Nala Charithram Translation

           

                 Hey guys. I wanted to publish the story that I translated to English for a long time. But frankly, I haven't had the time because I was so booked with my school work. The story that I translated from my mom's Mahaperiyava Satsangam is called Nala Charithram. If you already understand Tamil and would like to listen to my mom's Satsangams, go to this link: https://www.mixcloud.com/krishvidhya2000/. Well, here's Nala Charithram translated in English

Nala Charithram translated to English

By: Vageeshwar Srinivasan, 8^th grade Lawson middle school, Cupertino

 

Shuklam bharatharam vishnum sashivarnam chaturbujam prasanna vadhanam dhyayeth sarvavignopashanthayeth

Gurubrahma gururvishnu gururdevo maheshvaraha gurussaakshaath parabrahma tasmaishree guravenamaha

Gurave sarvalokanam bishaje bavaroginam nidhaye sarvavidhyanam dakshinamoorthayenamaha

Tennarudaya periyava potri ennatavarkum eraiva potri sarvagna sarvavyaabi periyava charanam mayaperaperarkum mahaperiyava potri

 

                The almighty Paramathma incarnates and is present in every yugam(one of the four ages of mankind in Hinduism, lasting over  4 million years combined, showing the drastic deterioration in the vitality and morals of men). The reason behind Paramathma’s presence in all yugas is only to restore dharma(good deeds/ justice) in the society and to eliminate any other deeds that doesn’t belong in the category of dharma. The slokam we all know in the Bhagavat Gita, “Parithranaya saadhunam vinashaayacha dhrushkritam dharmasampstaarpanaasaya sambhavani yuge yuge.” Just for giving justice for those in need of it, Paramathma incarnates himself in every yugam to give it to us. That means that we should ponder, “How valuable is dharmam?” Paramathma is protecting us just to purify the valuable dharma. For example, when Vishnu took incarnation as Rama, commoners say that in the full life that Rama lived, he ruled his empire with honesty and trustworthiness. He ruled his empire in this manner just to keep his dharma. That means the dharmam is so valuable that God himself is reincarnating into several yugas just to save the dharma in every human being. From this, we can understand the true value of dharma. So we come to ask the question, what is dharmam? What is its use? What is adharmam(bad deeds/ injustice)? Dharmam, to explain in plain words means svabhavam(own-being or own-becoming). For example, let’s just say there’s a flower. The flower blooms and becomes yellow in color. The blooming and the color it turns is its svabhavam. In every life form, like humans, birds, animals, all have a svabhavam and also have a regularity in its behaviour. There’s an opposite conception called “asadanamaana tanmai” meaning extraordinary behavior. All life forms have their own asadanamaana tanmai.  For example, let’s say a bird. This bird has its wing. This wing is an asadanamaana tanmai that the bird has. Another example is a cow. A cow can’t fly because it doesn’t have any wings. A bird is meant to fly and that’s why it has wings. A cow is meant to walk on land and that’s why it has four legs. So that is its svabhavam. Regularities and common things we have as an organism is that we sleep daily, we eat or feed, we reproduce and vamsa vruddi happens. These are all sadanamaana tanmai or similarities in our regular day-to-day life.  To further prove the point, a human sleeps and a cow sleeps as well and a dog sleeps as well. You can’t prove yourself a human just because you say that you sleep every day. Can you assure that? No, because the one qualification that is set for humans is dharmam. No other animals, birds, or any life form of such sort cannot attain dharma. Dharma is built solely for humans. It is because dharma is a regulation for humans. With this regulation the whole world is running. We say the Solar System, we say the Universe. If any one thing goes wrong in the system the whole thing gets affected. Dharma is a svabhavam for humans. Let’s say there’s a dog. A female dog. It gives birth to many puppies, about seven or eight. All the little puppies circle around the mom and keep sucking on the milk until the mom becomes very lean. The puppies that drank all of the milk becomes very bulk. When some kind gentleman calls the dog to give a biscuit, the mom tries hard to get up and get the biscuit. But, the bold and brisk little puppies bark at the mom and eat the biscuit themselves. This is an animal’s svabhavam, but people are also becoming like them. From birth, the moms take care of their offsprings and give it their food and shelter. Even though the mom has put in a lot of effort to raise up her offspring, the offsprings will think “Why is she always with us? Why can’t she leave me alone!” There’s a saying that ancient saints have said and that is “if we lose the dharmam we earned with so much hard work, that will be equivalent to animals. Anywhere you go, they will say family first. Which means they give importance to family before anything else. Most importantly, we need to teach this to the kids. Some people raise their child like an independent soldier because they need to give their child proper responsibility. If you raise your child like that, he will grow responsible for sure, but selfish. Because that child will take care of his belongings and