Long ago, King Ambarisha ruled the whole wide earth, with all its seven islands. His treasure was so great that it never ran out.
Once, a great and powerful sage grew very angry with this king. But the sage’s anger could not touch King Ambarisha. How could that be?
The king knew that riches fade away, like a dream. His great elephants, his chariots and his jewels did not hold his heart. To him, the whole world was as small as a stone. He loved the Lord, and the Lord’s people.
Every day, the king served the Lord with his whole self. His mind thought of the feet of Lord Krishna, the Lord he loved. His words told of the Lord’s glories. His hands cleaned the Lord’s temple. His ears heard stories of the Lord.
His eyes looked at the Lord’s holy image in the temple. His nose smelled the sweet tulsi leaves offered to the Lord. His tongue tasted the Lord’s food. His feet walked to holy places, and his head bowed low.
The king ruled with the help of wise teachers called brahmanas, who loved the Lord. His people loved to sing and hear about the Lord. They did not even wish to go to heaven, though even the gods hold heaven dear.
The Lord was very pleased with the king’s love. So He gave King Ambarisha His own disc, a great round weapon named Sudarshana. Enemies feared it, and it would always guard the king from harm.
The king and his queen, who was as good as he was, made a vow to worship the Lord. A vow is a solemn promise. For one whole year, they kept the vow of Ekadashi and Dwadashi.
On Ekadashi they would fast. To fast means to go without food. On Dwadashi, the next day, the fast must end in time. Ending it in time is called parana. If parana is missed, the vow is not kept well.
At last the year ended, in the month of Kartika. Now the king had gone without food for three whole nights. He bathed in the river Yamuna and worshipped the Lord in the forest of Madhuvana.
He gave the Lord’s holy image a grand bath. Then he dressed it in fine clothes and ornaments, with sweet-smelling flower garlands. With love and care, he worshipped the Lord, and the good brahmanas too.
Then he gave away so many cows! Their horns were covered in gold, and their hooves in silver. Every cow was young and gentle, full of milk, with her calf by her side.
He welcomed every guest who came, and he fed all the brahmanas a fine meal. Now, with their leave, it was time to end his fast. Just then, a guest no one had invited arrived: the great sage Durvasa, a holy man of mighty power.
The king stood up to welcome him. He gave the sage a seat and worshipped him. Then he sat at the sage’s feet and asked, “Will you please eat with us?” In the king’s home, a guest was fed first.
The sage gladly said yes. But first he went down to the river Yamuna to say his prayers. He dipped into the water and sat very still, deep in thought.
The king waited. Time slipped by. Dwadashi was almost over, and only a little time was left to end the fast. The fast had to end now! But the sage had not come back from the river.
It was a hard problem. The king asked the wise brahmanas for help. “To eat before my guest is a great wrong,” he said. “But if the fast does not end on Dwadashi, my vow is not kept well. What shall I do?”
Then the king said, “I will drink a little water, if you think it is right.” The brahmanas agreed. Water counts as eating, and also as not eating. So the fast could end, and the guest’s meal would still wait for him.
So the king sipped some water, thinking of the Lord in his heart. His fast had ended in time, on Dwadashi. Now he waited for his guest to come back.
At noon, the sage came back from the river. The king welcomed him with great respect. But the sage had mighty powers. Without being told, he knew that the king had drunk water without asking him.
The sage was still hungry. His body shook, and his eyebrows pulled into a frown. “I am your guest,” he said, “but you ate first, before feeding me! Now I will show you!” The king stood before him with folded hands.
The sage’s face turned red with anger. He pulled out a lock of his own hair. From that lock of hair rose a blazing creature, made all of fire.
The fire-creature came toward the king. Thump! Thump! The whole ground shook under its steps. But King Ambarisha stayed calm. He did not move from his place, not even a little.
Then, just as the Lord had ordered long before, His disc Sudarshana came at once to guard the king. In one flash, the fire-creature was gone! That is why the sage’s anger could not touch the king. What the sage did next is another story.
For grown-ups
Where this story comes from
This story is retold from the Bhagavata Purana (Srimad-Bhagavatam), canto 9, chapter 4, verses 13–48. Verse numbers follow the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust translation as published at vedabase.io; that edition groups some verses (15–16, 18–20, 31–32, 33–35, 39–40). The sage Shukadeva tells the story to King Parikshit, and the question on page 2 is Parikshit’s own (9.4.14): how could the curse of a great brahmana fail to touch this king? The Bhagavata calls the Lord Krishna, Vasudeva and Hari; the story says “the Lord” after page 4. The sage is Durvasa Muni. Dwadashi is also spelled Dvadashi. A note on today’s custom: families who keep the Ekadashi fast now usually end it on Dwadashi at the parana time their panchang gives, often beginning with water and then fruit (our Ekadashi guide gives the steps). That is the custom as it is kept today. The Bhagavata itself says only that the fast must be broken within Dwadashi (9.4.39–40), and that Ambarisha, short of time, broke it with water (9.4.39–41). It is a faithful simplification. We shortened and left out parts, and we name them below. We did not add events, and we did not change anyone’s reasons. The dialogue is a plain rendering of the translation, not a word-for-word quotation. Seven lines need a note.
