Introduction
Narakasura, also called Bhaumasura, "son of the earth", is an Asura king of Pragjyotisha, in the story's setting a region in the east, often identified with parts of Assam. He is the son of Bhudevi, the earth goddess, by Vishnu in his Varaha (boar) form. He became a powerful and cruel king and was killed by Krishna, with his wife Satyabhama at his side.
Crimes and power
According to the Bhagavata Purana and the Harivamsha, Narakasura took the earrings of the goddess Aditi, the royal umbrella of Varuna, and a peak of Mount Mandara, and imprisoned sixteen thousand and one hundred princesses, whom he had abducted or taken by force after defeating their kings.
The war with Krishna
Krishna set out for Pragjyotisha on Garuda, with Satyabhama accompanying him. He killed Narakasura's general Mura in the approach to the city, which gave Krishna the epithet Murari, "enemy of Mura". In the fight with Narakasura himself, accounts differ on whether Krishna alone kills him or whether Satyabhama, at a critical moment, strikes the fatal blow. A later and popular tradition, strong in South India and in performing arts such as Yakshagana, holds that Narakasura had a boon that he could be killed only by his own mother, and that Satyabhama, as an incarnation of Bhudevi, is the one who kills him for this reason. This version is not in the earlier Puranic sources.
After his death
Bhudevi came to Krishna, returned Aditi's earrings, and asked that her grandson, Narakasura's son Bhagadatta, be spared and made king in his place. Krishna agreed, and the imprisoned princesses were freed; the Bhagavata Purana says Krishna married them.
Naraka Chaturdashi
The killing of Narakasura is commemorated as Naraka Chaturdashi, on the fourteenth day of the dark half of the lunar month (Ashvina or Kartika, depending on the region), the day before the main day of Diwali. In many parts of India it is marked by an early oil bath before sunrise, symbolising the freedom from Narakasura's oppression.