8 /10 1 Votes
Created by Sagar Arts Limited Country of origin India No. of seasons 1 First episode date 1988 Network DD National Genres Mythology, Fantasy | 8.1/10 IMDb Starring see below Original language(s) Hindi No. of episodes 26 Number of episodes 26 Program creator Sagar Films | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cast Arun Govil, Rajnibala, Dara Singh Similar Ninja Pandav, Yam Hain Hum, Naagarjuna – Ek Yoddha | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Vikram Aur Betaal was a television programme that aired on DD National. The series contained stories from Indian mythology that aim at teaching kids life lessons while entertaining them. The concept of the program was based on Baital Pachisi, a collection of tales about the legendary King Vikram (identified as Vikramāditya) and the Vaitaala, a ghost analogous to a vampire in Western literature.
Contents
Background
Vikram Aur Betaal is based on Betaal Pacchisi, written nearly 2,500 years ago by Mahakavi Somdev Bhatt. These are spellbinding stories told to the wise King Vikramaditya by the wily ghost Betaal.
At the beginning of the frame story, Vikramaditya king of Ujjain receives, among other visitors, a mendicant who presents the king a fruit on every visit. In the fruits are later discovered orbs of ruby. Upon this discovery, the king resolves to visit the mendicant, who arranges a meeting under a banyan tree in a cremation ground beyond the city, at night, on the 14th day of the dark half of the month. At the meeting, the mendicant requests that Vikramaditya bring him a corpse suspended from another tree, with which the mendicant might achieve occult power.
Upon Vikramaditya's doing so, the corpse is identified as Betaal, the ghost, who narrates a story to the king, concluding that Vikramaditya must answer a moral question pertaining to the story's characters, on pain of his own death; and upon his answering the question, Betaal returns to his tree.
The stories
The name Betaal Pachisi suggests the Betaal told the king 25 stories (pacchisi - पच्चीसी is derived from pacchis - पच्चीस in Hindi, which means 25), each narrated while Vikramaditya is carrying Betaal to the mendicant, where of each ended with a moral
Cast
