THE CURSED STONE

Lord Yama is also the lord of justice and he is sometimes referred to as Dharma in reference to his unswerving dedication to maintaining order and adherence to harmony. His chief assistant Chitragupta is assigned with the task of keeping complete records of actions of human beings on the earth, and upon their death, deciding to have them reincarnated as a superior or inferior organism depending on their action (karma) on the earth.

 

1. Prologue:

In those days, there are no vehicles like cars and buses. We have to go by bullock carts and the journey is safe, though not speedy. The cart man is Gandraju who is handling the bulls and I am in the closed old fashioned village cart with a blanket covered as the top of the cart.

We are going through a Village called Nallajerla and the time is around mid day as the sun is on the head. I saw some people gathered at a tree and they are breaking coconuts on the head of the idol of some black stone under the tree.

I am seeing this, first time, so I wondered why they are breaking the coconuts on the head of the idol. I looked at Gandraju and asked him the same thing with some unknown interest. The idol is also typical, as one man is sitting on the back of another man who bent like an animal, two hands and two folded legs on the ground and the man sitting on his back is like a king with a crown on his head.

2. Cursed King and Diplomat

“It is a story of a great king who is cursed by Lord Yama. The other man who is like an animal, carrying the king, is his court advisor called ‘diplomat’. He always follows the king and he is also one with the cursed king. They are cursed to become a stone as idol to be worshiped as cursed Stone.”

I am first time hearing about this peculiar idol. So I asked Gandraju to tell me the story of this idol of cursed king in detail. I know, Gandraju is a well known story teller in our Village. He is interested in gathering stories from old people around him and tell those stories to young people, adding his imagination. So the stories he tells are always very interesting like eating ‘fresh mango pieces with salt and the red chilli powder’.

As I am enjoying my cheroot made of fresh home brewed tobacco under my lips, Gandraju started telling his tasty story in his own style.

3. War and War Victims

There was a great king and he is so strong that he wanted to win as many kingdoms as there are around his kingdom. He has very big harem and he loves to fill this with as many concubines as possible and they are taken from other kingdoms that he wins and joins in his kingdom.

He has a court advisor who is called Diplomat. He is always with the king and whatever the king has to say, he says as the words of the king, so king loves him very much, for he is very clever in answering with diplomatic color and talent. It is a wonder that both the king and the diplomat are dead on the same day, same time and met in the hell again at the same time before Lord Yama for the final verdict or decision of him as he is the lord of death.

The King looked around and found that he is in the hell. He cried in anger that he should be in the heaven, not in this hell.

“Why you think that? You have lot of sins in your account and one in all those sins is enough to make you stand before me for the punishment.” Lord Yama said.

“This may be a mistake of your Chitragupta, I am not a sinner.” The king said with a great ease in his self confidence.

Lord Yama took the sheet of his sins from Chitragupta’s hand and gazing at the sheet, he said with annoyance.

“You are number one war criminal. You have invaded many kingdoms around you and in those cruel wars, thousands of innocent people are dead. Hundreds of god loving people are wounded and disabled. And you know, many war victims are mentally alarmed seeing the death of so many soldiers and civilians and they have become insane. Is it not a big sin on your part, you say?”

Lord of death is looking at the king with his crimson red eyes of profound anger. The King looked in to the face of his diplomat who also stood before Lord yama, besides the king with a great confusion. He somehow searched a ready answer and said looking at Lord Yama.

“My Lord, I am the diplomat of the king and I always talk on behalf of my king. Please allow me to answer on behalf of my king, my lord Yama of hell.”

Lord yama looked at the diplomat. He nodded his head as the consent. Then the diplomat said like this.

“My lord, Wars are inevitable. We know, many people will die in wars and on their death, the land becomes free from their burden as a result of this.”

“But, by this, my cells of the hell are getting overfilled and overburdened, you know? Your wars are my headache. These are resulting as my burden as hell is getting overcrowded with this preoccupation of these predetermined visitors. They have to die naturally, you know, with their destiny and come here leisurely.”

Lord Yama said this with unbearable anger. The diplomat answered in his own way of style with undaunted confidence.

“My lord, as for the destiny is concerned, all that happened is nothing but just according to the destiny only, as if it is destined, if not they will not die. We call this as lalatalikhitam. If Lord Brahma did not sketch the destiny like this on the foreheads of every one, as the Sanskrit poet Bhartruhari said that Yat dhaatraa likhitam lalaata patale, tat projjhitum kah samarthah, which means, none is able to wipe out predetermined course of events as is sketched by Destiny on our foreheads. It is responsible for a good deal of physical, mental and moral lethargy.”

 

Lord Yama looked in to the sheet of crimes as if he is partly convinced with the diplomat’s argument.

 

“You know, the war victims are innumerable. The widows, orphans along with the wounded, disabled and mentally disordered soldiers as a result of wars are the burden on the society. Don’t you know that this is the adverse effect by these wars?” Yama said with curiosity this time to hear from him that what he will say.

“I know, my lord! Society is full of so many problems and without problems, the humanity cannot be recognized perfectly. So I think, on behalf of my king, that war is not a crime, but it is in one way, a blessing in disguise for the society.”

As diplomat said this, king was happy and nodded his head as if he is thinking ‘exactly the same thing’ what the diplomat has said.

Lord Yama now thought that both, the king and diplomat, are made with the same philosophy as if they are ‘one soul in two bodies’.

