King Nahush was probably the only king who was made Indra for some time. The story of how Nahush was made Indra by the Gods is like this:
Once Indra had to kill Vritasur. The killing of Vritasur was a sin, so Indra gave up his throne and ran away from heaven. In the absence of the king, the Gods thought that Nahush was the best replacement. Nahush was the son of Aayu and belonged to the Lunar dynasty. His guru was sage Vashisht and he was a good ruler.
All the Gods went to meet Nahush after taking advice from their guru Brihaspati. Nahush agreed to become the king of Gods. At first, Nahush was a good ruler but later he slowly started becoming proud of his power.
Once Nahush saw the queen of Indra and he wanted to marry her. He proposed to Shachi who was the wife of Indra. This made the queen very angry. After talking to her guru Brihaspati she put a condition to Nahush. She told Nahush that she would marry him only when he would come and fetch her in a palanquin which should be lifted by all the great sages.
The palanquin was carried by great sages and one of them was Rishi Agastya who was short in height. Since Rishi Agastya was slow in walking, Nahush got very angry and kicked rishi Agastya to walk faster. He used the word ‘sarp’ which means to walk fast. But Rishi Agastya got very angry when Nahush kicked him with his feet so he cursed Nahush to become a serpent and to live on the earth. In this way, Nahush was removed from his throne and Indra was brought back.
This story is found in Mahabharat. This story teaches us that we should not become proud of our position and power and behave arrogantly with others. Nahush was the king of heaven but he became a serpent and fell down on earth because blinded by his arrogance he misbehaved with Rishi Agastya and paid a very heavy price for that.
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