on Garuda and attacked Narakasura. Krishna killed Naraka's general mura - and became famous as murari. In the battle that raged it was so fierce that Krishna is said to have fainted when struck by a divine trident hurled by Naraka, and then Satyabhama got enraged and slew Narakasura with Sudarsana (in some versions Krishna only pretended to faint and then got up and used the sudarshana). Whatever, basically he was slain by Satyabhama and Krishna. Naraka as he was dying saw two figure of goddesses, Kamakhya and Kali, and he realized they are both the same devata, and they have withdrawn their blessings and protection from him and he was to die. In honor of Naraka all the lights are lit in diwali because he was of divine birth and he asked for this boon of Krishna. Later on Narakasura promises to possess the body of Karna during the great war of Mahabharata in order to aid the Kaurava camp. Not know to casual readers almost all of Kaurava's were possessed by discarnate asuras to fight Krishna and the Pandavas. It was clear battle of good vs evil at the occult realms.

      There is a spiritual significance to death of Narakasura. He represents the problem or an asuras, who lives in our own subconscious mind. Deep seated problems and they are not so easy to remove. Naraka is not of the earth but lower down lokas. Only way Naraka can be slain is by divinizing the whole being, making it of the greatest light imaginable to the human consciousness. In durga puja we awaken the Kundalini, during Naraka-badha we force the Shakti to enter the subterranean realms of the life and mind and flush our hidden yet way more powerful asuric tendencies. Then it becomes all illumined!

Narakasura Fighting with Krishna

      But why did Naraka lose? Naraka made two vital errors. He stopped placing the Goddess Kamakhya in top spot and started worship of other forms - something his father Varaha had warned him against. And secondly the abduction of 16k women. In Tantra marga there is a concept of bhairavi chakras and it is all documented in texts, these days very easily available, with even research papers in public domain from universities and all. That's fine, except the abduction part. Had he not abducted those women, had those come to him of their free will, nothing would have happened. Recall all those 16000 women ended up marrying Krishna, but this time it was by free will and he faced no negative reaction at all.  That made all the difference.

      For moralistic prudes all this may sound shocking but ancient arya people had not one bone of hypocrisy in these matters, unlike Indians of today.

      A last conclusion comes from this narrative - perhaps at some point a cult of Varaha upasakas lived in Kamakhya area in some ancient historical time, maybe 4th or 5th century. Varaha is one avatara of Vishnu who can be worshipped via panchatatva method.