his notebook, pencil, and go to school, get a good grade and do everything. But he won’t know how to do it with or for his parents. I will tell an incident that I’ve seen recently. There’s this baby, maybe about one year old or so, who has a nanny taking care of him. The parents are giving the nanny money for taking care of their baby. But when the kid cries, the mom suddenly shifts her face towards the nanny and thinks that she should be the one taking care of him since we’re paying the money. Because of this, the child develops and grows affection towards the nanny, but he doesn’t show that same affection with his parents because they’re keeping a distant relationship with their baby. Once a joint family has now become a nuclear family. That means that they won’t have a unison decision. They’ll have separate decisions that they’ll make on their own. So the child grows up independently. If the parents aren’t watching and taking care of their child, that’s not equivalent to human. Even if the child has to say something to his parents in distress, he’ll still always be part of the family system. For a parent, their main duty is to take care of their children. If this is done, then those parents will become human and attain the dharma that they’ve lost. We can do seva(service) on a regular basis to our parents to pay the price back for their kind and affectionate love.  So, if the parents don’t take care of their children they’re not human. In the same way, if a person doesn’t take care of their parents and completely omit them, that’s also not humanlike. He’ll be dropped down to being equivalent to an animal. That means that he loses the dharma that he gained while acting humane to one another and turns his mindset to being like an animal. Like this there’s a husband and wife. How should a husband be? A husband should always watch his wife and save her in times of need. That is his responsibility. How should a wife be? A wife should be humble and caring towards her husband. That is her responsibility. Now, if you take a look at the Puranam(ancient Hindu book), Vasudevan marries Devaki. After their marriage, Devaki’s cousin brother, Kamsan, drives the chariot with the newly married couple sitting behind him. As Kamsan heard a voice from the sky that said that the eight child born to Vasudevan and Devaki will kill you, Kamsan twisted his face angrily and took out his sword. Kamsan takes his first step as he was trying to behead Devaki. As he was about to kill his cousin sister, how many people were there to save Devaki’s life? There were the people taking care of the elephants and the horses, their family members, the soldiers. There were so many people, yet one could not save the life of Devaki. No one had the courage to stand up against Kamsan. No one said please don’t kill Devaki to Kamsan. Why didn’t they stand up? Do they have no objection of Kamsan killing Devaki? No. Simply they were afraid. That’s why everyone was speechless. Even Vasudevan could have gotten off the chariot and ran away. But what he did was he kneeled down and grabbed Kamsan’s leg. He begged, “Please let Devaki go.” In objection, Kamsan replied, “Why should I let go? Did you start a family with her or did you spend many nights together?” Just after he got married, he started to feel the affection towards his wife, Devaki. He took the courage to take the responsibility to save his wife from any harm. This is a family trait that must be followed at all times. A husband should save his wife from any danger and a wife should do the same towards her husband. If there’s a boss and an employee, the employee should be humble towards his boss. Both should be honest with each other. In the same way, a king should be kind to his soldiers and all the people who trust him. All the commoners should build their trust in their king. This is how the world was running, through the people’s dharmam. If the dharmam is washed away, the world and its hierarchy would just fall apart and all the trust would be shattered. Majority of the people would prefer to live with dharmam because they want to lead a good life for their family. You don’t need to go searching for God because all you need is trust and belief. On top of that, you need to follow the good life lead by dharmam. Because majority of the people are leading this type of life, the world is running peacefully. There is something called atma gunangal(searching inside of your soul). Atma gunangal, dharmam, and acharanai(good habits people should follow) are three concepts. Atma gunangal means being honest, trustworthy. All those should come from within. Dharmam means people’s rights and responsibilities to do good deeds. Acharanai means being clean, saving your family members when in need of help, etc. All of this separates and distributes the Vedas. Sathyam vadha. Dharmam chara. Maathrudevo bhava. Pitrudevo bhava. These are all slokams that separates the Vedas. For Sathyam vadha, it states about honesty, trustworthiness, and self-control. Dharmam chara states about for each job that you have, take action in the form of dharmam (rishi dharmam, pithru dharmam, etc). Next is Mathrudevo bhava and Pithrudevo bhava, which translates to acharanai meaning the habits that we should acquaint in our daily lives. Typically, dharmam is like, we can’t see it. All the things that we