One day, King Ali Mardan decided to go hunting. As he wandered through the forest near the beautiful Dal Lake, which lay clear and still between the mountains and the royal town of Srinagar, he suddenly came across a maiden, as lovely as a flower. She was sitting beneath a tree, crying her heart out. Telling his followers to stay back, the king approached the young girl and gently asked who she was and why she was all alone in the wild forest.
"Oh great King," she replied, looking up at him, "I am the Faghfur’s handmaiden. While wandering in the pleasure-grounds of his palace, I lost my way. I don't know how far I have come, but now I must surely die, for I am weary and hungry!"
"A fair maiden like you must not die while Ali Mardan can save you," said the king, gazing at her with admiration. So, he ordered his servants to carefully take her to his summer palace in the Shalimar Gardens, where fountains sprinkled dewdrops over the beds of flowers and fruit-laden trees bent over marble colonnades. There, amid the flowers and sunshine, she lived with the king, who soon became so enchanted by her that he forgot everything else in the world.
So the days went by until one day, a servant of a Jôgi, returning from the holy lake Gangabal on the snowy peak of Haramukh, passed by the gardens. Every year, he journeyed there to draw water for his master. As he walked, he saw the tops of the fountains over the high garden wall, leaping and splashing like silver in the sunshine. Astonished by the sight, he set his vessel of water on the ground and climbed over the wall, determined to see the wonders inside. Once in the garden, surrounded by fountains and flowers, he wandered about, utterly bewildered by the beauty, until, exhausted by the excitement, he lay down under a tree and fell asleep.
Now, the King, while strolling in the garden, found the man lying there and noticed something clutched tightly in his closed right hand. Bending down, Ali Mardan gently pried the fingers open and discovered a tiny box filled with a sweet-smelling ointment. As he examined it more closely, the sleeper awoke and, missing his box, began to weep and wail. The King comforted him and, showing him the box, promised to return it if he would faithfully explain why it was so precious to him.
"Oh great King," replied the Jogi's apprentice, "the box belongs to my master, and it contains a holy ointment with many virtues. By its power, I am protected from all harm and can go to Gangabal and return with my jar full of water so quickly that my master is never without the sacred element."
The King was astonished and, looking at the man keenly, said, "Tell me the truth! Is your master truly such a holy saint? Is he indeed such a wonderful man?"
"O King," replied the apprentice, "he is indeed such a man, and there is nothing in the world he does not know!"
This reply piqued the King's curiosity, and putting the box in his vest, he said to the apprentice, "Go home to your master and tell him that King Ali Mardan has his box and means to keep it until he comes to fetch it himself." In this way, he hoped to entice the holy Jogi into his presence.
So, seeing that there was nothing else to be done, the apprentice set off to return to his master. Without the precious box with the magical ointment, the journey took him two and a half years. During this time, Ali Mardan stayed with the beautiful stranger in the Shalimar palace, forgetting everything in the world except her loveliness. However, he was not happy, and a strange look came over his face, with a stony stare in his eyes.
When the apprentice finally reached home and told his master what had happened, the Jogi was very angry. But since he couldn't manage without the box that enabled him to fetch the water from Gangabal, he immediately set off for the court of King Ali Mardan. Upon his arrival, the King treated him with the greatest honor and faithfully returned the precious box as promised.
Now, the Jogi was indeed a learned man, and when he saw the King, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. "O King, you have been gracious to me, and I wish to repay your kindness," he said. "Tell me truly, have you always had that pale, scared face and those stony eyes?"
The King hung his head.
"Tell me truly," continued the holy Jogi, "do you have any strange woman in your palace?"
Feeling a strange relief in speaking, Ali Mardan told the Jogi about finding the maiden, so lovely and forlorn, in the forest.
"She is no handmaiden of the Faghfur—she is no woman at all!" declared the Jogi fearlessly. "She is nothing but a Lamia—a dreadful two-hundred-years-old snake that has the power to take on a woman's shape!"
At first, King Ali Mardan was indignant, for he was madly in love with the stranger. But when the Jogi insisted, the King became alarmed and finally promised to follow the holy man's instructions to discover the truth or falsehood of his words.
So, that same evening, he ordered two kinds of khichri to be prepared for supper and placed in one dish. One half was sweet khichri, and the other half was salty.
As usual, the King sat down to eat out of the same dish with the Nagini, but this time he turned the salty side towards her and the sweet side towards himself. She found her portion very salty, but seeing the King eat his with enjoyment and without comment, she finished hers in silence.
Later, when they had retired to rest and the King, following the Jogi's instructions, pretended to sleep, the Nagini became dreadfully thirsty due to all the salt food she had eaten. With no water in the room, she had to go outside to find some.
Now, if a Nagini goes out at night, she must resume her own loathsome form. As King Ali Mardan lay pretending to sleep, he saw the beautiful form in his arms change into a deadly, slimy snake that slid from the bed and out the door into the garden. He followed it quietly, watching it drink from every fountain along the way until it reached the Dal lake, where it drank and bathed for hours.
Fully convinced of the truth of the Jogi's story, King Ali Mardan begged him for help in getting rid of the beautiful horror. The Jogi promised to assist, provided the King would faithfully follow his instructions. So, they crafted an oven from a hundred different kinds of metal melted together, with a strong lid and a heavy padlock. This they placed in a shady corner of the garden, securing it to the ground with strong chains.
When everything was ready, the King said to the Nagini, "My heart's beloved! Let us wander in the gardens alone today and have fun cooking our own food."
She, eager for the adventure, consented. They wandered through the garden, and when dinner-time came, they set to work with laughter and mirth, cooking their own food.
The King heated the oven very hot and began kneading the bread, but being clumsy at it, he told the Nagini he could do no more and that she must bake the bread. At first, she refused, saying she disliked ovens, but when the King pretended to be annoyed, insisting she couldn't love him if she refused to help, she relented and, with very bad grace, set to work tending the baking.
Just as she stooped over the oven's mouth to turn the loaves, the King seized his opportunity and pushed her in, quickly clapping down the cover and locking it securely.
When the Nagini found herself trapped in the scorching oven, she bounded so fiercely that, if not for the strong chains, she would have leaped out of the garden with the oven and all! But as it was, all she could do was bound up and down while the King and the Jogi piled more fuel onto the fire, making the oven grow hotter and hotter. This went on from four o'clock one afternoon to four o'clock the next, until the Nagini ceased to move, and all was quiet.
They waited until the oven cooled down and then opened it. Not a trace of the Nagini was left, only a tiny heap of ashes. From this, the Jogi took a small round stone and handed it to the King, saying, "This is the true essence of the Nagini. Whatever you touch with it will turn to gold."
But King Ali Mardan thought that such a treasure was more trouble than it was worth, as it would surely bring envy, conflict, and danger to anyone who possessed it. So, when he went to Attock, he threw the magical stone of Paras into the Indus river, to prevent it from causing strife in the world.
Source: Oral Tradition from the Indus; McNair and Barlow
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