A husbandman’s youthful wife, who belonged to another part of the country than where the husband dwelt, had been fetched home to her parents house for a short stay. On her return being delayed, the husband went to her place, and asked her parents to send her along with him. They were quite willing, and accordingly consulted their pruohit upon an auspicious day for the return journey. The latter declared that that being Navami or the 9th day of the fortnight, was an unlucky day, but that the next day would answer very will.
The husband was informed of this, but would not listen to advice and saying how could the day of the fortnight or anything else stand in the way of one's taking one's own wife home, insisted on returning at once, and was most reluctantly, allowed to do so, but his foolhardy conduct was fraught with serious consequences.
On the way, having to answer the calls of nature, he left his wife under a tree, and went aside a short distance, when "Navami Purusha" (the deity who presides over the 9th day of the fortnight) appeared on the scene, exactly like the husband in form, stature and voice, and coming up to the wife he led her away, the latter fully believing that she was following her won husband. When the husband returned, he missed his wife under the tree, but looking up the road, found to his amazement and horror, that she was following an exact double of himself, at a short distance.
He gave them chase, and claimed his wife whereat, his duplicate turned round upon him, and questioned his sanity, because, as he said, no one who had not absolutely taken leave of his senses, could mistake another's wife for his own. Quarrelling in this manner, they arrived before Mariada Ramanna, and made their respective representations. The latter referred to the woman for a solution of the difficulty, but she confessed her inability to decide the point, as the two persons were as like one another as a pair of twins, and added that she looked to the judge to help her out of her own difficulty.
Mariada Raman who felt confronted with a most difficult problem, and was at his wits end how to proceed in the matter, sent the parties home for the day, and inwardly prayed to God for guidance, when a happy thought struck him. He caused an earthen jug or "khooja" to be prepared, with a narrow neck not wide enough to admit one's thumb, and next day he summoned the parties and declared that he would give his verdict in favour of the claimant who succeeded in effecting his ingress into the jug and issuing out of it again, with no damage to himself or to the vessel. This, a veritable passage of a camel through the eye of a needle, was more than human gymnastics could achieve, and the husband accordingly gave up his cause for lost.
" Navami Purusha," on the other hand, who was an immortal, and was able to perform miracles, succeeded in achieving this marvellous feat, and it became clear to Mariada Ramanna, that t was he that was falsely claiming the other's wife, as nothing short of supernatural ability could have helped to bring about a likeness of striking, salient, and wonderful between two persons. Mariada Ramanna accordingly did due honor to Navami Purusha, who confessed that he had acted thus, by way of teaching the husbandman a better regard to orthodox customs, and the advice of elders. The wife was accordingly restored to her husband, and Navami Purusha complimented Mariada Ramanna on his remarkable sagacity in unravelling this mystery.
