Thread by @Nehaaaa_c

Happy Valentine’s Day to those celebrating
#TalesfromtheHeart #NalaDamayanti
#curseanddestiny #SoulTalks 🦢🪷
Distance tests. Fate humiliates. Time disguises.
But true love recognises its own - even in exile.

There once lived a King Nala, who ruled over the Kingdom of Nishadha. He was the commander of a vast army and extended his kingdom from coast to coast. His expertise in controlling horses and riding chariots faster than lightning amused the immortals.

From his courtiers, Nala had heard tales of Damayanti- the princess of ancient Vidarbha Kingdom & daughter of King Bhima. He knew about the beauty and the other good qualities of Damayanti and had seen many kings and princes desperate to marry her. He too was eager to meet her.

Damayanti also had heard of the noble king Nala -and fell in love with the man she had never seen and only wanted to marry him.
Once when Nala was resting in his royal garden, he saw a divine golden-winged swan. He caught the swan. The divine swan said to him in a human voice,

‘O King Nala’, You are wise and just, truthful and pure. Therefore, I beg for my life. Please do not kill me. In all mortals, I haven’t seen a more handsome youth than yours and no other lady is as tender and pretty as Damayanti, the daughter of King Bhima of Vidarbha.

If you set me free, I will send your praises to Damayanti and she will only care about marrying you. Nala sets the divine swan free.
The swan went to Damayanti told her tales Nala’s beauty and valour. She had heard praises of Nala from her maids and the common folk previously.

The words of the golden-winged swan made her impatient to meet him.
She was eager to marry him and spent restless nights thinking about Nala. She spent several days without eating or drinking anything. Concerned by her daughter’s change in behaviour, Bhima arranged Swayamwara

(Marriage) for Damayanti where Kings and Princes from entire Bharatavarsha (India) were invited.
Nala wanted to take part in the Swayamvara. So he ordered his charioteer Varshneya to reach Vidarbha as soon as possible. Nala, in between his journey to Vidarbha, encountered the

Devas (Gods) Indra, Agni, Yama & Varuna. Devas too wished to take part, hence asked Nala to convey a message to Damayanti that she may marry any of the four she wished. Nala, being a mortal was indebted to the Devas. Therefore, to free himself of their debt, he had no choice but

to agree. When Damayanti tells the four gods she will take none other than Nala, they quickly transmogrify into exact replicas of Nala, with all his mannerisms and speech. Now choose- say the gods.
Damayanti says to herself in a moment of meditation, perhaps directing her prayer

to those very gods, ‘If my vow and fidelity to Nala is true, then may I be given the subtlety of vision to recognize which of these five exact replicas of Nala is the real one.’
When she looks again, she observes that one of the figures blinks and sweats and shows other human

features of which the gods are unsullied. So she chose real Nala. The gods were pleased with Damayanti and Nala and blessed the couple.

That is when fate began its test. Nala was cursed by the deity Kali. Cursed by misfortune, Nala lost his kingdom in a game of dice.

In exile and despair, believing he was protecting her from his own downfall, he left Damayanti sleeping in the forest.
She woke alone. Nala? Only her voice echoed through the stillness of the forest interspersed by the chattering of a few playful monkeys. He had left her.

No palace. No protection. No certainty. Only love.
Years later, Nala lived in disguise-unrecognisable to the world. He moved ahead & reached the kingdom of a king called Rituparna. There he started working as a stable hand. Nala did such a fine job of grooming the king's horses

that he soon became the king's charioteer.
Nala was also an excellent cook & the meals cooked by Nala also pleased the king immensely. So,very soon Nala became a favourite of the king. The king was an expert in the game of dice and as his confidence in Nala grew, he taught him

all the skills necessary to win in a game of dice.
Meanwhile Damayanti had moved forward on her own. She still did not go to her father but went to another kingdom and served as a hand maiden to the princess. But after a while, her father, who was searching for her, found out

where she was, and took her home. Now together Damayanti & her father started searching for Nala.

Damayanti knew that Nala would not reveal his identity on his own. So she told her father’s soldiers to search for a person who is an excellent cook & an expert in grooming horses

There was no one in the world to compare with Nala in these qualities & so Damayanti knew that that was the best way in which they could identify him.
The soldiers did find a man like that in the court of King Rituparna but he was a disfigured person who did not bear the least

resemblance to Nala. When they came back and reported this to Damayanti, she told them, Ask the man one question and come back and give me his answer.
Ask him, Why does a man want to desert his wife in the middle of the forest?
The soldiers asked him the question and the man

said- Because he had lost his kingdom, and wanted his wife to escape to her father till such time that he could reclaim his kingdom and his wife.
When the soldiers came & reported the answer, Damayanti knew that it was Nala himself. Nala too understood that the time had come to

reveal his identity. He returned to his kingdom, won it back, and ruled over it happily with Damayanti. Their devotion ultimately led to their reunion.

The love story of Nala and Damayanti has eternally fired popular imagination in the India that to this day a person who takes

messages between lovers is referred to as Hamsa- the Sanskrit word for swan. Likewise, an excellent cook, especially a male, is referred to as Nala.The story has also inspired famous Indian paintings.

-When a curse descends, there is no escape -only endurance. #TalesfromthePast

@threadreaderapp please unroll