can clearly see doesn’t come under Sasthram. Let’s say if we want to eat a fruit, maybe an apple. There is no need to say that only if we read Ramayanam and then eat the apple, the apple will be sweet. We’ll already know that if you cut an apple and eat it, it’ll be sweet. Sasthram doesn’t say the obvious and noticeable things. It’ll only talk about things that we don’t know or can’t see. Krishna always says listen to the Sasthras and act accordingly. Even if they have hardships or difficult cases which they can’t deal with, people still follow the Sasthras. Without letting go of the dharmam, they thoroughly follow the Sasthras. These people are adarsha purushargal. All the itikaasams and puranams show us many different perspectives of life and how we should live it. If we take Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, he saw the drama Harichandran a long time ago. Then his sudden thougths were, “Wow, he is this honest, even with so much difficulty and losses.” Speaking the truth wasn’t what caught the attention of Gandhi. It is the desire to keep the honesty and dharmam throughout his life even with that much difficulty in his life. That means that we have to be like Harichandran. This is why the itikaasams, puranams, and sasthrams are there. For you to realize, even if you’re in a difficult condition, how these people have lived in these conditions and how they erased these difficulties from their lives. We have to take in the story and engrave those characters in our heart and keep them as our role model. These types of puranams will motivate us to keep the dharmam and start living the way of life they lived. One of the characters like this is Nalan. This Nala Chakravarthi has been through so many difficult situations than you can think of. The story of Nalan is in the Mahabharatam and the Bhagavatam. In the Mahabharatam, Yudishtiran is also a vital character. If you say any one of the names like Nalan or Yudishtiran, you’ll get so much punyam(virtuous deeds). These type of people are called punyaslokargal(people who when you chant their name, you get punyam). There are four people like this: Nalan, Yudishtiran, Sita, Janardhan. If you chant these four names in the morning, you’ll get a whole lot of punyam. Once, they send Yudishtiran to the forest for exile. Then, he shamefully thought, “How were we before? I was a king who ruled the land. How was my wife Dhroupathi before? I have brought us down to this level.” He felt really sad for that. All the sages use to tell all the sacred books to Yudishtiran. Then he told the sages, “There’s this guy named Nalan. Do you know how much he has faced through in his life? He, once a king, was sentenced to wipe off dung from horses.” The story of Nalan takes place when Yudishtiran speaks about him. Yudishtiran starts the story in the Bhagavatam by talking about the Surya Vamsam(Surya Dynasty). Ramachandramoorthy’s dynasty is Surya Vamsam. While talking about the Surya Vamsam, a name, Ruthubarnan, arises. The gain you get from listening to the story of Nalan is a lot of punyam and it will get rid of Shani (a bad god). Nalan ruled a place called Nishada. He is very handsome, he is a warrior, and he has such good intentions. One day, he roamed around in Nandavanam. While he was roaming around Nandavanam, he saw many swans. He wanted to catch all of those swans. He tried hard to catch at least one of the swans that were there. At last, he caught one. When he gripped his hand around the swan, the swan started to speak. That swan said, “Nala Maharaja, you’re catching me, huh? It’s all right, I’m beautiful, you can catch me. Go ahead. But, I want to say something to you first.” When the swan suddenly started to speak like a human, Nalan was strongly amazed. The swan continues, “There’s a town called Vitharpa and it is ruled by Bheeman. The king Bheeman has a daughter named Dhamaiyanthi. You have never seen her before. She’s so poised and beautiful. I’m telling the truth, I’m being completely honest with you. I’ve seen various couples in many different places. Sometimes the husband will be really handsome and the wife will not be that good looking or the wife is fat and the husband is thin or the husband is a nice guy and the wife is not so nice or the husband rages with anger a lot and the wife is calm. Nobody in the world is equal to another couple. I haven’t seen that yet. I’ve only seen couples who have some major differences. Now, that I see you in person. If you were to join Dhamaiyanthi as a couple, all the things will 100% be a match. I just see it in you two. You should marry Dhamaiyanthi.” As soon as the swan finished speaking, the dreams of him and Dhamaiyanthi together comes to Nalan. He tries to visualize Dhamaiyanthi in person. Then Nalan says to the swan, “Can you send the message that I want to see Dhamaiyanthi?” Then the swan replies to him that he will send the message to Dhamaiyanthi. The swan starts to go to Dhamaiyanthi to tell about Nalan. The swan informs about Nalan to Dhamaiyanthi. Just like how Nalan dreamt of Dhamaiyanthi, Dhamaiyanthi starts to dream about Nalan. She says that if I ever have to marry anyone, I will only marry Nalan. Dhamaiyanthi’s father, Bheeman, conducts a Swyamvara(a ceremony to determine the husband for an unmarried girl). Because the swan is acting like a middleman towards both Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi, both of them know that they know each other. With this, Nalan hears about this Swyamvara and attends and participates in it. Dhamaiyanthi’s quality is that she is so beautiful that even the Devas fall for her. So, Indran, Vayu, Varunan, and Agni(all four are devas) came down from heaven to participate in the Swyamvara, as they also want to be the husband of Dhamaiyanthi. As these people come, Nalan also enters the ceremony. All the Devas asked to Nalan, “Hey, you’re Nalan right? Can you do me a favor?” Nalan asks, “ What favor?” The Devas replied, “You have to tell Dhamaiyanthi that she has to marry one of us.” Nalan accepted the favor and approached Dhamaiyanthi. This whole story is about being a man of his word and being honest. Nalan already said yes to what the Devas asked for him. So as a man of his word, he has to take on the action. Then he reaches the Anthapuram, where Dhamaiyanthi is in. No one can go inside of the Anthapuram. So, as he enters, Dhamaiyanthi’s friends asked him who he is. He didn’t turn back. He went straight to Dhamaiyanthi. He reaches Dhamaiyanthi and says, “I’m Nalan.” Dhamaiyanthi quickly turns around and recognizes him instantly. She notices how brave he is because no one is allowed to enter the Anthapuram and Nalan did it just because he can’t turn down a favor. Nalan says that he’s only been waiting for you. He told what the Devas told him to say to Dhamaiyanthi. Dhamaiyanthi says, “I’m a human. They’re all Devas. We can never be matched. Also, I have already made up my mind to marry you back then when the messenger swan informed to me about you. Tell that to the Devas.” Then, Nalan honestly goes back to the Devas and explains what went in there. The Devas quickly responded, “Well, lets see tomorrow at the Swyamvara.” Then, all four Devas quickly disguised them as Nalan. So now there’s five Nalans standing in front of Dhamaiyanthi. But, Dhamaiyanthi had no confusion because Nalan is a human and all the other four are Devas. The Devas’ eyes sparkle and gleam. Human eyes on the other hand don’t shine. Using this Dhamaiyanthi figures out who the real Nalan is and puts a flower garland over his shouders. As both Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi get married, the Devas become so happy because of Dhamaiyanthi’s intelligence and Nalan’s honesty. Because of their joy, all four Devas gave the couple one boon each. Indran says that whenever you’re doing any type of yagam, I’ll be there and cast your wish. Agni says that whenever you think of me, I’ll appear there before you. Vayu and Varunan also told Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi that they will be there whenever you think of me. Like this, each Deva gave a boon to the couple and vanished in thin air. The beautiful princess, Dhamaiyanthi is being married to Nalan. When the wedding function is over, all the Devas leave. When all has left, Kali Purushan enters the hall. The Devas catch sight of Kali entering and ask him, “Where are you going?” Kali replies, “Oh, I’m going to Dhamaiyanthi’s Swyamvara.” The Devas then told, “No, you can’t go there. Dhamaiyanthi already got married.” Kali got furious and said, “No, I have to go there immediately.” The Devas responded, “No, you can’t do anything to the husband of Dhamaiyanthi. He is an honest and trustworthy man. You’ll definitely fail yourself if you try to get Dhamaiyanthi.” Kali refused, “I don’t care what you say. I’ll wait if I have to, to find any opening.” The Devas shrugged. Kali stands there waiting for when the time comes for him to slide through the gates. Here, Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi live together starting a family. Nalan is a Kshatriyan(warrior). In the Kshatriya vamasam, if somebody ever asks you to do any challenge even if it is as bad as gambling, the Kshatriyan has to respond by accepting the challenge. You see, it’s because of their warrior skill that they should never back down any offer. Or else, they will look like a coward. So, this Kali starts to toggle with Nalan’s mind. Kali thinks where to start. One day, Nalan went out somewhere and returned home. The Sasthram states that whenever you go out somewhere or go to the bathroom, you should wash your legs completely before you enter your house. If you don’t wash your legs completely, then Ezharanaatu Shani will come into your body and mindwash your brain. After Nalan returned home, he did wash his legs though. But, he didn’t wash his legs properly and completely. Ezharanaatu Shani and Kali were all watching this, and seeing where and when to attack him. The two enter Nalan’s body at the same time. The Ezharanaatu Shani grabs hold of the leg which Nalan didn’t wash properly and Kali went inside of Pushkaran’s, Nalan’s brother, mind and changed his perceptions. As Pushkaran’s mind changes, he asks his brother to gamble with him. There are bad things in the world, right. There are bad things as well as good things. There’s a word we say, it’s called addiction. Addiction is a word to describe how you’re so attached to bad things. It rarely comes in use when we’re talking about good things. There are three big bad things in the world: Madhu(drinking liquor or smoking), Maadhu( going out with girls in the wrong way), Soodhu(gambling). If someone just gets a glimpse of it