Bali (Chandravanshi)

Bali was the son of Sutapas (the Prince who became a great sage like Vishwamitra) and his wife Presni. King Homa (father of Sutapas and his grandfather) raised him and Bali succeeded his grandfather. He ruled eastern side of the Bharatkhand. He married Sudeshna. For a long time he had no children. He asked his Preceptor (Kulaguru) about this. The preceptor meditated for a moment and said that he had received a curse on his previous birth that no children will born to him. Bali became sad and asked for a remedy. The Preceptor advised that the queen (Sudeshna) can produce sons from Dirghatamas (father of Dhanvantari and nephew of Lord Brhaspati). The King became happy by hearing the story of the great sage and decided to summon his wife to produce sons from him. One day, he saw that Dirghatamas who was blind was floating on the river Ganges lifted and sheltered him and asked him all about why he was left in river Ganges. The sage told all about why he was left in Ganges. Then, he summoned his wife (Sudeshna) to produce sons from him. Sudeshna, seeing that he was blind, decided to send her maid (Sudra Woman) to produce sons. Then, when the eleven babies were born, the King saw that she was not the queen but her servant maid. Then he took his wife to produce sons from Dirghatamas and Sudeshna produced 6 sons from him. After renouncing, he divided his country into six kingdoms, one for each of his 6 sons Anga (founder of the Anga Kingdom), Vanga (founder of the Vanga Kingdom), Kalinga (founder of the Kalinga Kingdom), Pundra (founder of the Pundra Kingdom), Suhma (founder of the Suhma Kingdom) and Odhra (founder of Odra Kingdom).