There was a king who once arranged a feast for women following a temple consecration. The ritual required that 108 women be served food.
While the women were eating, it suddenly began to rain, and the rain fell on the plantain leaves on which the food had been served.
But everyone assembled was astounded to find that it rained not water, but gold! The king could not understand the reason for this. But Lord Ganesa spoke through a child.
The child said the king's wife had gone to the room where the groceries were stored to check on the quality of the rice and toor dhal. She had put her hand in the sack of toor dhal and taken out a sample and examined it. But when she had put her hand into the sack, a bead from her gold ring had slipped from her finger.
The Queen had not noticed it, nor had the cooks, who had cooked the toor dhal, along with the golden bead! One of the women who partook of the feast was Goddess Parvati Herself.
The golden bead from the Queen's ring had found its way to Her leaf. So to compensate the Queen for the loss of that one bead She had caused it to rain gold nuggets on all the Queen's subjects! This story shows how even a small offering made to the Goddess is rewarded by Her several fold. In this case, the Queen had not even consciously made the offering, and yet she and her subjects were rewarded, said Ilampirai Manimaran.
Faithful devotees will be protected by Her. The story is told of a British Collector of Madurai who wanted to worship Goddess Meenakshi, but was forbidden to enter the temple. Every day, he would circumambulate the temple, going round the streets encircling the temple. One night, there was a thunderstorm, and a little girl came to him and asked him to follow her.
The girl led him to the temple and disappeared. The Collector later learnt that in his absence, the ceiling of his room had collapsed because of the heavy rain. And he realised that the little girl was none other than the Goddess Herself.
Thus the Collector was saved from certain death because of his devotion to the Goddess. True faith will never go unrewarded.
