Vikram and Vaitaal
Stories From Other Sources
- Introduction
"These
stories have been taken from other sources, such as Internet sites, other
books etc. Our purpose to keep them here is not to copy them here, but to
keep them all at one place without losing them, as it is very common with
Internet sites that they disappear within no time. This site lists 6
stories in all.
2-The
Exchanged Heads
There
lived a washerman named Dhaval. Once he went to the place where washermen
were washing clothes and he saw a beautiful woman at the pond. In fact she
was the daughter of another washerman. He fell in love with her and asked
her hand. Her parents agreed and they married their daughter Madansundaree
to Dhaval.
Once
Madansundaree 's brother came to invite his sister and brother-in-law for
some festival. While on their way they passed by a Durgaa temple. Her
brother wanted to pay a visit to Devee, so he went inside the temple. But
as soon as he got near the idol, he decided to make a sacrifice of
himself, and he cut his head off for the goddess. When he didn't come for
quite some time Madansundaree got worried about him, and she sent her
husband to check on him.
When
Dhaval came inside the temple, he got moved seeing his brother-in-law's
state; so he also decided to offer his head too and thinking thus he cut
off his own head too. When Dhaval also did not return for some time
Madansundaree herself went into the temple and found that both of them are
lying there dead. She also decided to take her own life too. Before doing
so she prayed the goddess to give her the same husband and the same
brother in her next life.
As she
was going to cut off her head, that the goddess got pleased with her and
stopped her dong so. She asked her to join their heads to their bodies and
gave them life. Madansundaree was in a hurry so she mistakenly joined
Dhav;l's head on her brother's body and her brother's head on Dhaval's
body.
Vaitaal
stopped here and asked Vikram - "Now tell me who should be the
husband of Madansundaree?" Vikram thought for a while and said -
"The body that carries her husband's head is her husband, because the
head is the most important part of the body and the rest of the body is
identified by the head."
As
soon as Vikram finished his answer, Vaitaal ran away and hung on the same
tree upside down.
|
