Monday 4 July 2011

SAHASRARJUN AND ELEVEN LIGHTS (Revised)



This story of Sahasrarjun and eleven lights is an interesting folklore passed on for generations in Maheshwar, the old capital of emperor Sahasrarjun. He is the forefather of Soma Vaunshiya Sahasrarjun Kshatriya samaj. This story was gathered by Shri Laxminaryan Ambekar of Maheshwar.  Maheshwar, the old capital of Emperor Sahasrarjun, was located on the bank of Narmada river, in Madya Pradesh.




One day, Ravana the mighty king of Lanka was gliding, in his Pushpaka veeman (the mythological plane) over the Narmada river. He was attracted to the river by the flickered reflections of the waves.  It appeared Narmada devi herself waved at him.




Upstream of the dry Narmada river, Emperor Sahasrarjun had blocked the waters with his thousand mighty shoulders.  This created a dry playground for his 500 wives.




Downstream of the Narmada river, Ravana, who was unaware of this fact, chose a location of the dry river bed to perform Shiva pooja.  He built a Shivaling made of sand and began the pooja.




Sahasrarjun's wives left the dry river bed to change their clothes.  Sahasrarjun lifted his thousand shoulders to rest.  This dislodged the river waters which rushed downstream and flooded the area where Ravana was performaing the pooja.  This destroyed the Shivaling made of sand and disrupted Ravana's pooja.  Ravana was furious and his loud and angry roar was heard everywhere and made everyone tremble.




Ravana discovered that this was caused by Sahasrarjun's actions.  He challenged him for a duel.  Ravana, who has ten heads, fully armed his 10 pairs of hands and came to fight along with his army.  In the duel, the mighty powerful Sahasrarjun with the thousand hands won.  He pinned Ravana down to the ground, tied his hands with his pasha(long chord).  He then placed 11 lamps over Ravana's heads and hand.




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Sahasrarjun then dragged, the hand tied, Ravana to his kingdom.


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It has been said that after defeating Ravana, Sahasrarjun further humiliated him by chaining him to his son's cradle pole.




Then he imprisoned him in his fort for a very long time.  Ravana's kin Pulastya pleaded Sahasrarjun to release Ravana from this humiliating situation.  Ravana had learned a good lesson.

To commemorate this event at Sahasrarjun temple, at Maheshwar, the devotees keep the 11 lamps filled with ghee continuously burning.  Pilgrims donate ample ghee to fuel the lamps.  All the SSK people should go on a pilgrimage to this most sacred Sahasrarjun temple of Maheshwar at least once in their lifetime.  Witness this miracle of lights and make it a part of our religious heritage, Jaya Sahasrarjun.

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