King Dasharatha had no children.
"I fear the Sun-Dynasty will end with me," he said to the family priest, Vashishtha.
Vashishta, who knew of Vishnu's plan to defeat Ravana, advised Dasharatha to conduct a yagna to receive sons from the gods.
"Rishyasringa, who brought rain to Anga, can perform the sacrifice," said Vashishtha.
"Summon Rishyasringa!" shouted Dasharatha.
Rishyasringa came from Anga. He lit the sacrificial fire and chanted the mantras. A supernatural being appeared, and in his arms was a silver plate with a mound of rice-pudding.
"Divide this among your wives," Rishyasringa told Dasharatha, "and they will have children."
Inspired by: The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version by R. K. Narayan
Notes: This is on p. 4 in the book. Narayan says only that the plate had "rice" on it, but I changed that to rice-pudding, as in other versions; find out more about Indian rice pudding at Wikipedia: Kheer.
No comments:
Post a Comment