The Nagaraja temple at Mannarasala near Haripad in Kerala is unique in more ways than one and the most significant feature is the chief custodian of this temple is a woman. A priestess as chief custodian of a Hindu temple is a very rare phenomenon among the countless Hindu temples scattered across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent.

According to legend, the temple was established by Sage Parashuram and the deity is Nagaraja, the King of serpents embodying simultaneously two major serpent deities of the Hindu pantheon, Ananta and Vasuki. While Ananta is the great hooded serpent who supports and guards the supine body of Vishnu while he dreams the universe into existence, Vasuki the serpent king served as the churning rope during the churning of the oceans to bring forth the elixir of life-Amrita, and is found in the company of Lord Shiva, wrapped around his neck as a necklace. Interestingly, Vasuki is also known in Chinese and Japanese mythology as one of the “Eight Great Dragon Kings”.

Muladeva was a natural-born charlatan. He led his life by tricking people with his riddles, and especially influencing women who would fall for his tricks. But soon enough he would lose interest in the women and move on to the next town searching for more gullible people he could prey upon. One day Muladeva decided to visit Pataliputra along with his friend. “ We have fooled most of the naive people in our area. Let us go to a big city like Pataliputra, and try our luck” said Muladeva to his friend. But having reached Patliputra, he was in for a rude shock. In Patliputra a very beautiful, and intelligent young woman, made a fool of Muladeva with her riddles. Muladeva was deeply embarrassed as he lost his face in front of the townspeople. Crestfallen Muladeva vowed, “ I must marry this clever woman who humiliated me in front of so many people. I have to pay her back in kind with her own game of tricks.” He asked around and soon found out that she is a Brahmin’s daughter, well known for her wit and cleverness.

In Goa, Ramayana is narrated during harvest festivals and folk performances such as, Jat , Val , Aarat, Chaurang, Taalen, Ranamale, Gavan Kaani, Fugadi , Ovi, and Gadya Ramayana which is a local version of Ramayana performance. It is a common practice across India, for folk performers to embellish and localise the main narrative of Valmiki’s Ramayana by inserting specific local details and episodes. The following episode from Ramayana sung and performed in the Canacona region of Goa is one such instance.

Once Guru and Ravana went into the forest for hunting animals. But even after spending a whole day they could not find any prey. Hungry and tired they fell asleep under a Jamun tree. Suddenly a huge bright shining jewel fell from the tree. Ravana and Guru woke up hearing the loud thud and found the precious jewel lying in front of them. Guru picked up the precious jewel and decided to present it to Indra-Kavalasa. Indra accepted the jewel, looked at it for a long time, then tied it in a holy red cloth and hung it on his wall.

Ravana became very curious about the precious jewel. “ I must have this rare jewel in my possessions,” he thought to himself. Greedy as he was, he quietly sneaked into Indra -Kavalasa’s home and stole it.

If you are lucky on the eve of Diwali, then you may be a winner all the way through the New Year!
That’s the belief which prompts people of India to gamble the whole night long before they usher in Hindu new year during Diwali festival. Traditionally gambling is prohibited in Hindu religious doctrines except on the night before Diwali.
Interestingly, chaupar the game of dice as it was called in ancient India was a very popular form of gambling. It gets its mention in Rig Veda as well as in Atharveda. Rigveda records the story of sage Kavasa Ailusa, who was a great sage but a diehard gambler and eventually lost everything in his life to the game of dice.

A chaupar ‘board’* is traditionally an embroidered cloth in the shape of a cross. Each arm of the cross is divided into three columns and each column is divided into eight squares. The ‘dice ‘are seven cowry shells or oblong wooden dice known as pasa, pasak, parsa .

There are archeological finds that reveal that chaupar was played in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa during 2500 BCE. The same dice game was also used for divination purposes and the text written in 4 C. AD. called ‘Pasak Kevali’ is a manual dedicated to reading the signs of dice throws for the purpose of divination. In the epic Mahabharata, the game of dice, plays a central role in the plot, suggesting that this game of dice was much more than a common game played solely for the sake of entertainment.

Once there lived a rich landlord in an Indian village. He was an arrogant and vain man who believed that no one can be greater than him. Not even Lord Shiva! to whom the whole village bowed with great reverence and devotion.

One day he decided to take the matters in his hands and establish his superiority once and for all. He asked the town crier to announce that from now on, no one should worship Shiva or sing praises or offer prayers to Shiva. Instead, people should invoke the landlord’s name so that they can get help and justice, because “ There can’t be any other saviour besides me” he declared to the villagers from the town hall. If any villager was caught praying to Shiva he was beaten brutally by the landlord’s men. The villagers continued living in fear of the landlord’s goons who terrorized them all the time. Finally, they could not bear the fact that they could not pray to Shiva, their beloved god! So they appealed to Shiva to resolve the situation.

Shiva heard the villagers’ cry for help and decided to teach a lesson to the landlord. Dressed like a wandering mendicant Shiva entered the village temple singing praises of Shiva. Soon he was caught by the landlord’s men and warned about uttering Shiva’s name in the village. But the mendicant would not stop. Guards caught hold of the mendicant and presented him before the landlord. The landlord shouted at the mendicant “ How dare you to disobey my orders! You talk of Shiva. But what has he done? I am the one who pays the workers. Gives them food and shelter and takes care of their sustenance. Think of me as your saviour, not Shiva.”

The mendicant went back to the temple, his body sore and in great pain. The Landlord decided to go about his daily chores. He had to go to the fields and keep an account of the yield produced by his vast farms. He told his wife “My dear, I have to inspect the work in the field. So I will come home late in the afternoon. Don’t wait for me, feed children and you too have your food. Let everyone have their food on time.”

As the landlord left the house, Shiva assumed the appearance of the landlord. He was a perfect lookalike of the landlord — mustache, height, complexion, and even the voice matched that of the landlord. No one could make out any difference. Shiva now entered the home as the landlord and immediately instructed his staff, “ I have just heard that there are imposters sneaking into the village. They may try to enter my home assuming my form and rob me. Be vigilant. Don’t be deceived, if you find any of them trying to enter my home throw them out and give them a good beating.” He then stepped into his room and closed the door. The landlord’s wife was surprised to see him back so soon. “ Oh dear! You told me you would be late for lunch. What happened?” asked the bemused wife. “I have a bad headache, so came home early. I am going to lie down and rest for a while. So don’t disturb me.” replied Shiva from the room.

Meanwhile, guards posted themselves at the gates with cudgels. By noon, the actual landlord returned from fields. Hungry and tired, he tried entering his home. The guards noticed him and stopped him, believing this must be the imposter the master told them about. They yelled “You scoundrel! Do you think you would fool us by dressing up like our master? You are an imposter!” They did not listen to his explanations and thrashed him black and blue.

The tenth day of Navaratra is called Vijayadashmi or Dussehra, is celebrated as the day of triumph of Devi Mahishasurmardini over the asura, Mahisha. The story of Goddess Durga, or Katyayani and her victory is well known and popular. But very little is known about the asura she triumphed upon. Who was Mahishasura and what is his story?

Mahishasura is popularly represented in three forms – in his zoomorphic form he is shown as a buffalo, in the theriomorphic form he is supposed to have the body of a buffalo and the head of a man, and in anthropomorphic form he is shown in the form of a gigantic asura . Vamana Purana gives following account about the birth of Mahisha.

Sage Sindhudvipa, son of Suparshva was performing tapas on the Mandar mountain. Mahishmati the daughter of Viprachitti the asura and her gang of friends came strolling on a pleasure excursion to the vicinity of Mandara mountain. After a period of prolonged fun and frolic they decided to spend the night by the mountain. As they went around looking for an abode for their stay, they came across the beautiful hermitage of sage Sindhudvipa.

Mischievously they decided to threaten the occupant and take over the hermitage for their night stay. Thus they all assumed the form of fierce she buffaloes and attacked sage Sindhudvipa .
But sage Sindhudvipa was a seer, and through his yogic seeing he came to know that the buffaloes were none other than girls from asura clan. In a fit of anger, he cursed them to turn into she buffaloes for the rest of their lives. As soon as the girls heard the curse they realised the mistake of offending a formidable seer. They pleaded the sage to pardon them as it was just a prank, but alas! it was too late. Sindhudvipa finally took pity and gave a counter boon and said, they would return to their original form when Mahishmati the leader of the girl gang would give birth to a son.

