Excess of piety

King Nrig was a very pious man. He strictly followed the rituals and observed all the fasts prescribed in the scriptures. His generous donations to Brahmins were the talk of the land. When he learnt that giving a cow to a Brahmin brought considerable spiritual merit to the donor, Nrig set up a practice of donating large number of cows to Brahmins on every conceivable occasion. In the course of time, he had donated so many cows that he could not keep a track of the cattle he had already given to Brahmins in sankalpa – a formal vow.

Ancients Speak
Suman K Sharma

Now it so happened that among a lakh cowsNrigwas donating to a Brahmin was one that he had already pledged to another Brahmin over asankalpa. This led to a tiff between the two Brahmins – the older owner and the new one. The new owner of the cow got furious with the king as well. He accused him of being so proud of his charity that he dared to give away someone else’s cow to a learned Brahmin. Nrig humbly apologised from the Brahmin for his negligence. But the latter was not appeased. He cursed the good king to turn into a chameleon, a creature that habitually looks left and right before moving an inch.
So, King Nrig became an unhappy lizard and started living a miserable life in a well. WhenNarada Muni reminded the all-knowing Narayana of the king’sdownfall, the Supreme Deitywas moved to pity for the hapless victim. According him the divine status for his piety, He sent him to the heaven.
Temperance is the watch word, temperance even in pious deeds. King Nrig got so carried away by his religiosity that it became an obsession with him. The story reminds one of another misguided king of the ancient times, PrachinVahirsh, who sacrificed so many animals in his yagyas that the few that still remained alive prayed to the Almighty for good sense to prevail on him. We have also the story of Priyavrat, heir to Svayambhu Manu’s vast empire. When Narada Rishi preached him not to get too much involved in the maya – illusion of this world, the impressionable young prince decided to have nothing to do with his worldly ties and retreated to forests to spend his life in meditation. It took Brahma himself to tell him that he had responsibilities towards his family and the realm that his father ruled.
Read in the context of the present times, King Nrig’s story could be a tongue-in-cheek comment on the tendency of some of our political bosses to recklessly distribute goodies,at public expense, to their electorate.
Heavily subsidised kitchens, saris to women, bicycles to teenagers and even jewellery and laptops (the latter of course with the logo of the ruling party ineluctably inserted as a screen-saver!) are some of the ‘good deeds’ that earn them political merit. A more glaring instance of this tendency came in sight in February this year. 11 married couples, some of them having children, got ‘married’ again in a UPGovernment-sponsored mass-wedding ceremony at NOIDA. The lure for each of the couple was an amount of Rs 35,000/- (of which, Rs 20,000/- in cash). King Nrig-like, UP government is now wary of the young couples eager to tie a knot at such ceremonies.
Gimmicks like this take a heavy toll of our fragile economy. If they do make the politicos a laughing stock in some cases, it does not matter. Did not Nrig ascend to heaven eventually?
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