During the medieval times, the King Harihar who along with brother Bukka in South - Central India formed the Sangama Dynasty was passing through a remote, wooded area when he saw a deer being chased by a tiger. Suddenly the deer took an "u turn" and started chasing the tiger. The tiger fled away. The King found this sight quite astounding. Fascinated by this unusual incident he thought there was something special about the place. So he decided to build a fort at that exact location. Subsequently the King and his descendants ruled from that fort for a long period of time.
You might have heard about Rana Sanga, the famous Rajput ruler of Mewar (now part of the modern day Rajasthan) from the early 16th century. His early days were turbulent. He was one of the princes of Mewar whose two elder brothers belittled and bullied him, attacking and banishing him from the palace for good. Rootless, Rana Sanga wandered around the Kingdom.
One summer afternoon Rana Sanga was taking siesta under a tree. Suddenly some locals grazing cows nearby noticed a huge King Cobra wavering its hood over the head the sleeping prince. The giant reptile hovered on his head for a while acting like a canopy giving protection to his head before slithering away. The cowherds who saw this came running to wake up Rana Sanga and narrated him what just happened.
They reminded him that such incidents are very rare and considered as an auspicious "RAJA YOYA", a sign from God prophesying him to become a King in the future. A blury eyed Rana Sanga who yawned out of his nap dismissed such prediction as day dreaming of a bunch of cowherds as he knew non of his two powerful elder brothers would ever allow him to ascend the Mewar throne.
Soon after this incident one of his brothers died in a freak accident when lightning struck him while he was taking shelter under a tree during a thunderstorm on his way back to the palace after a hunting expedition. His other brother Prithviraj, the flamboyant heir apparent to the Mewar throne was on a roll along with his fighter Rajput wife Tarabai, who happened to be an excellent archer and sword fighter.
The couple defeated many vassals and brought them under the jurisdiction of Mewar. They looked unstoppable until tragedy struck at the most inopportune moment. Prithviraj was poisoned by his own brother-in-law. (Ego and turf wars wasn't just limited to Afghans and Mughals, was rampant amongst Rajputs and Marathas too). His wife Tarabai became a "SATI" (woman of chastious), killing herself by jumping into her husband's funeral pyre.
With his elder brothers dead, now the road was clear for Rana Sanga. As fate had it, the old King devastated by back to back untimely loss of his two sons fetched his youngest son Rana Sanga out of wilderness to ascend the throne of Mewar. Look at the quirk of fate. If the snake bit Rana Sanga on that afternoon, the man had no chance of survival as the bite from King Cobra emits a gargantuan amount of venom, potent enough to kill 20 adult humans or a full growth elephant. But he was destined to live another day to occupy Mewar's throne and win several battles in his life until he was stopped by Babar at the famous battle of Khanwa.
Around the same time Odisha had a powerful king named Kapilendra Deba. Per legend, the King before him had no progeny to carry on his legacy. So, per tradition of those days an Elephant was given a golden pot filled with water and allowed to wander around with the courtiers following it. The person on whose head the elephant pours water from that golden pot was destined to be the King of the state and carry the baton from the current occupier of throne.
A local cowherd boy named Kapila along with his friend Kashia was standing by, curious at the giant pachyderm walking nonchalantly holding the golden pitcher by its trunk. Suddenly the elephant stopped next to Kapila and poured the entire pitcher of water on his head stunningly his friend Kashia and rest onlookers. Kapila went on the become Sri Sri Kapilendra Deb, whose Kingdom extended to Ganga in the north to Godavari in the South.
Legend had it, he didn't forget to make his childhood buddy Kashia as his minister.
A very popular Hindi Bhajan sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Anuradha Podwal goes as follows :
MANO TO MEIN GANGA MAA HOON,
NA MANO TO BEHTA PAANI.
Transliterated...
"If you believe then I am Mother river Ganga,
If you don't, I am just flowing water".
Believe or not, all these above mentionrd events from the annals of history could be apocryphal or simply urban legends, but are fascinating indeed. Incidents like deer chasing a tiger, King Cobra covering head of a person's with its hood, elephant pouring water from the golden pitcher on the of the prospective emperor aren't the causes by themselves but are unusual events which are signs of monumental changes. We have this Odia proverb - "KAPALA LIKHANA, KE KARIBA ANA", which simply means "destiny is unstoppable". What all these incidents indicated were signs of the things to come, but they came nevertheless.
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