Years passed, Mahishmati and her friends were once grazing on the banks of river Narmada.
Meanwhile, sage Sindhudvipa fell in love with a celestial nymph Indumati who was living by the banks of Narmada. The sage was so infatuated with Indumati that one day `he decided to meet her and express his love for her. But before meeting her he decided to take a dip in the river. Sindhudvipa was so excited with thought of meeting Indumati, that he dropped his seed into the river. When Mahishmati the buffalo drank the water from the same river, she swallowed the seed of Sindhudvipa and got pregnant. In due course she gave birth to a buffalo-son and named him Mahisha. Mahishmati and her friends were thus released from the curse of sage Sindhudvipa and gained back their original form.

Asura Mahisha grew up to become very intelligent and powerful asura on the earth. Eventually he became a threat to the existence of devas. To counter the threat of mahisha Gods decided to create Devi to destroy him. From the fire mountain formed out of the flames of anger from the eyes of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shankara emerged the Devi Katyayani, replendant as a thousand suns and having three eyes, with hair black as night and eighteen arms. Every god present there gave her a weapon for each hand. Shankara gave her trident, Vishnu a disc, Varuna gave her a conch , Agni gave her a dart, Yama gave her an iron rod, Vayu gave a bow, And Surya gave a quicker, Indra a thunder bolt, Kubera a mace, Brahma a rosary and water pot, Kala gave a sword and shield, Vishvakarma handed her battle axe and finally Himavan gave her a lion. Minor gods gave her different ornaments. Thus Devi-rupa or form was completed, and she went on to destroy Mahishasura.
———-
The story collected by : Vidya Kamat
Text: Elements of Hindu iconographyVo I part I by T. A. Gopinath Rao
Location: Pan India

Image copyright : Vidya Kamat

It is 11.58 pm. The temple head priests rushes in with an axe and key in his hands to open the doors of the temple. He has to hurry and open the doors of the temple exactly in two minutes.The axe he carries is precisely for the purpose, to hack open the doors of the temple within the two minutes if the keys fails to unlock it in that limited duration. You may ask what is the hurry? Because the god is very hungry!

Thiruvarpu temple in Kottayam district of Kerala is a 2000 year old unique temple dedicated to Lord Krishna . However, locals believe the main idol is much older and originally belonged to Pandavas. The temple is unique because it remains open for 23.58 hours of the day for 365 days to feed its hungry god. The temple is closed precisely for two minutes from 11.58 to 12 am. And then the priest has to rush to open the door to feed the god. ( Apparently, this custom has changed and now the temple is closed in the afternoon for two hours)

Why is the god so hungry?

It is believed that the idol in the temple is that aspect of Krishna who has just returned home after killing Kamsa and is exhausted and hungry. So the god needs to be fed immediately and often. The rituals associated with the hungry god is also very unusual. After giving a ceremonial bath to the god, head of the idol is dried first and naivedyam* is offered to the god, and only then his body is dried. It is said this is the only temple in India when as many as 10 Naivedyam pujas are offered to the deity. According to the legend, the idol originally  belonged to the Pandavas and was worshiped by them while they were living in exile in the jungles of Kerala. It is believed that the idol was given to the Pandavas by Lord Krishna himself so that he would be always with them.

This is a popular folktale in Nepal.

Once upon a time a baby girl was born to the King and Queen of Nepal. The girl was exceptionally beautiful and to add to that, her hair was golden in colour. The King and queen became obsessed with her golden locks, and every night they would count each and every holden strand fearing a few of them might fall off and get lost. They even forbid her to tie her hair fearing her hair might get pulled off. The girl practically lived under house arrest. One day the girl despite her mother’s objection quietly went to the river to have bath. Unfortunately in the midst of her bath a strand of hair broke lose and floated away down the stream.

The King and queen became very upset and announced that whoever finds the lost strand of hair, would receive the princess in marriage. One day her younger brother who was a dimwit  managed to find the lost hair strand and brought it to the King.

The King was in a bind wondering how could he marry off his daughter to his own son? So he consulted his minister. After a long deliberation the minister advised the King to keep his word, because if he goes back on his word, his subjects would lose faith in him. The only way forward was to keep to his word and marry off his daughter to his son.

