The story
The sage Narada, travelling the worlds, was grieved to see people on earth suffering. He went to Vishnu and asked for an easy way to relieve them. Vishnu told him of the Satyanarayan vow: worship of God as Truth, with devotion, a simple offering of wheat flour, banana, ghee, sugar and milk, and the telling of the story with family and neighbours.
In Kashi lived a very poor Brahmin named Shatananda. Vishnu came to him in the form of an old Brahmin and taught him the vow. Shatananda kept it the next day with the alms he had received, and his poverty came to an end. A woodcutter who watched the puja with his family was invited in, heard the story, kept the vow himself, and prospered too.
A merchant named Sadhu, who had no children, saw King Ulkamukha keeping the vow by a river and promised to perform it if he were blessed with a child. A daughter, Kalavati, was born, but the merchant kept putting off his promise, first until her birth, then until her wedding. On a trading journey he and his son-in-law were falsely accused of theft and thrown in prison, and at home his wife Lilavati and daughter fell into poverty.
Kalavati, seeing a Satyanarayan puja in a neighbour’s house, told her mother, and the two kept the vow. The merchant and his son-in-law were released. But on the way home, the merchant lied to an ascetic (Vishnu in disguise) that his boat carried only leaves and creepers, and so it did, until he repented. At home, Kalavati, in her hurry to meet her husband, left without eating the prasad, and his boat sank from sight; only when she returned and took the prasad did it rise again.
King Tungadhwaja, returning from a hunt, scorned the prasad offered by cowherds who were keeping the vow, and lost his sons and wealth. When he returned, sat with the cowherds, and accepted the prasad with humility, all was restored. The story ends with the reminder that whoever keeps the vow with faith, and does not forget or scorn God’s prasad, finds happiness in this life and peace hereafter.
Retold in our own words from the traditional story; versions told in families and booklets differ in details.