In the kingdom of Ang lived a priest named Rudraketu with his wife Sharada. They had no child so Rudraketu prayed and prayed. On hearing his prayers, Lord Ganesha appeared before him and asked, ?Rudraketu, what do you want? Why have you been praying so fervently to me??
Rudraketu replied, ?Lord, I have no child. It has been very long but my wife has not conceived so far.?
Ganesha told him not to worry as his wife would soon beget him a child. After nine months, Sharada gave birth to twin sons whom the excited couple named as Devantak and Narantak. Over the years, both grew up into handsome youth, well versed in the ancient scriptures and warfare.
One day Narada muni decided to visit Rudraketu. He asked Rudraketu, ?Your sons have become popular far and wide. As soon as I heard of them, I decided to come myself and see them. Can you call them here??
Rudraketu went inside and soon appeared with both his sons. Narad muni expressed his desire to see the children'shoroscopes. These Rudraketu willingly provided to the muni, curious as he was to learn about his children'sfuture.
After studying the horoscopes very carefully, Narad muni announced, ?I am happy with what the horoscopes convey. But one aspect is rather negative which will trouble them later on.?
Rudraketu asked what could be done to overcome the negative aspect. Narad muni advised both the young twins to pray to Lord Shiva and ask for a boon to remove the negative aspect. As advised, both the brothers left for the forest and prayed for years till Lord Shiva appeared in front of them to ask, ?Why are you troubling me with your prayers? What do you want??
One of the twins, Narantak replied, ?Lord Shiva, grant me the boon that I may rule over the three worlds.?
Shiva turned to Devantak to ask what he wanted. The latter replied that no one should be able to destroy him or his brother.
Lord Shiva granted him his wish and disappeared. Both the brothers were thrilled to be granted their wishes and retuned home.
Devantak soon entered into a battle with Lord Indra and after a fierce fight, won and captured the throne of Amravati. After a short reign of peace, the asuras (demons) started troubling the saints and seers who in terror, approached Devantak to seek liberation from their troubles.
Meanwhile Narantak took over control over the earth and sent an army of asuras to capture pataal loka (hell).
On seeing this deteriorating situation, Sage Kashyap'swife Aditi began to pray to Lord Ganesha to save them from such an existence. When Ganesha appeared before her, she begged him to save the poor people. After some time, Aditi gave birth to a son who was named Mahotkat by her.
The news of the birth of a son spread throughout the three worlds. The twin brothers Devantak and Narantak also heard of this. They knew that Ganesha had taken birth as Aditi'sson and would soon try to destroy them. So Narantak sent a demoness named Virja to kill Aditi'sson before he grew up to destroy the asuras. But Mahotkat turned her into ash as soon as she appeared in front. Then Devantak sent two demons in the form of parrots to attack the child. Mahotkat went ahead and caught the two parrots by their necks and squeezed their life out of them.
On finding the two parrots killed, Devantak and Narantak realised that there was no escape for them now and that it was indeed Ganesha who had taken birth as Mahotkat. They lived in constant fear for some time till Aditi'sson grew up to kill both of them. Thus peace was restored to all the three worlds.