When the princess came to know that she is going to be married off to her own brother, she ran off from the palace into the jungle and climbed to the top of the tallest tree. The King sent his search party into the jungle to find her. They searched high and low and finally found her perched on the highest branch of the tallest tree in the land. They pleaded with her to come down. But the she refused to come down . She told them this marriage will bring disaster to the family. And she wove a tree house out of the branches continued to live on top of the tree.

As time passed her aged parents died. Finally the dimwit brother came to the tree where his beautiful sister was living. Instead of asking her to come down he asked her if he could come up to meet her. She agreed and let down her long golden locks from the top of the tree, so that her brother could grab on to the hair and climb up. As he kept climbing up towards the tree-house, he started feeling hungry. He asked his sister to give him some food to eat. The girl immediately prepared rice and beans, but warned him not to drop any grain on the ground. But her brother being clumsy, dropped a few grains on to the ground. Miraculously trees and herds of cattle sprang up from the fallen grain.

Tribal myths of India hold quaint explanations on why floods and drought occur on the earth periodically. Hill Miri tribals of the north east region explain the phenomena of floods and drought as a domestic quarrel between the divine couple.

Dugum and his wife Dorak are a divine couple living in their abode in the sky. They have a great tank which is always kept filled with water. At times Dorak forgets to fill up the tank and very little water is left in the tank. But other times he over fills the tank and it starts overflowing, and water comes falling down on the earth below.When this water falls on earth, people on the earth think that gods have sent them rains and they rejoice. But when there is very little water left in the tank Dugum and his wife Dorak start quarreling.

Dugum starts complaining that she is always wasteful . “ You waste so much water that there is none left” Dugum shouts at his wife. Dorak too accuses her husband by saying “ It is not my fault, you use all the water to prepare your beer”. “ Dorak, you don’t accuse me! You too drink beer with me” rebuts Dugum. Dorak feels Dugum is always blaming her for no fault of hers and she gets upset. As Dorak lifts her cane belt her body starts to shine and dazzle. Dugum becomes furious as he feels Dorak is putting on an act. He immediately dons his armour and taking hold of a spear in his hand, adopts a war dance stance threatening to kill his wife. Dorak swiftly flies up and away fearing for her life, and her dazzling body flashes across the sky in the form of a lightening. Meanwhile Dugum beats his arm shield and dances making the loud noise of thunder.

As Dugum’s dance becomes vigorous, a river that flows across the earth quietly curves up into sky and fills Dugum’s tank with water. As the tank gets filled up Dugum quiets down and Dorak returns quietly back home, and everything settles down and becomes peaceful till the next quarrel breaks out.
Hill Miri tribals explain that lightning and thunder is caused by the divine couple in the sky who quarrel over water.

Story Collected by : Vidya Kamat
Text Source: Myths of the North East frontier of India by Verrier Elvin.
Location : North East, Manipur

Did your math teacher ever resort to telling you stories?
Mine did! And I never thought of it as a story about mathematics. For me it was just another story about a brave little girl, and I forgot all about it until  recently when I read how Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world was inspired by this very same humble Indian folktale and went on to create his astounding wealth on the simple principle of compounding in mathematics.

Long ago a King lived in the western region of India. He thought of himself as a wise King, and most of his subjects were poor farmers who cultivated rice as their main crop. One day the King thought “ These farmers grow so much rice. Where do they store their extra produce? Let me keep the extra rice in my granary for the safekeeping and if there is a famine, everyone shall have enough rice to eat, and no one will go hungry.”

So he sent out an diktat to his subjects stating that from now on all farmers will have to deposit their extra produce of rice in his granary, which would be given to them in times of a famine or any other calamity. Poor farmers trusted the King and deposited the extra grain in his granary. For a number of years, the monsoon was good and all the farmers had bumper crops. King’s granaries were soon filled to the brim with surplus grain.

But then came the year when it hardly rained, the paddy fields dried up and rice crop failed across the land. Farmers came to the court and requested the king to release the rice they had deposited in his granaries. The chief minister also implored “ Your highness! There is a famine in the country and people are going hungry and you had promised to release the rice grains during the famine. Now is the time to give back their rightful share of rice.” The King got angry and shouted back to the minister “ You Idiot! How can I release the grain to people when there is a famine? How can a King go hungry? Promise or no promise no grain can be be given to these farmers as I need it for myself”