or just takes a little taste, he will want to swim in that pool for life. It’ll be hard for him to come to a complete stop. Why did Periyava advice to stop coffee? Once you drink coffee you feel like you want to dwell in it forever. That’s why. Like that, when you’re gambling, the person who is gambling is not conscious of what’s going on around him because he’s dwelled in that competitiveness and force to win. So Nalan accepts the challenge and starts to gamble with Pushkaran. As he plays and plays, he feels confident to bet on his properties and money. But when he starts, it wasn’t like that. They first start out it as a friendly game. What happens is, the game starts to become bigger and bigger like inflating a balloon. They feel to gamble with their properties and money. As Nalan plays and plays, he feels to play with his palace and all his wealth. Dhamaiyanthi comes in the middle and sees him playing. She sees the speed and pace at which Nalan was going at. Dhamaiyanthi is very intelligent too. Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi have two kids, Indrasenan and Indrasenai, a boy and a girl. He also has a charioteer named Varshneyan. Dhamaiyanthi turns to Varshneyan and tells him to take both her kids to her dad, Bheeman and drop them there. She was afraid of the speed Nalan was playing at. Then, Varshneyan drops the kids there as he was told to. Nalan turns around and sees that his kids are gone. He is baffled. He thought that he played them already. As he plays and plays, he loses everything, his palace and status as a king, everything. Pushkaran was a nice man, but because of this Kali, he also plays with the same fierceness. He tells to Nalan, “Get out. Now.” Nalan then leaves which was once his palace. What do I mean by he left? He leaves with nothing but a towel around his hip with Dhamaiyanthi following him. Nalan keeps walking and walking for miles, but he doesn’t know where he’s going. Nalan maintains some distance between him and Dhamaiyanthi as they walk. It has been 20 days, without food and water. Dhamaiyanthi eagerly awaits for Nalan to speak. But, he doesn’t. Dhamaiyanthi also has lost all of her jewelery and decorations. As both of them kept walking, they came to a halt. There was a long road leading up to the horizon. Nalan turns back to Dhamaiyanthi and says, “If you go straight in this road, it’ll lead to your parents’ house. Do you want to go?” Dhamaiyanthi asked, “Why, are you trying to leave me and go?” Nalan replied, “No, it’s not like that. If you go to your parents’ house, your father Bheeman will have his own land. He can give you comfort.” Always, a husband will try hard to keep his wife at a good status. When a husband loses his status, the first person he shows his grudge and anger towards is his wife. Nalan told his wife, “Will l wear this towel and come to your palace.” He mentions to Dhamaiyanthi that at one point, Nalan took Dhamaiyanthi in his chariot, having many other minors follow him, treating her like a queen. As he rode the chariot, Dhamaiyanthi’s parents would notice the extraordinary skill used by Nalan to drive the chariot and the heart to take care of his wife. That same Nalan is now escorting Dhamaiyanthi with nothing but a towel wrapped around his hip. Nalan mentions all of this and at last says, “If I come like this to your house, will they even accept me? They will laugh at me while I point my head down in shame.” Dhamaiyanthi replied, “It’s ok. I’m not going to abandon my husband just like that.  Come and I will follow you.” Nalan spoke no more as he walked further. The Kali(bad force) inside of him is so strong that when he was walking, he spotted about 100 golden sparrows. Immediately his thoughts were that if we catch those sparrows, then we could have our meals as well as have some wealth in our hands. He suddenly ripped off his towel that was draped upon him and flung it to catch those sparrows. Then those 100 golden sparrows fled from that spot taking his towel too. After Nalan lost his towel, Kali said to him, “Hey, I don’t like you going with this towel around your hip. I only like you going naked to the palace.” Will Dhamayanthi leave her husband bear-bodied? Immediately she ripped a part of her dress and gave it to Nalan. Both of them got tired after a while because they haven’t slept and they haven’t ate. Over alongside the road was an old Mandapam(a big porch like hall leading into a temple). After Nalan sees this Mandapam, he tells to Dhamaiyanthi, “You see that Mandapam over there. Let’s sleep over there for a while.” Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi enter the Mandapam and find a rusted knife. Nalan keeps the knife and gets ready for sleeping. But, for Nalan, he can’t sleep thinking of what he has lost. What Dhamaiyanthi thought was that Nalan won’t leave me. I’m satisfied just being with him. Even though Nalan has lost a lot of property, what was important for Dhamaiyanthi was that she was with her husband. So, with that immersed in thought, she fell asleep having her hand besides Nalan because she doesn’t want Nalan to leave her. She tied a part of her dress with both of their hands. Nalan, then took out his knife and cut that free. He cut it and wore the rest of the dress on his hip. He starts to stand up. Then, Kali says to him, “Don’t see your wife. Just go.” Kali will always teach bad things to you. After listening, he starts going. When he went about far away from her, but there’s this thing called Anbu(love). That love outweighed this Kali and Nalan started running back to his wife. Even though with all that Ezharanaatu Shani and Kali’s torture, he starts running back. He ran and saw his wife. The beautiful Dhamaiyanthi, who Vaayu and Suryan will be afraid to see because she’s that beautiful, is wearing a ripped dress, sleeping in the floor of the old Mandapam. It was tough for Nalan to see his wife like that. Nalan looked at the sky and told to all the Devas, “Are you all seeing this? What misery? I have given a word that I will save my wife. Now I have let go of that word. Only you Devas can save her. But I still have faith that dharma will get the best of it. Good will come and I will see her then.” He says this and leaves Dhamaiyanthi. After a while, Dhamaiyanthi wakes up slowly and sees that his husband is gone. Dhamaiyanthi searches the entire forest for Nalan. She yells, “Punyasloka, Punyasloka.” There was no response. She starts screaming. She knows that she shouldn’t go to her house. She also knows that he has gone somewhere else. Nearby there’s a town called Sethi. She goes in to this town. She goes in the town as a Sairendri(servant maid). She appears before the queen without revealing her real identity, and showing that this is how I usually am, does all the work needed over there. Whenever somebody asks if she has ate, she will reply yes. She works over there thinking that this is her fate. Here Nalan is going. One poet puts it into words like this: There’s a tank. There were lotuses over there. Nalan wanting to look over there to see the reflection of Dhamaiyanthi’s lotus-like eyes, tries to look over there. But, whenever he comes to look the lotuses are all turned away. Whichever images depicts Dhamaiyanthi or makes Nalan remind of her, Kali stops him from seeing her. Nalan sobbed, “Do you have to be so tough on me? Why does God hate me so much” He kept on going. As he was going, he heard some eerie noise, “Punyasloka, help me, help me.” He was a king before right? There are some things to notice in this story. As a husband, he did whatever to warm the heart of Dhamaiyanthi. Now, he is a king. What will a king do? If the word help happens to land on his ear, he should immediately go and save him/her. So, when someone used his name and said help, he immediately sprung to the issue. There was a forest fire. He goes inside of it. When he goes inside, he sees a snake, Karkodagan. Karkodagan was struggling in that fire. Nalan somehow managed to get in the fire, grab the snake, and wrap it around his neck. Nalan exited the forest fire with Karkodagan. Karkodagan said, “Count like one, two, three…” Nalan said ok and started counting. He ends at Dasam(10). One meaning of Dasam is ten, but another means give it to me. A snake never bites itself. It always bites someone else. Because Nalan said give it to me, Karkodagan gave him a big bite. Suddenly all the poison from Karkodagan went inside of Nalan. Nalan now looked very ugly and unattractive. Then Karkodagan said, “How big of an honest man you are? Even the Devas gave you boons. At that height you’re an honest man. If you suffer like this, the whole world will suffer. The whole world will lose dharmam. Because of this, even if you go over there and ask for a job, no one will give it to you. Because you’re Nalan. You’re a huge guy. That’s why I have changed your appearance. With this look, wherever you go, you can get a job. That is why. If you had your original look, you won’t get a job and you will eventually beg in the streets. If you suffer the whole world will suffer. Then dharmam will be gone forever. That’s why I’m giving you a banana leaf and a somewhat proper clothing for you to wear. A good time will come soon. Just keep thinking that a good time will come soon always. Sita in Ramayanam tells that always. She didn’t know if Rama, her husband, was even alive or not. Ravanan, the man who kidnapped Sita, always used to lie to Sita that Rama was dead already. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” From then on, Nalan changes his name to Bahugan. Nearby there’s a city called Ayodhya. In Ayodhya, there is Ruthubarnan, the king of Ayodhya at the time. Ruthubarnan is one of people hailing and taking rein from the Surya Vamsam. If Bahugan goes there, will Ruthubarnan give work that easily? He says I don’t need any more work. Bahugan says, “Please, give me some work. I’ll do anything.” Bahugan does all the work from cooking to riding the chariot to show Ruthubarnan. Ruthubarnan was so impressed. He immediately fires all of his other workers and appoints him to the duty. Bahugan rides the chariot. Nalan riding a chariot is itself a type of style. Over there, in the same place there is Varshneyan, Nalan’s former charioteer. Varshneyan drops off the kids to Bheeman and what has to happen was that he has to go to Pushkaran because he has all of Nalan’s land. Varshneyan told to Pushkaran, “Nalan is the only guy I will ride a chariot for. I will resign my job otherwise.” He tells this and resigns his job. Now he works in the same place Bahugan is in as a charioteer. Over in Sethi, Dhamaiyanthi works as a servant maid for the king. Over at Bheeman’s house, both children