There are many mythological stories related to the temple of Mata Vaishno Devi, in which there is a legend of the Pandavas that they came to this holy abode of Mata ji and it is also believed that the Pandavas built the temple of Mata. It is also believed that the devotee Prahlada, son of Asuraraj Hiranyakashipa, also visited this sacred temple of Vaishno Mata. Yet the most famous and most well-known mythology is that of the Brahmin Sridhar who lived in the village Hansli near the present-day town of Katra in the valley of the Trikuta mountain.
Sridhar was the ultimate devotee of Shakti. Even though he was a very poor person, yet he was inspired and convinced of what happened to the goddess in his dream and decided to organize a huge bhandara. Because Mother had convinced her one day by inspiring her to come in her dream. An auspicious day was chosen for the bhandare and Sridhar invited the people living in the nearby villages to come to the bhandara. After this, Sridhar went to the door of his neighbors and acquaintances and asked for grains, food, etc. to cook and feed the people and guests who came to the store.
Most people did not care about Sridhar's request. However, few people gave gratitude by giving food and other things to Sridhar. In fact, he had teased Sridhar, who dared to organize the store without any money. As the day of Bhandare came to a close, Sridhar's concern for feeding the guests called to the bhandara grew. Sridhar could not sleep even for a second the night before Bhandare's day.
He spent the whole night battling with the same anxiety and trouble as to how he would feed the guests called in the bhandara with his limited means and make him sit in this small place. Till dawn, when he could not find a satisfactory solution to his problem, he surrendered himself to fate and stood up to face the harrowing day. He sat outside his hut to worship. By noon, the guests started coming and seeing him completely busy in worship, where they found the place, they sat down to rest. Surprisingly, a very large number of guests comfortably occupied their place in that small hut, yet there was a lot of space left in the hut.
After completing the puja, Sridhar was surprised to see a large number of guests around him. He was still wondering how he would tell the guests that he was unable to feed them that he saw Vaishnavi coming out of his hut. By the grace of Vaishnavi Devi, all the guests were given food of their choice. Despite the problems created by Bhairon, Bhandara was completed with great success. Bhairon was a disciple of Guru Gorakhnath, who was called to the bhandara.
After Bhandare, Shridhar became very keen to get to the bottom of the secret behind the magical powers of Vaishnavi. She sought Vaishnavi to learn about the mysterious and miraculous works of the day, but she was not available to answer her questions. Sridhar called him again and again but with no result. He searched a lot but Vaishnavi could not be found anywhere. Sridhar was surrounded by a feeling of emptiness. One day the girl came in the dream of Sridhar and told Sridhar that she is Vaishnavi Devi.
The goddess showed Sridhar a view of her cave and gave her the gift of four sons. Sridhar was happy again and went in search of the cave. Finding the cave, he decided to spend all his life in the worship of the goddess. Soon the fame of the holy cave of the goddess spread far and wide and the devotees started flocking to pay homage to the powerful goddess mother.
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