Love2tellU

There are multiple versions of this story. I do not know which was the actual one and when or where it originated. But this is one of the many stories that I heard from my grandmother and one of the very few that I can still remember clearly. Hence, I am narrating the same story that I heard from my grandma many years back. Image by  Anna Sulencka  from  Pixabay Once upon a time, there was a small kingdom in the northern part of India,  known as Champak Nagar. Champak Nagar was ruled by a benevolent ruler who was wise and brave. He ruled for many years and grew old. One day, he thought that the time had come to choose the next king.  The old king had three sons. So he decided to talk to all of his sons to find out which one was the worthiest among them. First, he called his elder son and conversed with him for hours. He talked about literature, history, politics, geography, battle strategies, and ethics. The king was utterly disappointed as his elder son was very lazy and used to spend

The story of Chand Saudagar and Devi Manasa is very popular in West Bengal (a state of India) and Bangladesh. The story is well known as 'Manasa Mangal Kavya' or 'Padma Puran'. Although the story was based on Hindu mythological characters, it was probably a folk tale initially. It was written (in the form of a long poem) in the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries. There are many versions of the story, written by different poets/authors like Kana Haridas, Bipradas Pipilai, Bijoy Gupta, Ketakadas Kshemananda, etc. According to the scholars, Devi Manasa was an indigenous snake goddess who later was glorified to be included in the pantheon of Hindu deities.    Image by  WikiImages  from  Pixabay D evi Manasa, the daughter of Lord Shiva, is worshipped as the goddess of the snakes throughout Eastern India and is known as 'Bisahari' (one who can cure all the poisons in the world).  She lost one of her eyes during a quarrel and hand-to-hand fight with her stepmother, D