1. Page 2 and page 24. The Bhagavata speaks of a brahmana’s curse (9.4.13–14). The story says “the sage’s anger”, because Durvasa does not speak a curse in these verses: he makes a fiery being (9.4.46). “That is why” on page 24 is our link back to page 2; the Bhagavata says the disc acted “to protect the Lord’s devotee” (9.4.48).
2. Page 9 puts the king’s own rule (9.4.39–40: a fast not broken within Dwadashi is a flaw in the vow) before the story reaches it, so that a child knows why time matters on page 16.
3. Page 14, “In the king’s home, a guest was fed first.” This rests on 9.4.33–35 (he satisfied every guest and fed the brahmanas before he broke his fast), 9.4.39 (to fail in respect to a brahmana is a great offence) and Durvasa’s own complaint at 9.4.45.
4. Page 16, “only a little time.” The translation says “only a muhurta” of Dwadashi was left; the Sanskrit reads muhurtardha, half a muhurta (about 24 minutes). The page gives no number.
5. Page 18. In 9.4.39–40 the king puts the plan to the brahmanas (“if you think that it will be auspicious and not irreligious”) and decides “after consulting” them, “for according to brahminical opinion, drinking water may be accepted as eating and also as not eating.” The page says “The brahmanas agreed” for that consultation.
6. Page 23. “Thump! Thump!” is our sound for footsteps that made the earth tremble (9.4.47). “Stayed calm” renders “was not at all disturbed.” The Bhagavata gives no reason for his stillness here, so the page gives none.
7. Tulsi. The translation spells it tulasi (9.4.18–20); the story uses the spelling of our app.
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Three things this telling leaves out, and why
- Nabhaga’s story (9.4.1–12). The chapter opens with Ambarisha’s father, Nabhaga, and his inheritance. It is a separate episode, so the story begins with Ambarisha (9.4.13).
- Durvasa’s harsh words (9.4.44). Durvasa calls the king a cruel man who is no devotee of Vishnu and thinks himself God. The story leaves this out: it is too harsh for bedtime, and page 21 keeps the complaint that gives his reason, “you ate first” (9.4.45). “I shall show you something to punish you” (9.4.45) becomes “Now I will show you!”
- What the fiery being was, and what it held (9.4.46–47). The translation calls it “a demon resembling the blazing fire of devastation”; the Sanskrit word is kritya, a being made to do harm. The story calls it “a blazing creature, made all of fire” and gives it no face. In 9.4.47 it carries a weapon: the translation says a trident, while the Sanskrit asi-hasta means “sword in hand”. The weapon is left out of the text and the pictures.
- How the disc ended it (9.4.48). The disc “burnt to ashes the created demon”, “as fire in the forest immediately burns to ashes an angry snake.” The story says only that “in one flash, the fire-creature was gone.” The simile is left out.
- Durvasa’s face (9.4.43). The story keeps his trembling body and his frown, and his red face at 9.4.46. It leaves out “his face curved”, and he is never drawn as fearsome. He is a great sage.
Some details go to this page instead of the story. Ambarisha was the son of Nabhaga (9.4.13). His great sacrifices, among them the ashvamedha, were held where the river Sarasvati flowed, under the sages Vasishtha, Asita and Gautama, with priests dressed so finely they looked like gods (9.4.22–23). Verses 25–26 say that devotees care nothing even for the powers of great yogis, and that the king practised austerity and gave up all material desire. Verse 27 also names wives, children, friends, horses, garments and the treasury among the things he did not cling to. Pages 4–5 give most of 9.4.18–20; they leave out his eyes seeing places like Mathura and Vrindavana and his touch serving the Lord’s devotees. The cows on page 12 numbered sixty crore, six hundred million, and were dressed in cloth (9.4.33–35). The king had fasted three nights at the end of the year (9.4.30). Durvasa went to the Yamuna for his midday rites and meditated on Brahman (9.4.37, 9.4.42).
The question children ask here
“Did the king eat before his guest?” Not really. The Bhagavata shows how carefully he chose:
- he had two duties at once: to honour his guest, and to end his fast within Dwadashi, and he named both (9.4.39–40);
- he did not decide alone; he asked the learned brahmanas first (9.4.38–40);
- he took only water, which, the brahmanas held, “may be accepted as eating and also as not eating” (9.4.39–40), and kept the meal for his guest;
- then he waited for Durvasa with his mind on the Lord (9.4.41). Durvasa saw it as eating first (9.4.45), but the Lord’s disc protected the king (9.4.48).
“He only sipped water, so his fast ended on time, and the meal still waited for his guest.”
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