THE LEGEND OF DEWI SRI

Once upon a time, there was a palace in heaven with Batara Guru as the king. One day,
Batara Guru commanded all the gods and goddesses to contribute their power in order to
build a new palace. Anybody who disobeyed this commandment were considered lazy and
would lose their arms and legs.
 Hearing the Batara Guru’s commandment, Naga god was very anxious because he didn’t have
arms or legs.  He might not be able do the job. So he asked  advice from Batara Narada who was the
younger brother of Batara Guru. Unfortunately Narada was also confused. The Naga god became
very upset.
 While the Naga god was crying for his bad luck, three teardrops fell on the ground. Not long after that, those
teardrops became three beautiful shining eggs which looked like jewels. Then Batara Narada advised him to offer those 
shining eggs to Batara Guru.
  With the three eggs in his mouth, the Naga god went to the Batara Guru’s palace. On the
way,  an eagle asked him a question. Surely Naga god could not answer the question because
he was holding the eggs in his mouth. Seeing that, the bird thought that Naga god was
arrogant and the bird attacked him.
Being attacked, one egg fell to earth. Then Naga god was hiding in the bushes but the bird was
waiting for him. The bird attacked for the second time and one egg fell again. So Naga god only
had one egg in his mouth. He kept moving to Batara Guru’s palace.
 Finally Naga god arrived at the palace. He offered the egg to the Batara Guru. And
miraculously the egg hatched became a very beautiful baby girl. Naga god gave the baby girl
to the Batara Guru. The baby grew up into a beautiful girl and later known for Dewi Sri.
 The Snake God hurried to take the baby to the Lords of Gods, who adopted the baby as his
own daughter and named her Dewi Sri. She was brought up as a princess in the royal palace with
all of the loving care that a daughter of Lord of Gods should have.
 As the years passed, Dewi Sri grew up to be a lovely young lady. She was gentle
and kindhearted as she was beautiful, and everyone who knew her loved her.
The Lord of Gods himself showed her so much affection that the other gods began to fear he might want to
marry her. The law said that no father could marry his daughter, not even if he was a god and she was only his
adopted daughter.
 Thus, one day, the gods put poison in a glass of Dewi Sri’s drink
and gave it to her. Straight away after she drank, she fell sick.
The gods feared that if this law was broken, the Day by day she grew weaker and weaker, and finally she died.
whole kingdom would be ruined. So they met secretly
and decided that Dewi Sri must be killed. This decision
filled them with sadness, but they thought this was the
only way to save the kingdom.
Dewi Sri’s body was burried with royal ceremony, just beside a beautiful triple-
roofed pagoda, and a royal servant was left to guard the grave and to water it daily
so that flowers would grow around it.
 Later on, from the grave there appeared a strange kind of plant that no one had ever seen before. This was the
heavenly plant now called rice. When the Lord of Gods saw this miracle, he told the royal servant to take the rice
seeds down to earth and give them to the king of the land called Pajajaran. “Tell the king,” he said, “that the seeds are
a gift from me. Let his people plant them and take good care of them including saving them from the piglets and rats,
so that no one need ever go hungry again, for rice is the daily staple.”
 The king of Pajajaran was very happy to receive the Batara Guru’s special gift. His people received seeds and planted them both in
paddy fields and on hillside terraces. They learned how to harvest the plants and how to ground them. Then a goddess from heaven came
down to earth and taught all the young girls how to cook the rice and serve it in many delicious ways. The people of Pajajaran lived in
peace and happiness, never lacked of foods.
 How was the story?

1.What was the title?

2.who were in the story?
3.Where did the story happen?
4.What did the story tell us about?
5.What could we learn from the story?

Kindly read the story again and make a short report about the story.