The Blink of Eyes

Once King Nimi of surya vansh boansh decided to organise a Yagya .He invited the sage Vasishth to perform the Yagya. But sage Vasishth expressed his inability to participate Yagya as he had already promised Indra for the same. He requested the king to wait till he was free from Indra’s obligations. But King Nimi was in no mood to wait for sage Vashishtha. He started Yagya with sage Gautam . At the completion of Yagya for Indra, sage Vasishth hurried back to the earth to conduct Yagya for King Nimi. But here he found that a Yagya was already in progression. This made the sage angry. He cursed Nimi, who was sleeping at that time, to lose his body at once. On the other hand, at end of Yagya when the gods appeared to accept their due share from the offerings, the other sages prayed to them to grant boon to Nimi. King Nimi expressed his desire to live bodiless because he wanted to get liberated from the bondage of birth and death and it was not possible for his soul to re-enter his body because his body was destroyed.The gods thus, grant the eyelids as the dwelling place for the soul of king Nimi. So the wink of eyelids remind the existence of king Nimi. Since then blinking of eyes came into practice because of Nimi’s stay there. Also as per hindu system of time measurement, the time interval between the blink of eyes is called " Nimesh" which is derive from the King Nimi.