1.2.2 Story of Mayureshwar, Morgaon - 2

The City of Gandaki was once ruled by King Chakrapani. He was a brave and virtuous king. The King's wife Ugra was equally virtuous and chaste. Their subjects were very happy with the King.

However, the King was always worried as he had no child. So they went to seek advise of Sage Shaunak. The sage advised them to perform Suryapasana, a penance to invoke and please the Sun God.

After years of asperities, the Sun God blessed the couple and Ugra convinced a child. However, as the child came from the blessings of Sun God, it had immense heat and Ugra was unable to carry it. Therefore she released the gestated baby in the sea. 

The sea accepted the baby as blessings of Sun God. After some time, a beautiful radiant baby boy was born in the cradle of sea. To take care of the child, sea took form of a Brahmin. He handed this baby back to King Chakrapani.

The King named the child as Sindhu, meaning one who us affiliated to the mighty sea. He put Sindhu under the guidance of Shukracharya who also taught him the Suryamantra.

Sindhu performed penances for over two thousand years to please Sun God with the powers of Suryamantra. Pleased by Sindhu's penance the Sun God offered him the ambrosia, the eternal drink. He asked Sindhu to drink the nectar and assured him- "Sindhu this is the nectar of eternity. Drink it. Till the time this nectar resides in your stomach, death shall not come to you".

Pleased by the boon and blessings revived, Sindhu came back to the city of Gandki. His father King Chakrapani ceremonially crowned him as his successor to the throne and went into the forest for meditation.

King Sindhu was now overcome by his hunger for power and fame. He desired to become the unrivaled King if all three domains of existence. Thus he raged war against many kings and brought several kingdoms under his control. His army expanded as the demons impressed by his might came and joined.

King Sindhu even attacked Amravati, the Kingdom of Heaven. He defeated the ruler of heaven - Lord Indra and expelled all Gods from heaven. He even mesmerized Lord Vishnu and asked him to abandon His abode Vaikunth. He told Lord Vishnu to come and reside in the city of Gandaki. 

Consequent to this, Sindhu decided to take control of Mount Kailas and abode of Lord Brahma - Satyalok.

Meanwhile, the Gods sought advise of their preceptor Guru Brahaspati to subdue Sindhu. The Guru advised them to invoke Lord Ganesha.

The Gods performed penance to please Lord Ganesha for several years. Pleased by their devotion, Ganesha appeared before them and assured them to slay Sindhu.

Meanwhile, Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati troubled by the antics of Sindhu, abandoned Mount Kailash and went to Mountain Meru to live peacefully. Here Lord Shiva guided Goddess Parvati to monosyllabic Ganapati Mantra. He asked Parvati to chant the mantra for twelve years.

Thus Goddess Parvati devoted herself to the meditation of Lord Ganesha for over twelve years. Finally Lord Ganesha appeared before Her and gave her the boon of having Him as Her son.

Following this, one day when Parvati was lonely, she was deeply overcome by feeling of motherhood. She took the smear of saffron and tumeric from her body and mixed it with wet mud. She moulded wet mud into a child like figure. Parvati began admiring the mud model when suddenly the idol became alive. A mystic voice told Parvati that her desire to have Ganesha as her child has been fulfilled. It was Ganesha who had incarnated as Parvati's son to slay Sindhu.

Ganesha acquired an elephant after His father Lord Shiva beheaded him in a rage of events. When Ganesha was six years old, Sage Vishwakarma endowed Ganesha with Paash (noose), Parasu (battle axe), Ankusha (hook) and kamala (lotus).

Meanwhile Sindhu continued troubling Gods and humans alike. Lord Shiva decided to abandon even Mount Meru. While the Shiv family was migrating, a demon named Kamlasur attacked the divine family.

Kamlasur had a massive army of twelve crores. The demon himself was powerful and had a boon to multiply in number. A fierce battle ensued between Kamlasur army and Ganesha. Ganesh fought mounted on a peacock, while Kamlasur mounted a horse.

Ganesha defeated the demon army, but Kamalasur could not be defeated as from his blood arose many more demons. 

To overcome him, Ganesha invoke Riddhi and Siddhi, asking them to swallow al demons. The Goddesses gobbled at demons and finally Ganesha attacked Kamalasur with his Trident. The demon was beheaded. The place where his head fell is known as Morgaon Kshetra. Sage  Vishwakarma constructed a temple here to commemorate the defeat of demon by Ganesha.

Following this, Shiva and his family began their further journey towards the City of Gandaki where the Gods were imprisoned by Sindhu. Shiva asked Nandi to approach Sindhu and ask him to release the Gods. However, Sindhu refused and a fierce battle ensued.

The entire Shiva family including the Ganas, his bull Nandi, Veerbhadra, his sons Ganesha and Kartikeya fought against Sindhu's army.  On the first day, Lord Ganesha broke Sindhu’s one hand. Following this his brothers-in-laws Kala and Vikala; and his sons Dharma and Adharma were destroyed by Lord Kartikeya.

Considering the divine strenght, King Chakrapani advised Sindhu to release the Gods.

 However, Sindhu was overconfident about himself and he refused to release Gods under any condition. He went ahead to battle against Ganesha. Here Ganesha took firm of Mayureshwar. When Sindhu came towards Mayureshwar with his sword, Mayureshwar landed from his peacock and aimed an arrow towards Sindhu. The arrow pierced Sindhu’ navel. It was a lethal blow. The nectar given y Sun God to Sindhu ejected due to the wrath of arrow and Sindhu met his fate.

The Gods were released by Mayureshwar and King Chakrapani respectfully seated Him on the throne of Gandaki. He was married to Siddhi and Buddhi here. I is said that Ganesha lived in Gandaki for many years, until one day he suddenly  disappeared gifting his peacock to his brother Saknda (Kartikeya).