Bhima and Hanuman
One day, while the Pandavas were in exile, the wind brought a beautiful lotus and dropped it near Draupadi. She was delighted with its sweet fragrance and divine beauty. She asked Bhima to bring her more lotuses.
Bhima went in search of lotuses. As he was walking through the forest, he saw an old monkey sleeping in his path. He made sound to scare it away. But it did not move. Bhima ordered the monkey to give him way. The monkey said, "I am too old and week to move. Push my tail aside to make way for yourself." Bhima tried very hard to move its tail but failed. He understood that the monkey was some great being. The monkey come to his real form. He was Hanuman. Hanuman blessed Bhima and promised to help him in the war against Kauravas.
Kartikeya
Once upon a time a demon called Taraka performed a long and difficult tapasya. Pleased with him, Brahma gave him the boon that only a son of Shiva could kill him.
After getting this powerful boon, Taraka became very proud and selfish and started destroying heaven and earth. Seeing the chaos, the gods were in afix and requested Shiva to stop Taraka. At that time, Shiva did not have any sons. To create a son, Shiva took a form with six faces. Each face had a third eye. Six sparks came out of these eyes and formed into six babies. Parvati, wife of Shiva, was very happy and took all the babies in her arms to hug them. But she hugged them so tightly that the six babies turned into one baby with six heads.
This baby was called Kartikeya was a strong boy and went with an army of goods to fight Taraka and killed him.
Since then, Kartikeya is known as the god of war.
The Story of Kedarnath
After winning the war, the Pandavas went on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash. They wanted Shiva to cleanse them of the sin of killing so many people. When Shiva saw them he hid. When they couldn't find him, Yudhisthira said, "I know you have hidden because we have sinned, but we will not leave without seeing you." As they moved ahead, a bull attacked them. Bhima started fighting it. The bull hid his head within a crack in a rock. Bhima tried to pull him out by his tail, but the body of the bull got separated from his head. The body turned into a Shivalinga from which Shiva appeared and forgave them their sins.
The linga is still present in the Himalayas and is called Kedarnath.
The Devotion of Surdas
Surdas was one of the greatest devotees of Lord Krishna. He loved Krishna so much that he wrote over a lakh of devotional songs in his honour. Surdas was a blind man, according to the story, who once took away Radha’s anklet when she was following him. When asked to return it, he refused, stating that he could not confirm her identity as he was blind. At this point, Krishna blessed him with sight, after which Surdas begged Krishna to take his sight away again. When asked why, he said that he had seen Krishna, and there was nothing else he wanted to see again.
Moral Lesson:
This story will teach your child to love unconditionally and exhibit devotion towards the things he/she cares about.
