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24 less to recover the jewels and applied to Sri Krishna for help. Krishna fought with the demon, slew him and brought back the jewels. Another story says that Narakasura assumed the shape of an elephant and carried off the daughter of Visvakarma—the architect of the gods—and outraged her. He also seized the best daughters of the Gandharva (demi-gods) gods, and men and the divine nymphs themselves and made for himself a harem of 16,000 beautiful damsels. During his reign no woman considered herself secure, and so all joined together and petitioned Vishnu to destroy the demon and thus put an end to his atrocities. But with all his vices Narakasura had accumulated such a vast fund of meritoriousness by his penances and contemplation at the commencement of his career that Vishnu for a longtime condones his crimes, till at last, unable any more to bear his havocs, allowed Sri Krishna, to march to Pragjyotisha and slay him. In his last moments Narakasura came to his senses, praised the deity for his having come down in the incarnation of Sri Krishna to give him eternal felicity (moksha) and began to repent of his immoral life. As