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Vikram_Betal_New_Stories
It gives me a great pleasure to start a series on new wisdom stories of Vikram and Betal. For the benefit of my readers (especially of countries other than India) I would want to give a brief background about them.
In India, around in 1100 A.D., there was a Sanskrit (an ancient language still prevalent in very little part of India whose alphabets are same as widely used language Hindi. Sanskrit is still taught in schools) writer named Somedeva. He compiled a list of 18 books named as Katha- Sarit- Sagara (Ocean of river of stories). In his 12th Book of such compilation he wrote 25 stories on Vikram and Betal. These stories were compiled on the basis of stories prevalent in people and were told verbally from generations but their original source was not known.
These stories are also known as Betal Pachisi or Vetala Panchvishanti (25 stories of Betal). The best known version of such stories in English was compiled by Sir Richard Francis Burton. A TV serial on such stories was also launched in India many years back.
In the story, there was a King called Vikramaditya popularly known as King Vikram. He was known for his wisdom and justice. He was approached by a sage (who practice religion) to capture Betal (or Vetal or Vetala), a spirit who use to hang in inverted position on a tree in a dense and dangerous jungle. This spirit use to inhabit and live in dead bodies. Sage told him that by capturing the spirit, he could bring lot of resources and happiness in his Kingdom. Vikram was a brave king. He did not fear going to Jungle all alone to capture Betal for benefit of people of his kingdom.
He used to capture Betal and use to put it on his shoulder. The journey was long to take him back to sage. To reduce the monotony of journey, Betal use to tell a story. His story use to contain a riddle or a puzzle at the end. He had two conditions
- Vikram could not speak during the course of their journey. If he spoke then Betal would fly back to his home tree where he used to hang in inverted position.
- If he knew the answer to the riddle, then he had no option but to answer. If he knew the answer but decided to stay silent then his head would be smashed into 1000 pieces.
At the end of story Vikram was asked to give solution to the riddle. Since Vikram was a great king of wisdom he used to answer the riddle correctly. But as he spoke, Vetal use to fly back to his tree. King Vikram again used to capture him and there used to be a new story by Betal!
In this manner, Betal narrated 24 stories with their riddle and the 25th story ends with narrative story behind the context of Vikram capturing Betal. King Vikram answered all riddles correctly.
Today at Techisdom, we will be starting the series on Techisdom New stories of Vikram and Betal. In this series, there will be riddles which will be solved by Vikram. Since we live in modern times so various narratives will use the present day’s context which may involve technology at several places.
Please note these stories are based on Fiction and any resemblance to any character in real life is purely coincidental. At some points to make the stories entertaining, I may use some names similar to real life people but that has a sole purpose to entertain the users. There is no intention to give any point of view or making subjective comments on real life people.
Hope you would find this series entertaining!!
