A Town's Standing Arrangement With Its Own Terror
The Pandavas and Kunti, disguised as brahmins during their forest exile after surviving the burning of the lakshagraha, took shelter in the town of Ekachakra, staying with a brahmin family who hosted them with genuine warmth despite an undercurrent of grief and dread that Kunti noticed immediately. Investigating, Kunti learned that the town lived under the domination of a rakshasa named Bakasura, who lived just outside the settlement and had, at some point in the past, threatened to destroy the entire town and kill everyone in it unless the residents agreed to a standing arrangement.
Under this arrangement, each household in Ekachakra took turns, on a rotating schedule, delivering a cart loaded with a large quantity of food along with one member of the household as an additional offering, who Bakasura would kill and eat alongside the food, a grim tax the town had come to accept as the only way to keep the demon from simply destroying the settlement outright.
Kunti Volunteers Her Son, and Bhima Takes the Cart
It was the host family's turn to send their tribute when the Pandavas arrived, and Kunti, overhearing the family's desperate grief as they argued over which member should go to certain death, offered Bhima in the family's place, confident in her son's strength and eager to repay the family's hospitality by sparing them this loss. The brahmin family initially resisted, unwilling to let their guests bear this burden, but Kunti insisted, and Bhima himself was entirely willing, treating the task as an opportunity rather than a sacrifice given his own formidable strength.
Bhima drove the cart of food to Bakasura's dwelling and, rather than waiting passively to be killed, began eating the food himself along the way and continued doing so loudly and provocatively once he arrived, drawing Bakasura's furious attention for eating what was meant to be the demon's own meal rather than delivering it properly.
A Fight That Ends the Weekly Tax for Good
Enraged at this brazen disrespect, Bakasura attacked Bhima directly, and the two engaged in a prolonged, violent physical struggle, uprooting trees and tearing apart the surrounding landscape as weapons in a fight the townspeople gathered to watch from a cautious distance, uncertain whether their unusual guest could actually defeat the demon who had terrorized them for so long. Bhima ultimately overpowered and killed Bakasura, dragging his body back to the town gates as proof, and instructed the terrified rakshasa attendants and remaining family members of Bakasura to cease all further predation on the townspeople as a condition of being allowed to continue living peacefully in the area themselves.
The town, freed from a burden they had lived under for so long that many had come to accept it as unavoidable, was astonished, and Kunti swore the host family and other witnesses to secrecy about the Pandavas' true identity, wary of word reaching Duryodhana's agents who were actively searching for them following the failed attempt to kill them at the lakshagraha, meaning the town's rescue had to remain, for the Pandavas' own safety, a story with a hero whose real name went unspoken.
Quick Answers
Why didn't the town of Ekachakra simply flee Bakasura instead of paying tribute?+
The story does not detail why relocation was not pursued, but presents the tribute arrangement as the settled, if grim, equilibrium the town had reached after Bakasura's initial threat to destroy the entire settlement, a common pattern in these terrorized-village stories where the demon's threatened alternative is total destruction.
Why did the Pandavas need to hide their identity even after saving the town?+
They were still actively being hunted by Duryodhana's agents following the failed attempt to burn them alive in the lakshagraha, so revealing their true identity, even in a moment of heroism, risked word reaching their enemies and endangering the family further.
Is this Bakasura the same as any other demon of a similar name in Krishna's own life?+
No, this is a distinct figure from the Mahabharata's Vana Parva, encountered by Bhima at Ekachakra during the Pandavas' forest exile, separate from any demons of similar names appearing in different Krishna-lila narratives elsewhere in Puranic literature.
About the author
Anjali Mehta · Editor, M.A. Religious Studies
Anjali is the managing editor for Vandnaa and oversees the festival and vrat coverage. She holds an M.A. in Religious Studies and reviews every published article for accuracy, accessibility, and tradition-fidelity.
Meet the Vandnaa editorial team →