Birth Story of Kartikeya, Ashok Sundari and Ganesha

Birth Story of Kartikeya

A powerful demon Tadkasur did great austerity of Shiva and got the boon of getting killed by only the son of Shiva and Shakti. He started torturing deities and humans.

When Parvati got married with Shiva after completing her hard austerity of about 3000 years, deities requested Mahadev to provide them freedom from the tyranny of Tadkasur.

Rati Cursed Parvati

When Parvati was in penance to please Shiva so that He will accept her as His wife, Shiva was in deep meditation too. Indra was afraid of Tadkasur and wanted Shiva to marry Parvati as soon as possible.

Shiva was in deep meditation and was not responding the prayers of Parvati. So Indra ordered Kamdev to break the meditation of Shiva with the help of his love arrows.

Kamdev shot the arrow and Shiva got furious. He became so angry that He burned him with the fire of His third eye.

Read the story of Jalandhar, who was born from the anger fire of third eye of Shiva.

When Rati, wife of Kamdev, heard the news of death of her husband, she blamed deities and Parvati for it.

Rati wanted to get blessed with a child but Kamdev was dead because of deities. So she cursed them that their wives won’t be able to give birth to children from their womb. Parvati was cursed too.

Kartikeya was Born from Divine Powers

Shiva and Parvati were ready to give birth to a son. At Shesh Nag Jheel, Shiva gave rest to moon and Vasuki snake. He removed Ganga from his crest at Panchakarani Sarovar and went to the caves of Amarnath.

From divine activities and love of Shiva and Parvati, a ball of fire created. Insecure deities thought that Tadkasur could stole it and so they stole it first with the help of Agni dev.

Furious Parvati cursed Agni dev that he will forget to differentiate between good and bad and will eat everything. He will be covered with impurities and black smoke. No one would be able to touch him.

Why Rishi Durvasa cursed Indra because of which Devi Lakshmi went to the depth of ocean.

The energies of ball of fire were extreme. Agni dev couldn’t hold it. So he went to river Ganga and handed her the ball. Ganga is cold and mother of mankind. She had powers to hold extreme energies. But soon she started evaporating from heat. Shiva advised her to hand over the ball to Mother Earth.

Ganga dropped the ball from Undhiyachal mountain. The ball hit bulrush and got divided into 6 parts. The six lotuses hold those six parts, which later got converted into six babies.

When Parvati knew about it, She thought that Earth wanted to steal her child. So she cursed her that she won’t be able to remain married for long time. She will marry number of times but all her husbands would die soon.

Six Kritikas were passing from the lake and found the babies in lotuses. They raised those babies. Shiva asked Parvati to let the babies with Kritikas for their protection. Shiva later joined those babies into one.

Since Kritikas raised the baby, so he was named as Kartikeya.

Qualities of Kartikeya

Kartikeya was born to slay Tadkasur. He was destined to be a mighty warrior. Dhairya (Patience), Dharma (Righteousness), Krodh (Anger), Shaurya (Bravery), Karma (Duties), Kshama (Forgiveness) are the 5 qualities of a warrior and Kartikeya signifies those.

Deities made Kartikeya their commander in chief and attacked Tadkasur and ended the reign of demon.

Because of Killing Tadkasur, Kartikeya got the sin of killing the devotee of Shiva. He did a prayer to lift the sin. This lead to the foundation of Kumareshwar Linga.

Kartikeya Went South

After the end of Tadkasur, Shiva asked Kartikeya to go to south and relieve the people from the terror of demons there. Kartikeya went south and killed demon Tripat. He is famous with the name Murugan in south.

Indra sent a nymph Devsena to lure Kartikeya and deviate him from his mission, but she started loving him. Later Kartikeya married with Devsena.

Birth Story of Ashok Sundari

Under the Kalpavriksha, Parvati was creating a statue of girl. She wished if the statue could come alive and Kalpavriksha fulfilled her wish. That girl was named Ashok Sundari who later married with Nahush, son of king Ayu.

Birth Story of Ganesha

Once Shiva went for meditation and Parvati was alone. She made a statue from her skin dirt. It got alive and she named him, Vinayaka.

Vinayaka was made by the dirt of Parvati so His mind was stubborn, obstinate and disrespectful.

Once Parvati went for bathing and asked Vinayaka to guard and not let anyone meet her. Vinayaka was stagnant on his promise. The same day Shiva returned from His meditation. He wanted to meet Parvati but Vinayaka stopped Him to enter.

Shiva waited for a long time but Parvati didn’t come back. He asked Vinayaka to let Him enter and talk to Parvati but he refused to permit. Deities, Nandi, Gana-Pret and Saptarishi tried to convince him that the order of Parvati was for everybody else and not for Mahadev. But Vinayaka was not listening and started attacking everybody.

Shiva got furious over his acts and cut his head with the trident.

What was the real reason behind cutting the head of Ganesha and using elephant head only? Story of curse on Lord Shiva.

When Parvati knew about the whole incidence, she got furious and asked Mahadev to revive her son. Shiva refused then She started destroying the world. To calm Parvati down, Narayana ordered Sudarshan Chakra to get the head of the first creature it saw but only if he willingly donate his head.

Sudarshan returned with the head of elephant and Brahma dev revived Vinayaka using elephant head. He got a new name, Ganesha.

Ganesha was married with two girls, Riddhi and Siddhi and was blessed with two sons, Kshem and Labh.

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