Narada- Hindu GodDeity"Divine Sage"

The Maidservant's Son

The Bhagavata Purana has Narada recount his own origin. In a previous life, he was the son of a maidservant who served visiting sages during the rainy season. The boy attended them faithfully, eating only their leftovers, and in return they taught him the rudiments of devotion to Vishnu. When his mother died from a snakebite, the boy wandered alone into the wilderness and meditated until Vishnu appeared to him briefly in a vision, then withdrew. That single glimpse was enough. The boy spent the rest of his life in longing for the god, and when he died, he was reborn as Narada, a divine sage born from the mind of Brahma, free to wander all three worlds with his veena and the name of Narayana always on his lips.

The Divine Instigator

Narada bears the epithet Kalahapriya, "lover of strife," because his words, though truthful, tend to set the machinery of myth in motion. When Kamsa of Mathura was celebrating his sister Devaki's wedding, Narada appeared and told the king that Devaki's eighth child would destroy him. Kamsa's terror at this prophecy led him to imprison Devaki and her husband Vasudeva, slaughter their children one by one, and set in motion the chain of events that brought Krishna into the world.

Narada likewise told the demon king Hiranyakashipu that his own son Prahlada worshipped Vishnu in secret. The enraged father's attempts to kill the boy summoned Narasimha, the man-lion avatar, who tore Hiranyakashipu apart. And when Daksha's sons the Haryashvas were performing austerities, Narada persuaded them to renounce the world, provoking Daksha's famous curse that Narada would never stay in one place. The curse only formalized what was already his nature.