Once upon a time, king, Raja Khandelsen
was the ruler of Kahandelgram, a part of Rajasthan, India. He was
blessed with two beautiful queens, Rani Suryakuvar and Rani
Indrakuvar. However, the king did not have any children, thus no one
to carry his name or kingdom. He performed many pujas, yagnas and
much charity to help the poor, but no avail. Finally, one day he
shared his sorrow with his spiritual advisor, Maharishi Yagyavalk.
Maharishi Yagyavalk told him that he was cursed from his previous
life and this was the reason he was still childless.
Then the Maharishi explained to the king "In your previous life, you
earned your living through killing and selling of animals flesh.
Once, you aimed your bow and arrow at a pregnant deer and killed
her. As she died in pain, she placed a curse upon you saying, "You
shall be childless!" However, you felt guilty from this act, and
went to Pushkar where you took bath in the pious pond, to wash off
your sins. This religious act helped you become a king in this life.
To recover from this past curse, there is one solution that I shall
explain to you. Not too far from here in Bhashkar state, there is a
Pipal tree, under which a Shivling is buried. You should get this
Shivling out and make a beautiful temple for Lord Shiva, in which
this Shivling must be embellished with respect and devotion." The
king did exactly as he was told, in addition he recited the "Om,
Namah Sivaya" shloka for two years. With this pious and religious
act, Lord Shiva became happy and the king was blessed with a son,
whom he named Sujansen.
Once the prince Sujansen was born, the spiritual advisor made his
Kundali, to chart out his graha and nakhshatra. He shared the graha
position findings with King Khandelsen and said "Your son will be
handsome, masculine, and powerful; however due to an unforeseen
incident he will suffer from sorrow for a short while, but that will
eventually result in a happy ending."
The Prince Sujansen was married to princess Chadravati, a daughter
of King Yudhaveer. After this marriage, the King Khandelsen handed
over the kingdom to his son Sujansen, and moved to the forest for
his retirement. One day King Sujansen went into the forest to hunt
with his seventy-two soldiers as part of his routine. As the King
and his soldiers were hunting, they got lost and became hungry.
Soon, they sensed an aroma, as if someone was cooking good food, and
they followed this aroma and reached a place where six rishis were
performing yagna for Lord Shiva.Due to extreme hunger, the king and
soldiers started eating prasad, drinking water from the nearby pond
that was reserved for the yagna puja, and also started washing their
stained bows and arrows in it. This broke the rishis' concentration,
and they cursed king and his seventy-two soldiers to turn into
stones.
Back in the kingdom, the queen and other 72 wives of soldiers were
waiting for their husbands to return for months, and finally Queen
Chandravati went to see Maharishi Jabali. The Rishi Jabali explained
the situation in its entirety and suggested that she and all other
72 wives of soldiers should go to the temple near the pond and
worship Lord Shiva for their husbands' life.
At this time, in Kailashparvath, in the Himaliyas Lord Shiva and his
beautiful wife Parvati were residing. Lord Shiva told Parvati that
he needs to visit Earth, some of his worshipers were performing
ygana and he needs go and show his satisfaction towards the
successful completion of yagna. Parvati, loves her husband dearly,
and did not like to part from her husband. This time Parvati
insisted that she also goes with Shiva to Earth. Lord Shiva said to
Parvati, "Dear, you are very kind hearted, you will not be able to
bear the pains of the people living on Earth. As always, you will
ask me to take away all of their sorrows, so it is better you stay
here till my return to Kailashparvath". Mata Parvati insisted and
said, "No, I must go with you". After a while, Lord Shiva said, "As
you wish!" and they both started their journey to Earth where the
rishis were performing the yagna.
As Lord Shiva and Mata Parvati, reached the site, Parvati Mata saw
the queen and all other wives were crying for their husbands' stone
figures. Lord Shiva explained the situation to Mata Parvati. Mata
immediately said to Lord Shiva "You must give these husbands another
life, because when I can not live without you even for a fraction of
a second, how can you expect me to leave this place while these
wives are so sorrowful in life without their husbands." Lord Shiva
said "This is what I was afraid of when you decided to join me for
this journey; in any case I must do so".
At this point, Lord Shiva brought king and other seventy-two
soldiers back to life, and told king Sujansen "Because you have
performed sinful activities, taking away lives of God's creatures,
and have misused your power, you have suffered from this incident.
From now on, since I am giving all of you a second life, you will be
known after my name as "Mahesh-waris". You will also stop your role
of Kshatriya and play a new role of Vaishya, Vaishya Dharam , which
is a role of non-violence. Sujansen to compensate for your violent
tendency, from now on you will make living through donations from
your other seventy-two Vaishaya brothers and you will perform the
task of documenting their family trees".
At once, all came to life as if they were awakening from a long
sleep. However, they were hesitant to accept their wives, since they
still belonged to the Kshatriya caste. At this point, Parvati Mata
said, "All of you take four parikramas around me, whoever are wife
and husband; their gathbandhan will be joined auto-magically". At
this, everyone did so, and they re-joined as husbands and wives. Due
to this, four feras (parikramas) are done outside, during the
Maheshwari weddings, as a reminder of our origin. Lord Shiva gave
this blessing to the new seventy-two Vaishyas on the 9 th day of
Jyesth, Shukla Paksh in the year 9 of Yudhisthira Sanvat. On this
day, newlywed brides and grooms are appointed to do Lord Shiva and
Mata Parvati's puja so that they can also be blessed with children
and live a happy and joyous life eternally.
While the seventy-two soldiers were bathing in the pond, their bows
and arrows were melted, and after this the pond was named "Loh-Garl".
Due to the incident in this story, new seventy-two Maheshwari khanp
(Last) names were created. After this, additional five Kshatriya
last names were also added to the original seventy-two last names.
Khandela town is about 10 miles away from Phulera junction of Jaipur
district. Loh-Garl area still has a water bath, which is 20-25 miles
away from the Ringus junction, near the mountains. Birla, one of
India's most prestigious families has established a sanatorium near
the Didwana of Nagour district.
The following is a list of those 82 original last names. There have
been several additions to and derivatives from these names due to
the family's place of business and/or the trade engaged in.
