Harichandra is a king of the Ikshvaku dynasty, and he was mentioned in the famous sacred texts: Mahabharata, the Markandeya Purana and the Devi-Bhagavata Purana. He was the son of the famous king Trishanku.
According to the legend, Harichandra gave away all of his riches and also his family in order to fulfil the promise he had made to the sage Viswamitra. It was said that Harichandra was a truthful man, and who never lied in his life, and contains great knowledge, wisdom and ruling capacity of the kingdom.
King Harichandra lived in the Treta Yuga. He was an honest and a noble king. His people in his kingdom were lived with peacefulness and prosperity. His consort was Taramati and his son was Rohitashva. Once, while he was on hunting, he saw sage Viswamitra, and asked him to show a resting place in order to relax himself for some time. The sage was very much disturbed from doing penance, and he got angry with harichandra. Harichandra promised to fulfil any of the sage’s desires in order to please him. Viswamitra had demanded everything from him. He gave away all of his possessions to the sage and finally sold his wife and son to a person for giving money to the sage.
Finally Harichandra sold himself to a low caste person in exchange for money and paid it to sage Viswamitra. The person who bought him took Harichandra as his slave.
The person employed Harichandra as a worker at his cremation ground. Harichandra started living and working at the cremation ground. One day, he saw his queen was crying before him with the dead body of their son, who had died of a snake bite. But he refused to cremate his son without paying the fee by his wife. At that time, all the deities appeared including viswamitra and praised him for his good qualities and he went to heaven along with his wife and he took his kingdom’s people also.
IMPORTANCE
Harichandra was a person who speaks only truth. Due to his bad fate, he had suffered a lot. But even then, he remained as an honest person and done his duties in a proper manner. After a lot of sufferings in his life, finally he went to the heaven along with his wife and his people. Similar to Srirama, who took his Ayodhya people to the heaven, he also done the same noble act. He contained the qualities similar to Lord Dharma Deva.
Though he lived several millions of years ago, his name and fame will never be forgotten by those people who studied his life history. He also ruled his kingdom and took care of his people in a proper manner.
Let us worship the great noble king and be blessed.
“OM SREE HARICHANDRA MAHARAJAVE NAMAHA”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR