Nimi

Ikshvaku had a son named Nimi. Nimi once started a yajna that went on for a thousand years. He wanted Vashishtha to be the main priest. But Vashishtha said that he was already busy with the yajna that Indra planned to conduct for five hundred years. He asked Nimi to wait. He promised to come to Nimi’s yajna as soon as Indra’s was over.

Nimi returned without saying anything and Vashishtha assumed that Nimi had agreed to wait. But Nimi began his ceremony with Goutama and other sages. After finishing Indra’s yajna, Vashishtha came to Nimi’s yajna expecting to be the chief priest there. But he found that the sacrifice had already been begun with Goutama as the chief priest. Since he felt insulted, Vashishtha cursed Nimi that he would henceforth be without a body. Nimi felt this curse to be unfair. So he too cursed that Vashishtha would be without a body. Vashishtha however, received antoher body. Thanks to the gods Mitra and Varuna.

Meanwhile, King Nimi’s body lay there, oiled and perfumed. When the yajna was over, the assembled gods wished to give the host of the yajna a boon. They wished to give Nimi a new body but Nimi said that he would have none of it. He desired instead that he might be allowed to live on the eyelids of people. This boon was granted. Nimi lives on the eyelids of all people and that is why the blinking of the eyelids is known as nimesha.

But Nimi had no son and the kingdom would have gone to ruins in the absence of a son. So the sages pounded the dead body with wood and a son emerged. Since he came out in this fashion from his father’s body he came to be known as Janaka (father). And since his father had no body, Janaka was also called Vaidha (bodyless). When Janaka was ploughing the earth to obtain a son, a daughter came out of the earth. She was named Sita.