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Saubhari Rishi Marries 50 Daughters of Maandhaataa
Saubhari Rishi was learned in Ved etc. Once he did penance standing in a lake for 12 years. In that lake lived many children of Sammad named fish. They used to play around him freely. Seeing their play, Rishi thought, "I am wasting my life here in this penance, let me also enjoy my life like them with my children. So with this desire he went to King Maandhaataa. The King welcomed him and asked him what he could do for him? Rishi said - "Raajan, I have decided to spend my life as a householder, would you give me your one daughter in marriage? Do not disappoint me. You have 50 daughters, give me only one, just to relieve me from my anxiety."

When Maandhaataa aw Rishi's age and his look because of the penance, he lost in thoughts. He wanted to refuse his request, but how? Rishi guessed his problem, he said - "I have not asked you anything for which you have to think so much or which is unattainable to you. If anyone of your daughters can fulfill my desire, give her to me." The King said - "Sir, We have a tradition that the girl choose her husband herself and since your request has not been conveyed to any of my daughters, it is difficult to say that whether anyone will be ready to marry to you or not. So I am perplexed what to do."

Saubhari Rishi thought to himself, "The King is avoiding me because of my look. He thinks that I am an old man, I am not handsome and young, so his daughters may not choose me as their husband, but I will be." Thinking thus he spoke to the King - "If this is so, let me admit your inner apartments, if any of your daughters will choose me, give her to me, and if no one is willing to marry me, it means I am old." Maandhaataa again fell in a flux, but then he sent him in his inner apartments with some eunuchs.

As he entered the princes' palace, he changed his form to a new, young, beautiful look, and addressing them said - "O Princes, Your father has sent me, this pious sage, who demanded him a bride and the King has promised me that he will not refuse to anyone who chooses me as her husband." Seeing that young and innocent looked sage everyone got attracted to him and everyone wanted to marry him. One said to another - "Away, away, Sister, he is mine, I have chosen him first." and a quarrel arose among them for the sage.

All this was going on in he inner apartments, that in the meantime, one of the eunuchs reported this incident to the King. King got astonished to hear this. Perplexed, more than ever, by this information the King thought, "What should I do now? What is that I have said?" But at last reluctantly he married all his daughters to Saubhari Rishi. And Rishi came to his Aashram with all of them after wedding them lawfully. He employed Vishwakarmaa's services to build a separate palace for each of them containing everything best and most beautiful. Those palaces had all kinds of comforts and treasures so that all his wives can enjoy life better than from their father's house.

Maandhaataa Visits His Daughters
After some time Maandhaataa came to visit his daughters carrying all kinds of doubts in his mond. As he entered the hermitage of the Rishi, he found a row of most beautiful crystal palaces shining as brilliant as the Sun. He was surprised to see this and was thinking in which palace to enter first that one of his daughters came out from one palace and found her father looking at the palaces. She took him to her palace. King's eyes were filled with tears, he asked her - "Are you happy here, my dear, or you long for your home?"

The daughter replied - "See Father, How I live here. I have everything. My husband is never absent from my palace. He is always by my side. He even never goes to my sisters, and I am sure that they must be feeling jealous with my luck. This is the only thing I worry about." The King also felt a bit sad hearing this about his other daughters, so he went to see his other daughters. But surprisingly his all daughters said the same thing what his first daughter said to him. Hearing all this he filled with a great satisfaction and proceeded to see Rishi Saubhari. He was sitting alone.

He said - "O holy sage, I have seen your power which I do  not think anybody else possesses. This is the fruit of my some kind of Punya." The King stayed there for a while and then came back to his palace.

In the course of time all his wives bore him 150 sons for him and day by day his affection to his family members increased. He found himself fully occupied with their thoughts, "they will grow, they will be married one day, then they will have children. When they will play around how fortunate I will feel? etc etc."  One day he thought, "What is this? What a fool I am? There is no end of desires. Even after 1,000 or 10,000 years there will be no end of my desires. When I have seen them being born, their childhood, their youth, their old age, their death. Still the desires will not end. Is there no end of these desires? My mind will not be attached to the Supreme. All this happened because of that fish. It is because because of him that I married and the consequences of this marriage is unending desires. I will have to put an end on this."

Thinking thus he went to forest leaving everything, but his 50 wives also accompanied him to the forest.

Saubhari Rishi and Fish
From   Bhaagvat Puraan, 10/p6

There was a pond in Yamunaa River. There lived Kaaliya Naag. How did he live there because he is not a water animal? Because this pond was not accessible to Garud, besides it was very deep and even others could also not go there. Why? Once, hungry Garud ate a fish at this place, in spite of prohibiting by Saubhari Rishi. All fishes got sad on the death of their chief. Maharshi Saubhari pitied on them and he gave Shaap to Garud that if he will come to this pond to eat fish he will lose his life. Nobody else knew about this Shaap except Kaaliya Naag, that is why he used to live here with the fear of Garud. After Kaaliya Daman Krishn had sent him back to Ramanak Dweep to live fearlessly there.

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