3. Popular Stories on Annadana

The epics and puranas are describes many stories regarding the importance of food. The stories about the service of food such as emperor Shibi, Rantideva, King Shveta and Akshayapatra story of Pandavas are some popular legends about Annadana. They were always careful that to fulfill the necessity of the needs. Two or three are briefed below.

1. Donation of emperor Shibi

Shibi was the son of Ushinara, an emperor of the lunar dynasty. He was well known for his charity and selflessness. There is a popular tale about the qualities of him. Once when Shibi was enthroned in his assembly hall, a frightened dove came into his lap and asked for shelter from an eagle. The king agreed to save the dove from the eagle. Meanwhile, the eagle also came to the assembly hall and asked the king to give up the dove, but the king rejected it. The eagle reminded the king that the dove is his “Anna” and the king should not interfere in the matter of his food. Shibi offered another food for the eagle, but not this dove. The eagle asked the flesh equal to the weight of the dove. The king offered his own flesh to the eagle. He put the dove in a side of the balance and he put a piece of his flesh from the thigh on the other side. But it was not equal to the dove’s weight and he repeated the process several time. Finally, Shibi himself sat on the balance. At that time the dove and eagle were disappeared and the deities Agni and Indra were appeared in that place. They tried to examine the charity of Shibi and they pleased and blessed him.

2. Story of Rantideva

Rantideva was a successor of Bharadvaja clan. Even though he was a king, he led a simple life and spent all his wealth in donation. Once, after fourty seven days of fasting he and family started to break the fast with some milk made food and drinking water. When they ready to eat it, a guest came and requested some food. He gave a share of the food. After the departure of the guest, Rantideva and family again started to break their fast. Meanwhile, anotherstarving guest came there and asked some food and they gave a share to him. When they again started to eat a man with four dogs came there and requested food for him and his dogs. Rantideva gave the remaining food for him and his dogs. Finally, Rantideva decided to break the fast with the remaining drinking water. When he took it for drinking, he heard a thirsty man’s cry and he gave the water to that man. Thus, Rantideva donated the entire food for the requiring people. Suddenly those guests were changed into the form of trinity-Brahma,Vishnu and Shiva and they blessed him. Here also, this story proclaims the greatness of donating food for the required ones.

3. Story of King Shveta

Shveta was a ruler of Ilavritavarsha^[1]. He was such a generous ruler and because of his good deeds he attained heaven after his demise. King Shveta enjoyed many heavenly bliss and delicious food in the heaven except the rice. He wished to eat the rice and so he returned place where his funeral occurred. The ashes were still in the place and Shveta started to lick the ashes to satisfy his desire to eat rice. Many days Shveta repeated this process and one day sage Vasishtha saw the soul of Shveta licking remain of his own dead body. Shveta asked Vasishtha the reason behind this bad luck. Vasishtha replied that when the king was alive he donated everything except the Anna on the day of Dvadashi after performing the Ekadashi vrata. After some atonements the soul of Shveta free from the bad luck of eating his own dead body.

Similarly there is another mythical story about Karna that he was forced to fall in the Naraka (hell), because Karna neither performed the donation food in life.

4. The legend of Akshayapatra

The Akshayapatra (never-ending vessel) is given to Yudhishthira by Surya which helps to get a limitless supply of food to Pandavas every day. On the exile days of Pandavas, many visitors came to forest to meet them and it became difficult to arrange food for them due lack of provisions. As a solution for this, Yudhishthira prayed to Surya and achieved a never-ending vessel from him. With the help of this vessel, they were enabled to continue their distribution of food without any obstacles.

These stories are proclaims the importance of Annadana. The heroes of all these stories made sacrifices to arrange food for the satisfaction of the receivers and to complete their individual dharma as a householder.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ilavritavarsha was a part of Jambudvipa. King Ilavritavarsha was the first king of that region. Later, the country became famous in his name.