The amount of attention and praise that King Bali was getting began to wear on Indra, the ruler of heaven and the gods. He no longer held power. This pushed him so far that he went the throne of Vishnu to pray to him.
“Vishnu, nobody praises me anymore. I no longer possess the power I used to because of King Bali’s greatness. Everyone loves him more than me. Please let me retire and hand my position as ruler of heaven and earth over to King Bali.”
Vishnu responds.
“Indra, a man of the earth cannot be the ruler of heaven. I will not allow such a thing to happen. I will, however, fix this problem and give you back your reign. I am going to earth to be born as a child, and I will trick King Bali into a making a mistake. When all of the heavens and earth see him fail they will once again worship you and ask for your forgiveness.”
Vishnu incarnates himself in the womb of a woman so that he may be born into the world as a boy. When he grows to be a toddler he decides it is time to set things straight. He approaches the king in the king’s court one day as many of the citizens do to ask him for a favor.
“Will you grant me the amount of land that can be covered by my three steps?”
“Boy, you can wish for anything that you desire. What you request will do you no good.”
“That is all that I ask for. Will you give me what I ask for?”
At this point the king's righthand man realized that this was the powerful Vishnu and warned King Bali against accepting this request. The king in disbelief told the boy he would give him the land. Taking matters into his own hands, the righthand man snuck off and crawled inside the holy water pot to cover the spout so that no water could escape. It is required for the holy water to be poured in order for the deed to be official. No matter how hard they tried, nobody could get the water to come out. Therefore, Vishnu’s plan was ruined and he spent the rest of his life on earth as a mortal unable to return to heaven. King Bali continued to rule happily and Indra remained powerless in heaven.
“That is all that I ask for. Will you give me what I ask for?”
At this point the king's righthand man realized that this was the powerful Vishnu and warned King Bali against accepting this request. The king in disbelief told the boy he would give him the land. Taking matters into his own hands, the righthand man snuck off and crawled inside the holy water pot to cover the spout so that no water could escape. It is required for the holy water to be poured in order for the deed to be official. No matter how hard they tried, nobody could get the water to come out. Therefore, Vishnu’s plan was ruined and he spent the rest of his life on earth as a mortal unable to return to heaven. King Bali continued to rule happily and Indra remained powerless in heaven.
Vishnu with Indra on Wikimedia Commons
The original story is basically the same as my story up until the end. It has King Bali falling into Vishnu’s trap. When the holy water fails to come out of the pot, Vishnu suggests that the king clean out the spout with Kusha grass. The king does so and without knowing pokes his righthand man in the eye and blinds him. The pain causes the man to flee. Then the water is poured. Vishnu then takes his true form and covers the earth with one foot and heaven with the other. He asks the king what he will give him for his third foot and Bali tells him to put it on his own head. He is then sent to the infernal regions.
I decided to use the “twist the ending” storytelling style because I did not agree with the way the original story ended. King Bali was a great ruler and had the whole world and heaven running smoothly in the eyes of all but one. I thought the story would be better with a happy ending. In my story the kings righthand man successfully plugs the holy water pot so that his wish to Vishnu cannot be successfully granted. This way he does not lose his life and Vishnu and Indra suffer for plotting against him.
Bibliography: The Danava King by Manmatha Dutt (1893).
Hi Taler,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your story. I was a bit confused about the story. Although I did enjoy you giving it a happy ending. I also liked how Vishnu’s true form is a huge and powerful deity that is able to physically hold things such as heaven and earth. Overall I really enjoyed the story and I will continue to read more of your stories.
Hey, you did a good job with your retelling. However, I would scale down on how long the dialogue is. Make sure it sounds natural for someone to say. That's where reading the stories out loud comes into handy.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, keep in mind varying paragraph lengths! It's visually appealing and easy on the reader to have paragraphs that are short and long. And too many Lon paragraphs can be overwhelming to a reader.
But, overall: well done!
Taler,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your twist, but had to read the author's note for it to make much sense. I wanted to know what the nefarious Vishnu was up to with his whole three-feet plan, and we did not get this in your story. THat is a major open plot hole only disclosed in your author's note.
THe only other complaint I have is that you do not introduce the concept of pouring water to seal a deal until after it becomes relevant. Because of this backwards ordering, we are initially confused when the right hand man crawls into the water spout. You should consider introducing the concept of the water spout to us first, and then having him crawl inside. A line of dialogue from King Bali would do: "Servants! Bring out the water spout so we might seal this deal before the gods in heaven." or something like that
This was a great story! I have not heard of it. I will have to consider reading "The Davana King" after a story like this :).
ReplyDeleteThere were a handful of little spelling errors, but nothing that prevented me from reading through just fine.
Overall, I thought this fantastic. Reading your author's note, I was shocked to see what happened in the original story.
Hey Taler,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your story! I might advise that you put the author’s note at the beginning of the story, especially if it is a story that not everyone has read. This might just be personal preference, but it is nice to read about the characters, plot, and all that before since I am not familiar with the story. For your dialogue sections you might consider adding in a transition part of who is about to talk or who said what just for the reader’s clarity. Overall I thought that the overall story flowed well and visually looked well in a sense of the paragraphs being broken up good. I like the image that you chose for this story. It seems that many different people portray the same characters in the epics in multiple different ways, so it is great to be able to see how you portray the characters. Great job with the story!