The King Who Became a Lizard

The sages told the Pandavas of King Nriga, who for a single careless error in charity was cursed to live ages as a lizard, and was freed at last by the touch of the Lord Krishna - a tale of how even the smallest injustice in a ruler bears a terrible weight, and how grace redeems the long penance of the fallen.

In the city of Dwaraka, some boys of the Yadava clan, the young kinsmen of Krishna, were playing, and they came upon a great lizard fallen into a dry well, unable to climb out. It was a creature of huge size and strange aspect, and the boys, unable to draw it out with straps and ropes, ran to tell Krishna of the marvel. Krishna came to the well, and with his hand he lifted the great lizard out with ease. And no sooner had the Lord's hand touched the creature than the lizard was transformed: there stood, freed of his monstrous shape, a shining celestial being, a king of old, radiant and restored.