One day the righteous Vasudeva came humbly to Devarshi Narada and asked him: "O best of sages, every son my wife Devaki has borne has been killed by the wicked Kansa. Tell me, in your kindness, what we must do so that a son of ours may live a long life."
The sage said: "O Vasudeva, long ago there lived a Brahmin named Subhaga, steadfast in dharma, and his wife Dakshina, truthful and devoted to her husband. They had no child. In that sorrow Subhaga one day left his home and set out into the deep forest, and Dakshina followed him."
"Wandering through that forest, the Brahmin and his wife came to the shore of a lake. There they saw a gathering of women who had drawn an eight-petalled lotus on ground made beautiful with sprouting paddy, had set a murti of Kartik in the middle of it, and were keeping a vrat. Dakshina asked them, and learnt that it was the Kartikeya vrat. Then she asked what fruit the vrat brings."
"The women answered: 'A woman who wishes for a son keeps this vrat on the day of the sankranti in the month of Kartik, when the Sun stands in Vrishchika. On ground adorned with paddy sprouts she draws an eight-petalled lotus, sets in it a murti of Kartikeya of gold, silver, copper or clay, as she can afford, and places a ghat before the murti.'"
"'In that ghat she offers puja in turn to Ganesh ji, Narayan, Brahma, Shiv ji, Durga Maa, Lakshmi Maa, Saraswati Maa, the guardians of the directions, the nine grahas, and the peacock and Garuda, and then says Kartik's dhyana as the rite lays down. Then she offers Kartik the sixteen offerings and an iron khadga. In this way, at every prahar of the night, she bathes the murti, offers the puja again and hears the vratkatha.'"
"'Kartik's puja is begun at dusk, and the murti is given to the water at daybreak the next morning. When the puja has been kept like this for four years, the vrat is brought to its close with an udyapan, and four dalas, cloth, food and many kinds of things are given. A woman who keeps this vrat lives happily in this life with her sons and grandsons and finds great joy in the next. By Kartik's puja a woman without a child is given a healthy, strong and wise son.'"
"Dakshina went back to her own home and began the Kartikeya vrat with devotion and care. By the power of the vrat they were blessed with sons and grandsons, lived out their days in happiness, and when their time came left the body and went to Vaikuntha."
Then Narada counselled Vasudeva, who had lost his sons: "O Vasudeva, keep the Kartikeya vrat, husband and wife together. Then the son who is born to you next will live long and bring endless good to the three worlds." As the sage had said, Vasudeva and Devaki kept the Kartikeya vrat, and Narayan, the lord of the three worlds, was born to them as their son.
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