There was a village simpleton who dreamt of becoming a respected wise man as he was mocked by his friends as the village fool. One day he expressed his wish to his friends. “How can I become a wise man ?” he asked innocently. They advised him to visit the Guru who sat under the Peepul tree just outside the village boundary.

The village simpleton approached the guru who was none other than one of his friends in disguise as a Guru. Folding his hands, he asked” Sir, the whole village laughs at me and calls me an idiot. I want to become a wise man like you . What should I do to be a wise man?” Guru thought for a while and said, ” If you follow my instructions religiously, you will be a wise man one day. You will have to get me a large fresh fish from the river every day”. It was a strange request. But simpleton was desperate man, willing to do anything to achieve his goal.

He started getting fish for the guru every day. Guru would cut the head of the fish give it to dullard and tell him to cook and eat it as ‘prashad’ . Months passed by and the routine followed. One day, simpleton after handing over the fish to guru asked him” Sir, every day I get one whole fish. You give me the head as ‘prashad’. but what happens to the rest of body of the fish?” Guru laughed and said” Son, you have become a wise man now. you need not get me fish from tomorrow onwards.”

Story Collected by Vidya Kamat
Source: Kamala Nilakanth
Location : Kerala

Image Copyright: Vidya Kamat

“I am Black in colour”
That’s what Goddess Annapooreswari told the great King Valabhan Kolathiri.
Valabhan Kolathiri was known as the ‘Great and famous lord’ as he ruled over the land from his fort ‘Valpattanam’. With a battery of able ministers and a strong army of twenty five thousand warriors, King Valabhan was respected and revered by his subjects for being very just ruler. More over his subjects also praised the King for persuading goddess Annapoornadevi to come and stay in the village of Cherukunnu.

The legend is – once a sage from the Brigu lineage did prolonged penance at the shrine of goddess Annapoornadevi of Kashi. Pleased by his devotion towards her, Goddesses told the sage, she would accompany him to his land- Malayaland , today’s state of Kerala. Thus the Goddess and her attendants travelled by sea and landed at the west cost. From there she traveled into the interiors by road and reached the village of Cherukunnu where she held a feast for the Brahmins as it was an auspicious day, the dwadashi in the month of Makaram.

Meanwhile the King Valabham Kolathiri got the news of Goddess’s arrival in his land and he rushed to meet her. The pious King bowed low and requested her to grant permission to build a temple celebrating the memory of her visit. The Goddesses could not refuse the King’s request and thus Valabhan quickly ordered the building of a grand temple for the goddess. He invited the best craftsmen and architects for the job. When it came to the making of the idol, Goddess appeared in King’s dream asked him to cast the idol using panchloha (an alloy made out of five metals). King immediately set the best goldsmith in the land on the job. When the goldsmith completed the idol the King was dismayed to see the idol had turned black in colour. He admonished the goldsmith to adjust the proportion of the metals in the alloy and ordered more gold to be added to the cast so that the Goddess would acquire a glowing complexion. But inspite of adding more and more gold to the alloy, the casted idol invariably would turn black in colour. King was disappointed and unhappy as he could not understand why the cast was turning black. Late evening the King fell asleep burdened by the thought that temple consecration was getting delayed due to the black idol. That night Goddess appeared in his dream and said “Oh King don’t you worry about my complexion because I am black in colour. I am Maha Kaleshwari, the black goddess. Go ahead and cast my idol in the black panchaloha metal”.
King got the idol recast again and consecrated it in the temple.
Since then Goddess Annapoornadevi has stayed on at Cherukkunu, and she came to be known as the black goddess or Maha Kaleshwari.

Story Collected by: Vidya Kamat

Source: Lore and legends of North Malabar by Vanidas Elayvoor

Location Kerala

Image Copyright: Vidya Kamat

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”.

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.

The mythological world of gods and goddesses is not immune to the array of emotions that ordinary mortals are captive to — sadness, happiness, anger, revenge, joy, deceit, you name it and there will be a narrative illustrating it. The following are two such narratives or local beliefs that record jealousy and petty competition among the gods of Kerala.

According to popular belief, the Vaikom and Ettumanoor* deities are not on good terms with each other.  Ironically both shrines are dedicated to Lord Shiva.

Back in 1798, Maharaja of Travancore, had a dream that the Vaikom deity- Shiva Mahadeva had asked for an offering of eight elephants. The Maharaja immediately ordered for eight wooden elephants plated in gold to be made and sent these with his trusted men to the Vaikom temple. As the entourage carrying the elephants reached Ettumanoor temple, the hungry and tired men handed over the elephants to temple guards for the safekeeping and went to bathe and eat. When they returned, they were taken aback to find that every single elephant had a serpent coiled on it with its hood spread in an attacking posture. The Maharaja’s men tried every trick in the book, but the snakes wouldn’t budge. Helpless and crestfallen as they could not reclaim the elephants the men went back to the king and reported the strange incident. The Maharaja immediately consulted his astrologers and found out that the Ettumanoor deity was unwilling to let go off the elephants** and was staking claim on the gift meant for the Vaikom deity.

As there was no other way out, the Maharaja decided to get another set of eight elephants made and sent to Vaikom deity.  That night the Vaikom deity approached the Maharaja in his dream saying he is no longer interested in the offering of elephants and instead a special ritual should be conducted for him using the same expense. This was done immediately. However this did not bring peace between two deities. It is believed that the two deities are still not on ‘talking terms’ with each other. This is confirmed by the practice of Ettumanoor residents boycotting the Vaikom celebrations on Ashtami day every year.