For these last four weeks of free reading, I chose to read the Sacred Tales of India by D. N. Neogi. I am going to be doing my reading notes over part B today.
The Goddess Who Devoured Elephants
- Ratnakar Sadhu was a rich merchant who had two wives
- one of which was Lahana
- she was always jealous of his other wife so she spoke very illy of her to him
- it got to the point where he fell for her jealousy and kicked out the other wife
- she was banished out to a forest where she lived a sad life
- she yearned for her husband and her old life
- one day she heard some music and set out to see where it was coming from
- there were people around praying to a god and she asked them what it was they were doing
- they explained that this god if you worshipped her she would make any of your wishes her command
- they began to tell her a story of a huntsman who was on his way home when he was stopped by this goddess
- she offered him all the wealth in the world if she worshipped her
- he dropped to his knees and promised her he would
- once he returned home his house turned into a mansion and it was filled with gold and servants
- once the king had heard of this he sent his troops to arrest this huntsman
- in his jail cell, he prayed to the goddess
- she appeared and promised to help him
- the wife wanted this happiness and vowed her loyalty to worship this goddess
- before her then stood her husband asking her to return him
- she did so happily and soon gave birth to a son
- her husband went out on trade one day and never returned
- her son never knew his father
- he got teased at school for this
- so one day her son decided he was going to go on a journey to find his father
- she wept many tears but finally agreed for she knew she couldn't stop him
- the story of how his father got captured was retold to him through his journey
- it went that during his voyage his father saw a giant goddess on the river holding two elephants in each hand
- she then devoured them
- his father told the king that and promised to show the king
- the king said if this was false he would be imprisoned
- and it was false
- once he led him back to the river there was absolutely nothing there
- the king was furious and threw him into a cell
- because the family had worshipped this. goddess for so long she threatened the king once again telling him to release both the father and son
- she was thankful for their loyalty and told the king to offer them everything he had
(Image of the Goddess Who Devoured Elephants Illustrated by. Ghose)
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