cry because they are in desperate need of their parents. Bheeman didn’t know what to do. Then, he sends Brahmins to search everywhere for Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi. There’s a Brahmin named Sudhevan. When he was searching for both of them, he comes to Sethi. Sudhevan is Dhamaiyanthi’s older brother’s friend. He comes to the king’s palace to rest. The people over there offer him food. Sudheyan delightedly accepted the offer. He finished eating and when he was washing his hands, he spotted Dhamaiyanthi doing all the chores. Sudhevan cries thinking about Dhamaiyanthi, who was once a queen and now she’s dropped down to the level where she is ultimately doing chores. Sudhevan asks Dhamaiyanthi, “Dhamaiyanthi, why are you doing these types of chores now? Your kids Indrasenan and Indrasenai are both crying because you’re not there. You have to come out of this.” Sunandha, Sethi’s queen’s daughter, overhears the conversation between Sudhevan and Dhamaiyanthi. Sunandha immediately reports this to the king and queen. Sudhevan runs to Sunandha and tells, “Don’t you recognize her. She’s Dhamaiyanthi. She’s a queen. She’s the wife of Nalan.” Sunandha gets some water in a bucket and sprinkles it on Dhamaiyanthi’s forehead. As she puts water on her forehead, the red birthmark is to be seen. Sunandha immediately says in awe, “Do you know who I am? I am your mother’s older sister. I’m your aunt. I was there when you were born. Brahmadevan gave you a boon. He put this red birthmark on you for you to look beautiful always. You’re Dhaaiyanthi. Why do you have to drop down to this. Wear silk sarees. Eat a lot of food.” Dhamaiyanthi then objected, “No, I won’t do anything but do chores  until my husband is back. Because my kids are crying, please go drop me off at my parents’ house. Sunandha drops both Sudhevan and Dhamaiyanthi at Bheeman’s house. But, she is still living the same low class life as she did in Sethi because her husband is still missing. Dhamaiyanthi tells everyone to find her husband. The other people said how are we going to find him if you can’t even find him. Dhamaiyanthi then turns to her mom and says, “Mom, I’m going to tell you a secret. Don’t tell to Dad. I’m going to write a fake letter that states that Dhamaiyanthi is going to do a second marriage. For that there will be a Swyamvara held. Then, I’ll forge Dad’s signature.” Before she tells this to her mom, she recites a sloka first. This sloka states, “Someone who has been honest and trustworthy and loyal towards his wife, has now left his wife alone in the forest. Can this be done?” She then says to her mother, “Recite this sloka in front of whoever you’re giving the letter to. Whoever can tell the correct definition of this sloka will confront me and tell their answer.” Bheeman’s messenger, Paranathan, hands out this letter to everyone and soons comes to Rudhubarnan’s kingdom. Outside cleaning the chariot is Bahugan. Bahugan hears the sloka. Bahugan immediately tells the answer to this sloka. The answer he tells is in the form of a sloka. That sloka states, “One day a husband will have good times. Until that they keep their lives on hold. A wife’s responsibility is to keep telling the husband, don’t worry good times will come soon.” Like this, he submits his answer to Paranathan. Paranathan tells to Dhamaiyanthi that there’s a guy named Bahugan who correctly told the answer to this question. Dhamaiyanthi was of sure that this was Nalan by the way he answered, but when Paranathan described his appearance, Dhamaiyanthi wasn’t too sure. But she says that only my husband could have told such a thing. That’s why she sends the letter to Ayodhya. That letter only goes to Ayodhya. Dhamaiyanthi gave this letter to Sudhevan for him to send it to Ayodhya. After a few days, Sudhevan gives this letter to Ruthubarnan. After seeing this letter, Ruthubarnan eagerly wants to go to Dhamaiyanthi’s second Swyamvara. Ruthubarnan turns to Bahugan and said, “Hey Bahugan, there’s this girl named Dhamaiyanthi who is conducting a second Swyamvara tomorrow. So, how long will it take to go to where she is?” Bahugan thought and cried, “What a girl Dhamiyanthi is. Will she take a second marriage even with two children?” Ruthubarnan asked what happened to comfort him. Bahugan said, “No, I was just thinking how long it’ll take to go there.” Bahugan makes up his mind and starts the chariot. Going with him is Ruthubarnan with his fancy clothes and jewellery. Also going with him is Varshneyan. Varshneyan had a doubt that Bahugan’s style of riding the chariot is so much like Nalan. But, because his appearance is totally different his doubt is still there. While going, Ruthubarnan notices that his towel that he had over his shoulders fell. He then said, “Hey Bahugan, please stop the chariot, I lost my towel.” Bahugan said, “Sorry, we already covered 100 miles.” Ruthubarnan said, “Don’t brag about you driving the chariot so well. I can do much more.” Bahugan asks, “Can you tell me?” Ruthubarnan replies that, “I have the power to count how many leaves are in a tree just by glancing at it.” Bahugan thought this was a very useless skill. But he just tested him. Ruthubarnan astonished him. They both said, “I’ll teach you my skill and you’ll teach me yours.” Then Bahugan stopped to teach all of his extraordinary skills to Rudhubarnan. Rudhubarnan