Nahusha - Lessons to learn!

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 Just as we learned from the story of Yayati, there are a few lessons to learn from his father Nahusha too!

Let me recap Nahusha’s story and then we can look at the lessons –

Nahusha was a great ruler of the mankind on the earth. He had performed many yagnas and was well known for his principles and generosity. Just as fate would have it, Indra – the king of the gods had to serve a period of penance and left the throne vacant. Indra’s court and the advisors suggested to appoint Nahusha as the king of the Devas while Indra was serving the penance. Nahusha was initially surprised, thrilled but finally accepted the appointment. He did a great job of governing the court of the heaven. However, the extremities of the heaven and the powers started to catch on to Nahusha. He started to believe that he was superior to all and had all the powers in himself. He forgot how he ascended to the throne. In his pride and presumptuousness, he started to become arrogant, haughty and swell headed. He started to behave rudely in the court and disrespected the gods and the sages. One day he saw Shachi – the beautiful wife of Indra. In the moment of lust, he asked Shachi to accept him as her husband. When she refused, he asserted himself on her as he was the king. To teach him a lesson, Shachi requested him to come to her in a palanquin lifted by the seven revered sages – Saptarishis. When Nahusha was going on the palanquin, he cursed the sages and shouted at them to move faster. Sage Agastya at one time, stumbled while carrying the palanquin. Blinded by the lust and his power, Nahusha kicked him in the back and asked him to stop acting like a Sarpa (Serpant or Sanke) which crawls and move faster. Rishi Agastya infuriated at this treatment, cursed Nahusha to loose all his good deeds, kingdom and become a python himself and fall on the earth and live there forever. This way he shall never attain salvation. When Nahusha realized his mistake and pleaded for forgiveness, Rishi Agastya told him that he shall be relieved of the curse when one of his descendants Yudhishthira shall help him many generations later. We shall revisit this story later.

Pic credit - Devdutt Pattnaik


Things to learn from Nahusha’s story are as follows –

  1. One must never forget that the importance or power they wield is because of the position they hold. Once they lose the position, there is no difference between them or the person next door.
  2. The strength of character and knowledge are the only virtues that remains with the person forever
  3. Every action has reaction (Think Newton again!) – No action ever goes unnoticed. There shall always be a reaction. If it is in your favor, you shall enjoy it.
  4. Never underestimate and disrespect others – Nature has given different qualities to each one of us. Each quality may come in handy at a given scenario. If one person is not able to act according to a situation, it may be that their qualities are for a different situation.

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