The Guardian of Uttarakuru-Shakti and Shiv
This story takes place long, long ago, around 874,000 years ago, in the Treta Yuga of Hindu Cosmology. Lord Ram had already left this earth and went to his Lok, i.e., Vaikunth.
The story centers around a girl named Shakti, who is an eccentric being with a unique personality. She has a different way of thinking, sometimes contemplating things that her peers, or even adults, can’t fathom.
Not only this, but her propensity for standing up for the weak sets her apart from her peers. Her appearance, too, stands out, as if she were the protagonist of a story, with dark, shiny black hair, black, beautiful eyes, and a mesmerizing face atop her fairly white skin, giving off a vibe of a goddess herself.
Shakti is running through the jungle as fast as she can, as if she is looking for someone or something, while enemy soldiers chase her.
She has been running for an hour or more now and is on her last bit of strength, but the soldiers are on her tail. She can’t stop; she must not. But then, she suddenly stumbles on a rock and falls down.
Her ankle suffers a serious fracture, rendering her unable to run any further, and the distance between her and the enemy soldiers is decreasing every second. And now, they are face to face, drawing their swords, mocking her.
To them, she is like a rat stuck in a corner. And just as they were about to finish her, you might be wondering what happened next, but before that, I have a tale to tell you.
Let me tell you the tale of a small girl born into a royal family in a Kingdom named Uttarakuru. This Kingdom is one of the largest kingdoms in the northern region of a great land known as Jambudweep. And this kingdom lies at the foot of the great snowy mountains known as the Himalayas.
Uttarakuru stretches from the Greater Himalayas in the north to the foothills of the Shivalik Mountain range. From east to west, it is hard to determine. It stretches as far as modern-day Uttarakhand to modern-day Jammu.
This place, Uttarakuru, is so beautiful that it is hard to describe. Imagine tall mountains, rivers flowing through the valley, smooth, soothing winds blowing.
And as you travel deep into these valleys, you witness majestic tall deodar trees almost touching the sky, meadows giving a lush green and eye-soothing vibe, with birds chirping that can be heard very often. For once, you could believe you might be in heaven.
And this beautiful scenery spreads throughout the map of Uttarakuru.
And Shakti was born in this majestic land on the night of the full moon. It was so quiet that you could even hear the dead silence. And this dead silence was broken by the cry of a little girl.
When the Vaidya held her, she was mesmerized by her beauty and charm. For a moment, she just stared at her face as if she had just seen a God.
Handing her to her father, the Vaidya said that just looking at her filled him with energy, and his tension and fatigue were all gone. And thus, her father, Raja Himalaya, named her Shakti, which literally means energy.