was worried that he’ll be late for the Swyamvara. So, he told Bahugan to quit it and he’ll learn it at a different time. After this, Kali and Ezhanaatu Shani came out of Nalan’s body fiercefully like a ghost. As Kali stood before Nalan, Nalan’s body started to tremble. He was so angry. Kali said, “Don’t do anything to me. Your wife already cursed me. That’s why I’m in your body inside of Karkodagan’s poison.” This was only happening between Nalan and Kali. Ruthubarnan and Varshneyan didn’t notice a thing. Kali continued, “There’s a tree called Vrishiga tree. I’m going to climb that Vrishiga tree. Whoever thinks of this Vrishiga tree or you, no one will get me, Kali, inside of them.” Like that Kali left. The chariot reached the Swyamvara the night before. No one was there at all. Bheeman, not knowing of the fake Swyamvara, asked Ruthubarnan, “Why, looks like you have come a long way to arrive here. What’s the occasion?” Ruthubarnan replied, “It’s just for me to have your blessings.” Bheeman invited all for food. There Bahugan sits next to Ruthubarnan and Varshneyan. Dhamaiyanthi calls someone to tell this slokam in front of them. He also tells this. Bahugan repeats the same thing to the guy. Everything seems to match except the appearance. Dhamaiyanthi decides to conduct another test. Bahugan was going to cook the food. Dhamaiyanthi decided not to give him the Viragu(firewood), and see how he cooks without it. Dhamaiyanthi asks the same guy to inspect his cooking. Bahugan sees in the kitchen that there are no firewoods available. Because of Agni’s(fire) boon, he prays for Agni to appear and fire starts to appear. The guy tells to Dhamaiyanthi whatever happened in the kitchen. Dhamaiyanthi immediately notices that these were boons given to her and her husband. She again asks that guy to give something hot to Bahugan. Then the guy picks up his leftovers and gives it to Dhamaiyanthi. She smells it and sees that it has the same scent of her husband. But, the appearance is disfigured. Then, she asks the guy to take Indrasenan and Indrasenai to Bahugan. As that guy brings those kids in front of Bahugan, Bahugan immediately left his seat and hugged both of them. Then he started to cry. Dhamaiyanthi asks, “Why are you hugging my kids?” Bahugan replies, “I also used to have two children just like them.I just got the memory of that.” Dhamaiyanthi was still in doubt. She turns to her mother and says, “Mom, this is the final test. I have to cry in front of Bahugan. If he still doesn’t answer, take care of my kids because I won’t be alive.” She asks the same thing to her father too. Her father says, “No, you can’t go cry in front of a servant. If you want make him come to you.” Bahugan is asked to go to Dhamaiyanthi’s room. Her room was fully decorated with flowers. He thought, “She is getting ready for the second marriage. Will I see her like this?” He enters the room and sees that Dhamaiyanthi’s appearance was like that of when she was sleeping at the Mandapam. Her face is swollen because of crying. Dhamaiyanthi breaks down to Bahugan and tells the truth about losing her husband in the forest. Then only is Nalan forced to show his real identity. He explains that the guy who abandoned you in the Mandapam was me. After he said that, his appearance changes and all the Kali is wiped away fully. He wears the towel that Karkodagan gave him and becomes like a king. Whatever he had lost to his brother, all were back with Nalan. Dhamaiyanthi was happier than ever. Everyone comes together. The good news reached Bheeman and suddenly reached Ruthubarnan. Even though no one in Ruthubarnan’s kingdom was able to find out Nalan except the horses because of the style he used to ride the chariot. Of all animals, horses are the most intelligent and majestic. Why do you think some people shoot the horses after they lost a horse race? Because they’re so majestic. That horse identified Nalan. Ruthubarnan thinks back of why his horses neighed when Bahugan came to work. Nalan came and apologized to Ruthubarnan for his mistakes. Ruthubarnan says that he has not done any mistakes at all. Even if you did, I forgive you. Everyone was happy except Ruthubarnan because he loved Bahugan’s chores so much. So, Ruthubarnan and Varshneyan both stayed over there. Nalan and Dhamaiyanthi both return to Nishada again. Nalan wins all the land that he lost to Pushkaran. He, because of his generousness, gives half of his land to Pushkaran. Nalan says to Pushkaran, “It’s not your fault that you gambled. It was Kali.” There’s a slokam: Karkodagasya Nagasya Dhamaiyandhya Nalasyacha Rudhubarnasya Rajarishe Keerthanam Kalinasanam. You need to say this slokam first thing in the morning. If you say that, all the Kali from that day are gone. This Nalan is such a Punyaslokan(a person who always does good deeds). This is what is said to Yudhishtirar, he suffered so much, he tolerated all this, and still he had the faith that dharmam won’t let him down. As they, all ends well, even with difficulties and losses, he never lost the dharmam. That’s why all these stories of such greats and Itihaasams should be heared from little children to old people. This is not any myth. This is a true story that happened. All these experiences have been there. With that I conclude this Nala Charithram.

 

Namah Parvathi Pathaye

Hara Hara Maha Deva