Is it the King or Snake or Eagle’s Karma?

Karma is a boomerang that returns the effect of good and bad deeds as done by us. The following Hindu mythological story sheds the light on how credit and debt are added to the karmic account of individuals.

As the Story goes there lives a king who is generous and provides a free meal for 50 people every day as Anna dhanam(Act of donating food). In one fine day, a rare Coincidence of food poisoning occurred. When the food is ready a poison from a dead Snake which is carried by a flying eagle falls on the food. Unfortunately, No one noticed it & the poisoned food takes 50 lives!

Chitragupta who is responsible for karma accounting sees the event and confused about who is responsible for the death of 50 lives. He approaches his boss Yama-Dharma raja & states the situation. In the king’s perspective, he is doing the good deed of feeding people and unaware that food is poisoned. In Eagle’s perspective, it simply Carried the Snake as its food. In Snake’s perspective, it’s already died and the poison from it got fallen unintentionally. Dharma raja is unable to decide on whose Karmic account this bad deed has to be written and informed Chitragupta to wait a couple of days.

On the next day, a man enquires a flower vendor in the kingdom regarding the whereabouts of the place to get a free meal from the king. The flower vendor blames the king for the death of 50 people and warns him not to go there. On seeing this event, Dhamaraja immediately told Chitragupta to write the bad deeds in the account of the vegetable vendor for Speaking a lie and blaming the king without knowing the true reality.

As humans We think, speak and do a lot of activities in our daily life. This story tells that Karma is not just accounted for the actions we do. An action done with good intention might even harm someone without the knowledge of the doer as the world is full of strange coincidences. Food poisoning is not intentionally done by the king, Snake or eagle and they are not responsible. The flower vendor didn’t know the truth and thought the king killed 50 people. She acquires a bad Karma when she blamed a king of good intention and spoke a lie!

When it Comes to karma thought matters a lot as thought only manifests into words or action! Let’s have good thoughts and speak only when we are sure of the truth! Else being silent itself prevents accumulating the bad karma in our accounts!