Vishnu Puranam : ( 04/04/2013. )

        Sagara      There were many powerful kings among Mandhata’s descendants. One of these was Purukutsa. Many years ago, the underworld was occupied by the gandharvas. They upset the rule of the snakes (nagas) and stole their jewels. The besieged nagas prayed to Vishnu for deliverance. Vishnu told them that he would enter Purukutsa’s body and thus destroy the gandharvas. The nagas sent the river Narmada to bring Purukutsa down to the underworld and Purukutsa destroyed all the gandharvas. The happy sankes grated Narmada a boon. Whoever says, "I pray to Narmada morning and evening; Narmada, protect me from snake poison, " will never be bitten by snakes.      In the same dynasty was born King Vahu. Vahu lost a war with some other kings and went to the forest with his wife. There Vahu’s wife was about to give birth to a baby. But Vahu had another wife as well. And out of jealousy, the second wife gave the first wife some poison. The result was that the

Ikshvaku, Yuvanashva and Soubhari   Manu happened to sneeze once. As a reult of the sneeze, a son known as Ikshvaku came out of his nose. Ikshvaku’s son was Vikukshi. Ikshvaku wished to perform a shradha ceremony and sent his son off to the forest to bring meat for the ceremony. Vikukshi killed many deer and felt hungry and tired. To satisfy his hunger he ate a rabbit and brought theother meat to his father, who then offered the meat to Vashishtha who was looking after the ceremony.   "This meat is unclean," said the sage, "your son has already eaten the meat of a rabbit."   Ikshvaku banished Vikukshi, although Vikukshi did rule the kingdom after Ikshvaku died. Vikukshi had a very brave son called Paranjaya. The devas and the asuras once fought a terrifble war and the devas could not defeat the asuras. The devas prayed to Vishnu and Vishnu told them that he would be born on earth as Paranjaya. Under Paranjaya’s leadership, the devas would be able t