Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c7.2985

c7.2985

Once a fierce famine broke out in Kāśī, and the failure of rain caused great havoc. Finding it impossible to feed the cows their keepers went with their live-stock every morning to Kumbhaka’s place where summer had not yet even peeped in, and after feeding their cows there, they returned home in the evening. But, one evening they led back with them the cows used by the sage for his Pūjās. When the sun set, the sage sat before the sacred fire for Pūjā. But, the cow had not come. With his divine vision he found out the reason for the absence of the cow. He cursed that the region where the keepers of the cows lived be turned into a desert, and the kingdom of Kāśī became a desert place, whereupon King Divodāsa went to the banks of the Gomatī and founded a new kingdom there. (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa Chapter 2).