On your next trip to India – you might just want to take a detour to Ambalappuzha.  Ambalappuzha is a small town in the state of Kerala, in southern India. The town is famous for its Sri Krishna temple and its rice pudding.

For the temple of Ambalappuzha is where the legend of Paal Payasam originates.

According to legend, Lord Krishna once appeared in the form of a sage in the court of the king who ruled the region and challenged him for a game of chess. The king being a chess enthusiast himself gladly accepted the invitation. The prize had to be decided before the game and the king asked the sage to choose his prize in case he wins. The sage told the king that he was a man of few material needs, and thus all he wished was a few grains of rice. The amount of rice itself shall be determined using the chessboard in the following manner. One grain of rice shall be placed in the first square, two grains in the second square, four in the third square, eight in the fourth square and so on. Every square will have double the number of grains of its predecessor.

Upon hearing the demand, the king was unhappy since the sage requested only a few grains of rice instead of other riches from the kingdom, which the king would’ve been happy to donate.

Never-the-less, the game commenced, and needless to say the king lost the game. The King called forth to a porter from the royal granary to bring forth a bag of rice to met out the  prize. As he started adding grains of rice to the chessboard, the king soon realized the true nature of the sage’s demands. By the 20th square, the number had reached one-million grains of rice and by the 40th square, it became one-trillion. The royal grainery soon ran out of bags of rice. The king realized that even if he provides all the rice in his kingdom and his adjacent kingdoms, he would never be able to fulfill the promised reward. For the amount of rice required to fill a 64-squared chessboard is 18 billion billion grains of rice - 460 billion tons.

Upon seeing the dilemma, the sage appeared to the king in his true-form, that of lord Krishna. He told the King that he doesn’t have to pay the debt immediately but can pay him over time – and that The king shall serve paal-payasam in the temple freely to the pilgrims every day until the debt is paid off.  And today, you will still find rice pudding in the temples of southern Indian state of Kerala.