The Man from the Egg Read online

  Narada, however, did not heed his father’s words

  and only smiled mockingly at Brahma before going on his way.

  A few days later, Narada visited Vishnu, and his conversation with Brahma came up.

  Vishnu smiled mysteriously. Suddenly, he coughed and glanced at his devotee. ‘I am very thirsty. Will you please bring me a glass of water from the lake nearby?’ the god asked.

  Narada promptly went to fetch water, kamandalu in hand. While dipping the water pot into the lake, he saw a series of stunning white steps below the surface of the water. Curiosity got the better of him and he could not resist going down the stairs. As he had the power to wander anywhere, Narada was able to go deep under the water. A short while later, he came across a large palace. A beautiful maiden was sitting in the garden in front, making a garland.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Narada in surprise.

  ‘I am the princess of this palace,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Who is this garland for?’

  ‘For Vishnu, of course. I am his devotee and I am getting the garland ready for a puja.’

  Narada was charmed by the maiden’s devotion and beauty, and he joined her for the puja. By the end of it, he had fallen in love with her and asked her to marry him.

  Shyly, she agreed.

  The two were married in a grand wedding ceremony and Narada lived in the underwater palace with the princess.

  Decades went by, and Narada became the father of sixty children. Life was utterly blissful.

  One day, a terrible storm came out of nowhere, and the palace came tumbling down. Narada tried his best to save his family, but failed. One by one, he saw all his children die before him. Narada and his wife cried bitterly at their helplessness. Suddenly, a big wave emerged and his wife was swept away with it. Before he could react, he found himself staring at the eye of the storm. As Narada held on to a tree for dear life, he remembered Vishnu. ‘Please save me, please save me,’ he chanted and closed his eyes in preparation for death. He became afraid and realized that the life he had was important to him. He wanted to live.

  And then he felt someone tapping on his shoulder. When he opened his eyes, he found Vishnu standing beside him. The storm had subsided and everything was quiet and dry.

  ‘Narada, what is the matter?’ asked Vishnu.

  ‘Has the storm passed?’ Narada asked him in disbelief.

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  Narada sobbed. ‘I lost my wife and my children, and now I have nothing! I don’t deserve to live without them.’

  Vishnu chuckled. ‘What are you talking about, dear Narada? I only sent you to fetch some water for me, and here you are sitting and daydreaming by the lake. Look around you. There is no storm. Tell me now, what’s bothering you?’

  Narada stared around him, flabbergasted, and told Vishnu the whole story.

  The lord finally admitted, ‘I am the one who created that maya for you. You are neither married nor do you have children. Maybe now you can understand what attachment feels like and how hard it is for the common man to be detached from it all. If an accomplished sage like you can get caught in this web of illusion, just imagine how others must cope with it. Your father is absolutely right, dear devotee.’

  Narada bowed his head in shame.

  Vishnu smiled. ‘I want people to remember this unique incident, and so the names of your sixty children will represent each of the upcoming sixty years or samvatsaras. At the end of sixty years, the cycle will repeat itself.’

  This is how the Indian calendar or samvatsara came into existence.

  The Debt for a Wedding

  One day, the sage Kashyapa was performing a yagna on the banks of the Ganga with other ascetics when Narada, the wanderer of the realms, visited them. Narada asked the group, ‘O respected sages, which god are you aiming to please with this ritual?’

  There was no consensus among the sages, so they asked the sage Bhrigu to visit Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and find out which god would be pleased with their worship.

  First, Bhrigu went to Satyaloka, the abode of Brahma. There, he observed Brahma and Saraswati, who were busy reciting the Vedas. Without drawing attention to himself, he quietly left and made his way to Mount Kailash. When he reached the mountaintop, he found Shiva and Parvati deep in meditation. Finally, he made his way to Vaikuntha, the home of Vishnu.

  When he reached Vaikuntha, Bhrigu saw Vishnu resting on the snake Adisesha. The goddess Lakshmi was at Vishnu’s feet, completely entranced by her consort. Sage Bhrigu became upset. The god was not doing anything useful. In fact, he had not even noticed the sage! Growing angry, Bhrigu came forward and kicked Vishnu on the left side of his chest.

  Vishnu was known to be gentle to his devotees. His response to the kick was to just get up and press Bhrigu’s leg, as if to appease him. The real reason, however, was something else. Vishnu knew that Bhrigu had a powerful eye under his feet, which caused the sage to behave aggressively. Under the pretext of pressing Bhrigu’s feet, Vishnu had taken away the extra eye. Immediately, Bhrigu’s demeanour changed; he calmed down and apologized to the god. At that moment, Bhrigu realized that Vishnu would be the god who would be most pleased with the yagna by the river.

  After Bhrigu departed to tell the other sages, Lakshmi turned to Vishnu, her irritation obvious. ‘I know your devotees are dear to you, my lord,’ she said, ‘but you must see to it that they don’t take you for granted. Bhrigu may be a great man, but what he did was wrong and you didn’t even give him a piece of your mind.’

  Vishnu tried to pacify her and tell her about Bhrigu’s third eye, but Lakshmi refused to hear him out. ‘Bhrigu kicked you on the left side of your chest and that’s where I reside—in your heart. How do you expect me to continue staying there?’

  Hurt and upset, Lakshmi went away to a place called Karvirapura.

  Without Lakshmi, Vishnu was rather lonely in Vaikuntha and so he went down to earth, to the kingdom of Chola. He took shelter inside a huge cave-like structure under a tamarind tree on a hilltop, without realizing that he had entered an enormous anthill. Soon, he began to meditate without food or sleep. In time, an anthill mound developed around him.11

  Meanwhile, Brahma and Shiva felt sorry for Vishnu and decided to make sure he at least had something to drink. So they took the form of a cow and a calf and joined Chola’s herd of cows, grazing on the same hill where Vishnu was meditating.

  When the royal cowherd took the cows to the hill, the cow and the calf made their way to the anthill. The cow deliberately began dripping milk through the visible holes in the anthill and Vishnu ended up drinking the milk that trickled into his mouth.

  After a few days, the kitchen staff became quite concerned. Whenever they wanted to milk the new cow, they found that her udders were empty! The cowherd was worried that people would start to think he was stealing milk from the new cow, and so he decided to follow the beast while she was grazing.

  The next morning, he let the cow out and stealthily tracked her from a distance. As usual, the cow placed her udders on top of the anthill, and milk freely flowed into it. The cowherd, who had been watching from behind a bush, was enraged. He brought out his axe and ran towards

  the cow with the intent of cutting off her head. Realizing the danger despite being in meditation, Vishnu rose from the anthill to save the cow. The herdsman was caught off guard and, in his panic, dropped the axe on Vishnu’s forehead before collapsing on the ground and dying of shock. The god’s forehead began bleeding and the cow returned to the palace with bloodstains on her body.

  When word of the cow’s blood-streaked body reached the king, he knew that something was amiss and so he let the cow loose again and tracked her just as the cowherd had done. The cow returned to the anthill out of habit. The king recognized Vishnu in his human form.

  Vishnu, however, was extremely distressed. ‘O king, your royal cowherd—the protector of the cows—was ready to kill one from his very own herd. Since he was your servant, as his sup