Vikram and Betaal - Story 4 - The Exchanged Heads

 

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 Dhavala and his family for a village festival. Dhavala and Madanasundari went to attend the festival.

They were returning in the night and were passing through the temple of Goddess Durga Devi. The brother who was accompanying them wanted to visit the temple of the all powerful Goddess. He went in to pray and the couple waited outside

When he went into the temple, Madanasundari’s brother overcome by emotion decided to sacrifice himself to the Goddess. He took the sword lying nearby and cut his own head. Dhavala came into the temple and was shocked to see the dead body of the young man.

Seeing his dead brother in law, Dhaval was overcome with emotion too and cut off his own head. When both her brother and husband did not come out, Madansundari decided to end her life too.

Madanasundari decided to pray to Goddess Durga before ending her life. The Goddess felt sorry for the young girl. She stopped Madanasundari from dying and granted her a boon. She told Madanasundari that she can attach the torso and the heads of the young men and bring them back to life.

Now this is a strange situation. Madanasundari, in her nervousness and haste, fitted the wrong head to the wrong torso. Her husband’s head was attached to her brother’s body. Her brother’s head was attached to the her husband’s body. The heads had gotten exchanged.

Betaal stops and asks King Vikram asks this question: Who among the two is the husband of Madanasundari? If you know the answer and do not answer, your head will burst. If you talk I will fly back to my tree like before.”

Vikram replies with a lot of thought,

"The body that carries her husband's head is her husband. The head is the most important part of the human body, and the rest of the body is identified by the head."

As soon as Vikram had finished his answer, Betaal disappeared back to the

tree.