Satyanarayan Katha — Chapters 4 and 5

These chapters too are heard with the same devotion after the puja, and at the end the aarti is sung and prasad is shared. In the fourth chapter, the merchant was sailing home with his boat full of wealth. The Lord came as a dandi sannyasi and asked, 'What is in the boat?' Out of pride the merchant lied: 'Nothing, just creepers and leaves.' The sannyasi said, 'May your words come true.'

As soon as the sannyasi left, the boat really did fill with creepers and leaves. The merchant panicked. His son-in-law said this was surely the sannyasi's doing and that he should ask forgiveness. The merchant ran to him, fell at his feet and admitted his mistake. The sannyasi forgave him, and the boat filled with wealth again. Nearing home, he sent word ahead.

At that moment Leelavati and Kalavati were doing the Satyanarayan puja. Hearing that her husband had come, Kalavati left the prasad and ran out. As the katha tells it, at that very moment her husband sank into the water with the boat. Everyone began to weep. Then a voice from the sky said Kalavati had disrespected the prasad. Kalavati went back and took the prasad with devotion, and the boat and her husband rose up safe.

The fifth chapter tells of King Tungadhwaj. Returning from a hunt, he saw some cowherds worshipping Satyanarayan under a tree. In his pride the king neither went to bow nor accepted the prasad they offered. The katha says that trouble then fell on his kingdom and family. The king understood, went back to the cowherds, worshipped with them and humbly took the prasad. Then all was well again.

Suta ji said that in many traditions the people of this katha became devotees again in later births: the poor Brahmin as Sudama, the woodcutter as Nishadraj Guha, King Ulkamukh as King Dasharath, and King Tungadhwaj as Swayambhuv Manu. The heart of the katha is that the Lord is Truth itself. His prasad is never small or great, even when it comes from a cowherd's hand.