Lord Yama seriously looked in to the sheet of king’s sins as if he is partly convinced with the diplomat’s argument.

 

4. Harem and Concubines

Now looking at the sheet of the sins, Lord Yama concentrated on another grave sin. He looked the king and asked with his furious looks.

“You have large harems of concubines. They are as many as in hundreds and you never left one in them being not used as a prostitute. Is this prostitution not a sin, on your part ?”

This time the king looked at Lord Yama and he answered in a peaceful and calm tone to the lord of death like this.

“My lord, these are the women who are neglected by the society or who cannot be married by anyone in the society. The reasons may be many. The inability to marry may be due a multiplicity of factors, such as differences in social rank, including their sex-slave status, an extant marriage, religious prohibitions, professional ones like Roman Soldiers or Oxford Dons or a lack of recognition by appropriate authorities. These women in such conditions are frequently voluntary or by their families. The measures of economic security for these women are also involved.  So they are happy women in harems under the control of the king. It is not any uncommon or to be treated as a sin. I helped hundreds of women by giving a great social and economic security to them.”

Lord Yama looked in to the sheet of sins as if he is partly convinced with the king’s argument.

 

5. Revenues and Temples

Lord Yama looked at the sheet of sins of the king and knew that he collected heavy revenues from the poor people and he made them even poorer and poorest.

“Is it not a sin to collect heavy revenues in the name of taxes from the poor people? They are like the innocent victims looted by bandits! Is it not a shame on your part that being the king, you have become the bandit to loot your own people?” Lord Yama asked the king with extreme anguish and agony.

This time the diplomat answered on behalf of the king, with no grief or sorrow for the poor being tortured like that.

“If these huge taxes are not collected, the king cannot build many great temples in the kingdom. Moreover, as a lot of amount is spent on the taxes, the people remained as usual, poor, and as they did not grow to the slab of rich, they are without vices or bad habits and they are happy with their families as simple and virtuous men. It is a blessing in disguise, I mean, what our king did.”

“He is exactly right, my lord!” the king supported the answer of diplomat by nodding his head and added.

Lord Yama wondered for this answer and now, he asked about any benefit that people got by building temples in his kingdom.

“You said, you have utilized that money for building temples! What was the benefit happened to people by building the temples? Many people are spending their valuable time in temples as if they are lazy, in day and night? You know, the temples are becoming the places for vice in the nights, in so many places. It is why, people started staying more in the temples. People know that temples are safer and secure than the houses! Tell me something about good you did by constructing these temples in your kingdom!”

Lord Yama questioned with extreme impatience which made both the king and his diplomat very much confused.

The King felt uneasy and unable to answer. The diplomat also felt uneasy for some time. Then the King answered, somehow, like this.

“I constructed temples, by which many people are employed as priests and temple workers. By this, some unemployment problem is solved. People without job or work are given jobs like this. People without food are given food with God’s Prasadam or the food that is sanctified by the lord.”

What king said is not enough, the diplomat thought. So he started saying in addition to this.

“Temples are not for people, but for Gods. So the existence of God is saved by the temples. In this way, Gods like Lord Vishnu, Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma and so many goddesses are at the benefit of these temples. How you can say that constructing temples is a sin, please consult with your gods and then decide.”

The diplomat said with his sharp diplomacy and Lord Yama was really afraid as if this matter goes to supreme gods, his post will be hanging in air or it is gone.

Now Lord Yama looked at the king and the diplomat and also at the sheet of the sins written by his beloved Chitragupta.

He is really confused for a while about this impeachment of the king clubbed with his diplomat.

6. Curse of Yama

Lord Yama has a private discussion with his assisted Chitragupta in a separate room and they have decided what to do on this very special case of the king and the diplomat.

Lord Yama is also the lord of justice and he is sometimes referred to as Dharma in reference to his unswerving dedication to maintaining order and adherence to harmony. His chief assistant Chitragupta is assigned with the task of keeping complete records of actions of human beings on the earth, and upon their death, deciding to have them reincarnated as a superior or inferior organism depending on their action (karma) on the earth.

Lord Yama finally looked at the king and the diplomat and asked them with some irony.

“So what you did is not to be taken as sin?”

“Yes, my lord, not at all.” The king said with a lot of confidence.

“What my king said is but undaunted truth and I obey him.”The diplomat also said with the same confidence.

 

“Okay. You did only good things, as per your knowledge.  Your diplomat is your good servant. I see that you both should be worshiped in your next birth, I want to give you this status of dieties.” Lord Yama said as real diplomat.

‘Thank you, my lord, thank you.”

The king and the diplomat said with happy faces, as if they won a war, with Lord Yama.  Convincing Lord yama is not a joke, they thought.

Meanwhile, Lord Yama said some important thing.

“You will be worshipped, but as stones without souls.”

 

The king and the diplomat are not worried at this point.

“We don’t need souls. Gods are stones, so we also will be stones. No problem.”

The king said and diplomat followed the king in the answer.

“Yes my lord, no soul no problem. We love it.”

 

“Okay, you will be worshiped as ‘king and servant’ under a tree on the land. There will be no temple for you. You, the king, will be on the back of your servant who will bend down like a faithful animal. You are now the stone ready for worship. I am throwing you on the earth for worship.” Lord Yama said.

The king and his diplomat are made as CURSED STONE on the earth and get worshiped