BharatiyaStories

  Vikram and Betaal – Story 4 We saw how King Vikramaditya (Vikram) went to the cremation ground at the instruction of a sage to get a dead body and found a ghost. It agreed to come on the condition that the king should not talk till he reached his destination. The ghost then started telling him a story. Here goes.   The Exchanged Heads In a village near Kashi there once lived a washerman named Dhavala. Once while at the pond to he spotted a beautiful woman. He realised that she was the daughter of another washerman. Dhavala fell in love with the girl and pleaded with his parents to get him married to the girl. His parents were also happy to find a girl in a nearby village and both families agreed. The girl, Madanasundari and Dhavala got married. Madanasundari came to live with Dhavala in his family home. As was the practice in those days, the families went to each other’s village to attend festivities. Once Madanasundari’s brother visited her home to invite Dhaval...

  The Power of Association There is a saying “Tell me who your friend is, and I will tell you who are.” Association and friendships are that important in shaping our thoughts, deeds and speech. Sanatana Dharma believes association with the wise and the devout automatically brings benefits – not just to humans but also to the animals and birds. This nice story depicts the importance of association with the wise and devout. Sage Narada had a doubt. It is one thing to pray to the divine and get blessings but how does doing service to the rishis and the learned gets divine blessings. The sage decided to go to his favourite God in the Ksheerasagara (milky ocean), Lord Vishnu. He paid his respects and asked “Lord, what is the importance of associating with bhakts and devotees? Is it not better to serve you directly?” Vishnuji smiled and said “Go to the Naimisharanya forest. There will be a tree at the southern end where there is a...

  Vikram and Betaal – Story 2 We saw how King Vikramaditya (Vikram) went to the cremation ground at the instruction of a sage to get a dead body and found a ghost. It agreed to come on the condition that the king should not talk till he reached his destination. The ghost then started telling him a story. Here goes. The Sensitive Queens In the beautiful city of Ujjain once ruled a king who was valorous and dharmic at the same time. He was a good ruler and gave good and impartial judgement. As was the habit in those days the king had multiple queens. In this case, the king had three queens. The first one was from the nearby kingdom. She was well accomplished and beautiful. As the eldest queen he was a good friend and counsellor to the king on the right path. The second queen was from the far off easter kingdoms. She was very beautiful and was good at music and dance. She was also a good swords person and helped the king in his military strategy and war preparations and plan...

  The Lord and his pretender – Paundraka Vasudeva We all hero worship many people – sportsmen or sports women, leaders, scientists, teachers and in many cases even actors / actresses. We buy clothes like theirs, try and copy their mannerisms, way of talking etc. We think this is a modern day phenomenon? Certainly not. It was happening 5000 years ago during Krishna’s times. Once in a kingdom called as Karusha there was a king by the name of Paundraka. Paundraka was a friend of King Kamsa. Naturally being a friend of Kamsa, he was against Krishna. He was also jealous of Krishna’s popularity. Knowing his weakness, all his friends told him he is equal to or better than Krishna. They foolishly even encouraged him to dress up and behave like Krishna. Paundraka was foolish and vain enough to believe them and start doing the same. He painted his body dark blue in colour, attached some arms with shanka and chakra. He carried a flute too. Unfortunately, a donkey dressing as a peacock d...