As per Bhagavan's request, Narada Muni stepped down in to the river and took a dip in the water for a second and came out. What a surprise! He had transformed in to a beautiful woman. In the place of Narada Muni, stood a young, lovely maiden! All his memory up to that point was erased and then he was a woman. By the time this woman got out of water and walked towards the bank of the lake, Bhagavan had disappeared.
There was nobody around and this lovely woman stood helpless there. At that time a young handsome king by the name Thaaladhajan came there along with his army. At the very first sight, they both fell in love with each other and in due course of time they got married at the bank of the same river. Narada muni- turned -beautiful- maiden did not even know who she was and what her name was. So king Thaaladhvaja called her "soubhaagya sundari." They went back to his palace and lived there happily for several years. They became proud parents and grand parents of twenty beautiful princes and several grand children. So this woman became the main pillar of that big family along with the king. She cried when children got sick, when things did not work out the way she expected, she felt happy when things looked bright and she believed she was the doer and took credit for all their successes and achievements, blamed others when things went wrong and so on so forth!
During that time an enemy king attacked their country. In the battle many of their sons and grandsons were killed. Even though her husband's life was spared, she was extremely sad to see the dead bodies of her beloved children and grand children. She cried until there was no more tears came from her eyes.
While she was lying down like that in the battle field, an old Brahmin came there and started consoling her by telling how everything in the drushya prapancham was transient. Everything that we see, experience and feel is caused by Maaya and Maaya makes all of us live in a make-believe world of relations and sentiments. He told her to do the last rights for the dead children and grand children in another lake or river nearby. Both the woman and king followed the Brahmin to the other lake he suggested.
As per the Brahmin's instruction she took a dip in the water and when she came out, she became Narada Muni again. Also all memories came back to Narada muni and all that happened flashed clearly in his mind. Narada Muni looked around and saw Bhagavan sitting on the same piece of rock when he was about to take dip in the water and became a lovely woman. Thaaladhvajan was very surprised to see a maharshi coming out of the water instead of his beloved wife! He started crying with the intense pain of separation from his wife and Bhagavan consoled him and sent him back to his palace.
We will go through the rest of the story in the next post
Sreekrishnaarppanamasthu
Comments
Post a Comment