Princess Vishnupriya
Queen
Candravati, the wife of king Jayasinha of Kora in Rajasthan (near the border
with Kashmir) was very ill, and the remedies and pujas prescribed by the court
astrologers had given no good result. Princess Visnupriya sat her mother’s
bedside and kept praying God for help. One day she heard a beggar singing outside
in the street and she send out a servant to find out who he was and what he was
singing about.
The servant
reported that the beggar was a yogi from SriKshetra singing songs to Lord
Jagannatha, and that after being informed of the predicament of the royal
family, he had given a small piece of Mahaprasada for the Queen; if she ate the
morsel of sanctified food, her past karma would be purified and she would be cured.
Princess
Vishnupriya gave the single bit of Mahaprasada to her dying mother, who
immediately felt a great relief and happiness, and a new strength that revived
her body. Then during the night the Queen remembered that once she had visited
Puri for some days with her husband, and that on that occasion she had prayed
for a daughter that resembled Jagannatha, promising that she would be dedicated
to Him as His wife. At the same time that night the princess had a dream: she
saw Lord Jagannatha standing with open arms, waiting to be garlanded by her.
After this incident the princess developed a great devotion for Lord Jagannatha,
and the entire royal family became more and more devoted to Him.
Once the
Talucha Mahapatra of the Sri Jagannatha temple visited Kota to distribute
Mahaprasada in that region, and having heard of the devotion of the princess,
he visited the royal palace. After meeting Jagannatha’s servant and hearing the
glories of the Lord, Visnupriya’s love for Jagannatha increased even more, and
after another vivid dream she actually started to feel Jagannatha kissing and
embracing her. At the end of his visit the Mahapatra received many gifts from
the Queen, then he turned to the princess and asked her if she wanted to send
anything to Lord Jagannatha. The princess sat down to write a letter to her beloved
Jagannatha, but she composed one single Sanskrit verse: “He is all-pervading
like space and His outstretched arms can embrace everyone at the same time, so
one does not need to go anywhere to be near Him.”
While
traveling back to the temple, the Mahapatra felt increasingly curious about
what the princess had written, so he opened the letter and read it. As the
princess was a very educated woman, the priest was expecting a long and
complicated poem, and he was very perplexed to find that single strange verse,
that made no sense to his eyes. So he decided it was just some useless
blabbering, and he threw it away by the roadside.
Finally he
reached back to his house in Puri, and he went to take some rest. Jagannatha
appeared to him in a dream and rebuked him for failing in his duty to deliver
the letter. He said that the letter was more valuable to Him than all the gold
and valuables the Mahapatra had carried back. In fact, Jagannatha said, He
Himself had picked up the discarded letter and He was holding it to His heart
on His altar. After getting up, the Mahapatra went to the temple and actually
found the letter on Jagannatha’s chest.
Source : http://indiaconmassimotaddei.com
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