bāla graharakṣā stotram (baccoṃ kī rakṣā hetu amogha pāṭha)

Not a hymn to the goddess Bala but a protection for a small child, taken from the account of Krishna's infancy. It opens with Yashoda in fright taking up the child, whirling a cow's tail about him with her hand and so wiping away the harm; then Nanda the cowherd takes the dust of the cow byre and puts it on Krishna's head, saying only the word protect. What follows is the rakshа proper, a list of names set over the child like a covering, and it closes on the long roll of Vishnu's epithets — garlanded with wild flowers, bearing the mace, the Sharnga bow, the conch, the discus and the sword Nandaka, may Narayana the glorious, Vishnu, Vasudeva, guard him. Recited over children against the spirits that were held to afflict them.