King Mahabali Comes Home

Ask anyone in Kerala, and they will tell you there has never been a happier kingdom than the one King Mahabali ruled. He was good and generous and fair, and under his rule, no one was poor, no one was sad, no one told a lie or cheated their neighbour. The harvests were golden, the people sang, and everyone, everyone, loved their king. They sing of it still: “When Maveli ruled the land, all the people were as one.”

Now Mahabali was so good and so beloved that he grew very powerful indeed, and up in the heavens the gods began to worry. So Lord Vishnu came down to earth himself, in the form of a tiny dwarf boy named Vamana, a small brahmin with a wooden umbrella, and he came to the king’s court.

Mahabali, who was famous for never, ever refusing anyone a gift, welcomed the little boy warmly. “Ask me for anything you wish,” said the king. And the dwarf boy said simply, “I ask only for three paces of land, measured out by my own small feet.” The king laughed. Such a tiny wish! “Granted,” he said.

But the moment the king promised, the little dwarf began to grow. Bigger and bigger he grew, taller than the palace, taller than the mountains, vast as the sky. With his very first step, he covered the whole earth. With his second step, he covered all the heavens. And then he asked, “Where shall I place my third step?”

Mahabali understood now exactly who this was. And being a man who always kept his word, he bowed his head low and offered it. “Place your third step here, my lord, upon me.” So Vishnu set his foot gently on the good king’s head and pressed him down, down, to the kingdom beneath the earth.

But because Mahabali had been so good and was so loved, Vishnu granted him one beautiful gift. Once every single year, the king would be allowed to return and visit his beloved people and his beautiful land. And that homecoming is the festival of Onam, when all of Kerala lays out flowers and feasts and welcomes their good king home again with joy.