Legend Of Aranya Devi Temple
Once Lord Krishna disguised as a hermit and Arjun as a lion went to King Mordhwaj at Arrah, who was renowned for his generosity. The hermit demanded human flesh for his lion saying that the lion did not eat animal flesh. The hermit (Lord Krishna) asked for the flesh of the kings son. The king was puzzled and asked for the consent of his wife. His wife agreed. The hermit asked them to dissect the body of the boy with an arra (saw). This was done jointly by the king and the queen. The hermit demanded that the flesh be cooked by them. The king and the queen obeyed him at once. Now they were asked to eat the cooked flesh together with the hermit and the lion. This was also obeyed. The hermit asked the king to call the boy and partake of the meal. The king said that the boy was killed and cooked. The hermit said, ``No, call the boys. The king called out the name of the boy. To their sheer amazement and joy, the boy appeared before them in a playful manner. Then Lord Krishna and Arjun gave revealed their identity and threw away the arra (saw) which was used in dissecting the body of the boy. The temple is said to have been erected by King Mordhwaj at the place where the saw fell.
The second mythological version is that the area was covered with forest and the Ganga river was flowing near by and the people built a temple there which was called the temple of Aranya Devi, i.e., goddess of the forest. The third legend regarding the temple is as follows:- Like Harischandra, King Mordhwaj was also a great benefactor and charitable-minded. He was a very kind-hearted man noble, gentle, loving, faithful, honest and simple. His name and fame spread all over India. The fort of King Mordhwaj was a very big and spacious one covering the present Chowdhariana Mohalla, Jain School area and Devi Asthan sector. But in spite of so much prosperity and gaiety, the king and the queen were not happy at all because they had no son. And so with intense devotion they began praying to the goddess Durga to bless them with a son. Finally the divine blessing did dawn upon them. The goddess appeared before the king in his dream and gave her blessing, and nine months after a son was born. The royal boy was a prodigy and provided all the earthly pleasures to his parents. And so the years rolled away. One night King Mordhwaj was in his dream goddess Durga asking him to sacrifice his son before her altar. In the dream the divine mandate was that the imperial boy should be made to stand before the altar and the king and the queen, standing on either side of him, were to ply the saw from the boys head downwards till his body was cut into two halves, with the blood falling before the altar and with no tears trickling down their eyes. The king took the dream seriously, conveyed it to his royal consort and both agreed to execute the mandate. And the royal prince also did not demur and was happy about the fulfilment of the divine wish. So the trial came. The king and queen applied the saw (arra) on the head of the prince and, just as they were starting to ply the saw, the divine mother appeared physically before the scene of sacrifice, blessed the couple and the prince for their devotion to her and disappeared in the blue. It was in this way that the place which was the scene of the sacrifice came to be known as ARRAH, meaning a saw. It is also believed that the king installed a temple at Arrah which was called Aranya Devi temple.
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