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Here Be Dragons co-curated by Cressida Cowell and Toothless - opens 13 July. Admission included with ticket to the Galleries

1001 Stories Collection

The Story of King Shibi

1001 The Story Of King Shibi Morning Brew
Added on 06th October 2020

Oral tradition Hindi story from the Mahabharata (c. 800BC)

Animals
1001

King Shibi shows the extent of his goodness when he promises to protect a dove from an eagle.

Story

When Agni is transformed into a dove, Indra (who has been transformed into an eagle) tries to slay her. Upon seeing this, King Shibi offers to sacrifice himself in order to save the dove. It is not long before the birds reveal their true identities…

Why we chose it

The Mahabharata is one of the great epics from Ancient India.

Where it came from

The Mahabharata is an Indian epic written in Sanskrit. Within the epic, it claims that it was developed from a shorter version called Bharata which had 24,000 verses! It is described as ‘itihasa’ meaning ‘history’. In the first section, it says that the god Ganesh wrote down the verses as Vyasa instructed him.

Where it went next

Shibi’s character influenced the naming of an area in Pakistan which was called ‘Shibistan’, it is now known as ‘Sehwan’. There are lots of temples in Tamil Nadu where people claim King Shibi used to worship.

Associated stories

In the Bhagavata Purana and the Mahabharata it states that Arjun later had three sons who went on to establish kingdoms. Shibi is also a king in the Jataka Tales. The story of sacrifice has similar connections to the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis.

Added on 06th October 2020

Oral tradition Hindi story from the Mahabharata (c. 800BC)

Animals
1001