Adoring Vegetarian Crocodile

                Crocodiles are the large aquatic reptiles living throughout the world. The word Crocodile comes from the Ancient Greek language. They are considered as the most dangerous alligators. It is believed that the strength of a crocodile equals 1000 elephants when it is in water. Croc’s can pull anything inside water when it preys on it. There are different types of crocodiles across the world. They are fresh water habitants and also of Salt water. The size of a crocodile will be up to 23feet and weigh 1000kgs above. They have the ability to replace each of their 80 teeth up to 50 times in their life span of 35-75 years. The senses of Croc’s are acute, help it in prey and becoming a strong hunter. Croc’s are cold blooded animals and carnivores, they have a very slow metabolism and hence they can survive long time without food.

BY THIS TIME all of you might have a confusion, that I am not justifying the title of my article.

                 The reason why I told you about a crocodile nature is to get into our real story. In my childhood, I have listened a story of “Gajendra Moksha”. In this story, an elephant which rules the forest reaches out a river for water with its family. Suddenly a crocodile which is inhabitant in that river attacked the elephant, ‘Gajendra’ and caught him by the leg. The Mighty elephant fights for its life to a long time and as per the 8^th Skandha of the Bhagavatha Purana , for a period of over 1000 years. The elephant’s family try to help it and fails before the strength of the giant crocodile.

                When the elephant realized that its death is nearby. Being a devotee of Lord Vishnu, it prays to god for help holding a lotus up in air as offering. Lord appears and in anger decapitated the head of crocodile with his weapon SUDARSHANA CHAKRA. Lord explains both the elephant and crocodile about the previous births of them.

                Elephant was a king Indradyumna, who was cursed by sage Agasthya due to his disrespect towards him, His curse is “an lesson will be taught in your next birth which gives a moral showing despite of strength and good deeds one must surrender themselves to god by not being egoistic” . Crocodile was a Gandharva king, HUHU. Sage devala comes to visit him on a day and when both of them are bathing and giving offering to sun god- gandharva king pulls the leg of sage for fun and hence cursed to be a crocodile. On repentance, the king begs for pardon and sage explains him that he will be liberated by Shri Maha Vishnu.

Whatever may be the moral of story, "to escape from the clutches of a crocodile its difficult and impossible even for an elephant and it never leaves the prey till its dead. Also only god can help you in that case ".

                Again, there is no connection between our title and what I am saying.

                I just wanted to say the crocodile nature, strength in my above lines before we go into the real story. What If such crocodile becomes adorable and vegetarian. This thought itself is not believable to anyone. But, this is true.

                There is a crocodile which is adorable to Lord Vishnu and guarding the famous Ananthapura lake temple in India. This is a VEGETARIAN CROCODILE, only one of its kind. People named it as BABIYA. It is believed by the devotees that people who do have the luck only can see the crocodile swimming there in lake. The temple is surrounded by this lake and all devotees have bath in this lake before they enter into temple. None of the devotees has ever reported of any attack from the living crocodile in lake. BABIYA eats the temple prashad which is made of rice and jaggery, it never harmed anyone including the fish in lake. It is fed daily after the noon worship conducted at the temple. The priests of temple feed it with prashad [the offerings given to god] by putting directly into its mouth.

                It is believed that the crocodile is living in the lake from last 150 years, guarding the temple. There is no trace of another crocodile in the lake when one is guarding. It is also believed that if this crocodile dies another crocodile replaces it. It’s been amazing to accept as there are no lakes, rivers and sea nearby to this temple. The current crocodile BABIYA is living from 60 years in this lake.

               

Myths behind:

#$1                         The crocodile which lived before BABIYA was killed by a British soldier who has no belief in temple and the adorable croc. He was killed by a snake bite in the same town at that time. It is believed as he has been cursed to death due to his mistake. Then the crocodile BABIYA replaced the old one and no one knows how it came to lake.

#$2                         Once Sree Vilvamangalathu swamy, devotee of lord Vishnu was doing a deep penance. He was disturbed by Lord Krishna who came in a form of little boy. Being annoyed he was pushed aside by the sage. The boy gets disappeared immediately into a nearby cave and then the sage understands the truth. The place where lord Krishna went and disappeared is believed to be existing in this temple and it’s been guarded by crocodile.

         Whatever may be behind the temple stones, the reality is we can see a living crocodile which is purely vegetarian and can be fed directly into its mouth. It's nothing but god's miracle.

                      $$$$ OM NAMO NARAYANAYA $$$$