Chapter 1: The Meeting with Mahādeva
Before time remembered itself, before direction held meaning, there existed a vastness—limitless, soundless, formless.
No sky above.
No earth below.
No light, yet no darkness.
Only existence.
Within that immeasurable expanse drifted something neither alive nor dead—a soul, faintly luminous, its glow trembling like a flame caught between winds. It had no limbs, no eyes, no breath, and yet… it thought.
"Where… am I?"
The thought echoed, not as sound but as awareness itself.
"What happened?"
Fragments stirred within the soul—steel clashing, screams swallowed by smoke, blood-soaked earth, and a final moment where pain vanished into stillness.
"Yes… I remember now. I died."
The soul drifted, neither moving nor resting.
"I died trying to kill enemy soldiers on the battlefield. So this must be what remains—my soul."
There was no fear in that realization. Only a strange calm, heavy and resigned.
"Is this naraka (narak means hell)?"
The soul searched, but there were no flames, no torturers, no cries of suffering—only silence. Silence vast enough to swallow eternity.
"If this is hell, then I accept it."
A faint pulse of emotion rippled through its glow.
"For a pāpi like me, this solitude is fitting. Forgotten by humans… unseen by gods."
Time did not pass here, yet the soul felt as though it had waited for ages.
"Will I ever be reborn? Or will I remain here—nameless, unremembered, dissolved into nothing till the end of time?"
The soul neither wept nor begged. It simply existed for what felt ages.
Then—
The space changed.
Not abruptly, but with the inevitability of dawn following night.
A brilliant white radiance bloomed in the void—gentle at first, then overwhelmingly vast. The silence itself seemed to bow. The formless expanse shrank, not in size, but in significance, as though something infinitely greater had arrived.
From that light emerged a form.
Not fully solid, yet unmistakably present.
A human male figure, ash-hued and serene.
Matted locks crowned his head, gathered in a mighty jaṭā, upon which rested a slender crescent moon, glowing softly. A living nāga coiled around his neck, unmoving yet alert, its hood lowered in reverence. Across his being lay sacred vibhūti, ashes of creation and dissolution alike.
In one hand he bore a triśūla, vast yet weightless, as if the weapon itself bowed to him.
Though the form was not large, the entire cosmos felt smaller before him.
The soul trembled.
Its glow flickered violently—not from fear, but from an instinct older than thought.
"Mahādeva…"
The soul tried to kneel, though it possessed no knees. It tried to prostrate, though it had no body. The intent alone bent its essence downward.
"This unworthy pāpi soul of Kali Yuga offers its pranāma to the Deva of Devas, Mahādeva."
The light surrounding the figure softened, like a smile given shape.
"Your brilliance has purified even my stained existence, O Mahādeva."
The soul hesitated, then spoke with humility born of lifetimes.
"If there is any task you wish of me, any command you desire fulfilled—please order me, my Lord. Though I am a sinner, I shall attempt with all that remains of me to obey."
The figure regarded the soul silently with a all knowing smile.
When Mahādeva spoke, his voice was neither thunder nor whisper—it was truth itself, resonating directly within the soul.
"Tell me, child,
How are you certain it is I who stands before you?"
The soul's glow steadied.
"Because, my Lord… no other presence could make even emptiness feel insignificant other then trimūrti. And i know my lord you hold ma ganga in your jaṭā& wield triśūla. As such i was certain that it is you my lord.
Mahādeva's eyes—deep, boundless, ancient—regarded the soul with gentle curiosity.
"And why do you believe I have come to command you?"
"Why not to judge? Or to destroy? Or to grant you boon?"
The soul bowed its essence deeper.
"Mahādeva, you know all—yet allow this ignorant soul to answer."
A pause, then—
"I remember my past lives after becoming a soul."
The words carried weight.
"Not just this final one, but many before it."
The soul's glow dimmed slightly, heavy with remembrance.
"From those lives, I learned the nature of the Trimūrti."
Mahādeva listened without interruption.
"Brahmā creates. Viṣṇu preserves. You, Mahādeva, dissolve—yet you are also the most compassionate."
The soul gathered courage.
"You are easily pleased by sincerity, not by wealth or pride. You grant boons even to asuras when their devotion is true."
A faint amusement flickered in Mahādeva's eyes.
"You appear either to bestow grace… or to end what must not continue."
The soul's glow trembled again.
"I do not believe I have committed sins so grave that you would personally come to destroy me."
A breathless pause.
"Nor have I performed any tapas, any sacrifice, any righteous deed worthy of a boon from you."
The soul lowered itself further.
"Thus, O Mahādeva, I concluded you must have come to give me a task."
Mahādeva smiled—not with mirth, but with cosmic fondness, as one might smile at a child who unknowingly speaks wisdom.
"You judge yourself harshly."
The soul stiffened.
"Why do you believe I could not have come to grant you a boon?"
The soul answered without hesitation but with shame.
"Because I am a pāpi."
Memories surged—faces of the fallen, cries unanswered, forests cut down, truths bent for survival.
"I have taken lives—human and beast alike."
"I have destroyed trees, poisoned foods, spoken lies to protect myself."
"I have committed acts driven by fear, anger, and desire."
Its glow flickered weakly.
"Yes… there were moments of kindness. Of regret. Of restraint."
The soul bowed.
"But they are far too few to balance the weight of my sins."
Silence followed.
Not judgmental. Not cold.
Mahādeva stepped closer—or perhaps reality itself bent toward him.
"Tell me, child,"
"Do you know why I am called Bhole Nātha?"
The soul hesitated.
"Because you are innocent at heart, my Lord… and easily pleased."
Mahādeva nodded.
"And do you know why I dwell in cremation grounds?"
"Because there is no distinction between king and beggar there."
Mahādeva's smile deepened.
"Then why do you believe sin alone defines you?"
The soul faltered.
"Because karma is truth."
Mahādeva's voice became profound.
"Karma is consequence—not identity."
The soul froze.
"If sin alone determined worth, no being would ever rise."
"Even the greatest among the devas have erred."
Mahādeva raised his triśūla slightly, and visions rippled through space—of gods, sages, and kings bound by destiny.
"Tell me, child of Kali Yuga…"
"If fate itself is unjust, should it remain unchallenged?"
The soul felt something unfamiliar stir within it.
"I… do not know, my Lord."
Mahādeva's gaze turned distant, as though observing another age.
"An era approaches where dharma will bleed."
"Where righteousness and pride will wear the same face. Brothers will fight each others for dhrma, for power. They will create a war that will make history. "
The soul sensed the weight of what was coming.
"There will be a man born of the sun…"
The soul's glow flickered.
"…who will know loyalty, yet be denied justice. He will try proving himself but his life will be crused."
A name emerged in that soul's mind.
Karna.
Mahādeva looked back at the soul.
"If given power—not to rule, but to choose—"
"Would you dare challenge niyati itself?"
The soul did not answer immediately.
For the first time since death, it felt afraid.
Not of punishment.
But of meaning.
The light around Mahādeva intensified.
"Your journey has not ended."
The soul bowed, trembling.
"It has only begun."
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End of Chapter 1