The village headman did not have a good opinion about Mara. He called him a worthless dog and a lunatic. When the workers told him that Mara had come there and stood behind a rock he had peeped at them, he got furious and asked his workers to catch him and bring him there.

Then, he admonished Mara for distracting and disturbing his workers. Next, he threatened to get Mara locked up in the cellar behind the old temple, until the king had passed through their village. Mara innocently told him that the Goddess of the river had appeared in his dream, and had informed him that the king was coming through his village and so he should go and ask the king to build a tank for Veda. The village headman got angry again and told him to be off, but when Mara gave him a jovial reply he ordered Bhima to bind Mara hand and foot and keep him in a cellar. Thus the village headman treated Mara with a lot of contempt.

On the contrary, the king treated him courteously and gave him a sympathetic hearing. When Mara told the king that he had been waiting for him since daybreak, the king suggested that he should have asked for an audience. Later, after listening to Mara’s account of how he had slipped out of the cellar and waited for the king to arrive, the king asked him what he wanted. Mara told the king about the spiritual significance of that place and the need to utilize the water of the river Veda. Then he conveyed the message of the Goddess to the king. When Mara told the king that he could get him punished if he did not believe him, the king told him that he believed him and was pleased that he had been blessed by the Goddess. Then he asked Mara to accompany him to the capital.

Though Mara humbly submitted that he had no good clothes to wear and he was only Mara the mad, the king told him that he should obey his command without fail. After the tank had been built, the king made him the watchman of the lake.