A story about Raghu, the founder of Lord Rama’s dynasty!
King Raghu was the ancestor of Lord Rama. His son was Aja, Aja’s son was Dasharatha, who was the father of Lord Rama. King Raghu was so illustrious that the dynasty of Lord Rama came to be known as Raghukula or Raghuvamsa.
Raghu was the son of King Dileep. Once, Dileep conducted ashwamedha yagna to get the throne of Indra, king of heaven. The scriptures say that to get the seat of Indra, one has to conduct ashwamedha yagna, an enormously expensive sacrifice of a hundred horses. When Dileep reached 99 horses, the presiding Indra at that time was perturbed. He knew that he would lose his throne if Dileep were to succeed. Thus, Indra planned to steal the hundredth horse and prevent Dileep from taking his throne.
Indra has tremendous powers, one of them is to be invisible to anyone. He made himself invisible and stole the horse. As he was leading the horse away, the young Raghu, who was only nine years old, challenged him. ‘Stop, you thief! Let go of the horse’. You may ask, how could the young child see Indra, who had taken such pains to be invisible? Raghu was not an ordinary child. He had been brought up in the hermitage of a great saint and had sterling qualities. The miraculous cow Kamadhenu was in the sage’s hermitage, and Raghu smeared his eyes with her milk. This enabled him to see Indra.
Indra laughed on seeing the child. ‘What can you do to stop me?’ taunted Indra and a fight ensued. Raghu was so powerful, even though he was only nine years old, he thrashed Indra roundly and tied him up. He dragged Indra by his feet to the court of his father, King Dileep. ‘Father, this thief was stealing your horse. I have defeated him and trussed him.’
It mortified King Dileep on seeing Indra bound and dragged in such an ignominious manner. ‘What have you done?’ exclaimed King Dileep, ‘Don’t you know this Indra, the king of heaven? We worship him.’
‘Worship him?’ asked a perplexed Raghu, ‘But he’s such a lowly thief!’
‘Be quiet!’ scolded Dileep, ‘You are a mere child. You don’t know what you are talking about’.
On being released, Indra slunk away without so much as a backward glance. Even Indra, the king of heaven, has the same problems as we do. Fear, anger, paranoia and jealousy, all these afflict him. This is so because Indra is as bound by maya as we are.
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