The King Who Comes Home

There was once a king in Kerala called Mahabali, and the people called him Maveli. He was an asura, born in the line of the demons, the grandson of the great devotee Prahlada. But the songs of Onam remember his reign as the best time the land has ever known.

When Maveli ruled, they sing, all the people were equal. There was no lying and no cheating. Nobody measured rice with a false measure, and nobody told a lie even in jest. There was no theft, so nobody locked a door. Nobody was poor, nobody was sick, and no child died before its parents.

The gods in heaven watched this, and they did not like it. A demon king who was loved more than they were, whose fame had spread through the three worlds, was a danger to them. Indra went to Vishnu. "His goodness will make him master of heaven too," he said. "Help us."

One morning, as Mahabali was holding a great sacrifice, a small Brahmin boy came walking into the hall with an umbrella and a water pot. He was so short that the priests had to look down to see him, and he shone like the morning.

The king rose and welcomed him. "Ask me for anything," said Mahabali. "Gold, cows, land, a village. On this day of my sacrifice nobody goes away empty."

"I want very little," said the boy. "Only as much land as I can cover in three of my own steps."

The king laughed. "Three steps of those little feet? Ask for more."

His teacher Shukra drew him aside. "That is no boy. That is Vishnu himself, and he has come to take everything you have. Take back your word."

"If it is Vishnu," said Mahabali, "then I am lucky. Who else ever got to give a gift to the god? I have promised, and I will not take my promise back." He poured water over the boy's hands to seal the gift.

The boy began to grow. He grew past the roof and past the clouds, until his head was among the stars. With his first step he covered the earth. With his second he covered the sky and the heavens. There was no room left anywhere for the third.

"Where shall I put my third step?" asked Vishnu.

Mahabali knelt and bowed his head. "Put it here," he said.

Vishnu set his foot on the king's head and pressed him down under the earth. But before he went, Vishnu, moved by his truthfulness, offered him a wish.

"I have only one," said Mahabali. "Let me come back once a year and see my people, and see that they are happy."

So he comes back every year in the month of Chingam, on the day of the Thiruvonam star. For ten days before it Kerala prepares for him. Flowers are laid in front of every house in a pookalam that grows bigger each day. People wear new clothes, and on the day itself the family sits down to a great feast on banana leaves, so that when Maveli looks in, he will see that his people still eat well and live in peace.

At Thrikkakara, near Kochi, there is a temple of Vamana, the dwarf. The people say it stands where the third step came down.

The Bhagavata tells the end of the story differently. When the dwarf had taken the earth and the heavens in two strides, Bali's men took up their weapons, and Vishnu's attendants drove them away. Garuda bound the king with the noose of Varuna, and the dwarf told him that a man who cannot keep a promise must go down to hell.

Bali was not afraid. "My lord, I have not lied," he said. "Place your third step on my head. I am less afraid of hell than of being called a liar."

His wife Vindhyavali came and folded her hands before the god. "You made the three worlds for your own play," she said. "What could my husband give you that was not already yours?" His grandfather Prahlada came too, old and shining, and bowed to Vishnu and thanked him for taking the kingdom away, since wealth only makes a man proud.

Then Brahma himself asked that the king be set free, and Vishnu agreed. He told Bali to go down with his family to Sutala, a realm below the earth that was finer than heaven, where no sickness or tiredness could reach him. He would be Indra of the next age of the world. "And I will stand at your door with my mace," said Vishnu, "and guard you myself."

Bali went down to Sutala gladly. In this telling there is no exile and no yearly homecoming. There is a king rewarded for his truth, and a god who stays to guard his door.