Skandapurana 14.31

English (machine translation) 14.31

Language: English

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Pulastya said: / One should go to Raktānubandha, a sacred ford renowned throughout the three worlds, / bathed in which a person is properly freed from [the sin of] killing a brahmin.

Formerly there was an earthly king named Indrasena; / he had a very beloved wife, a lovely woman named Sunandā, / devoted to her husband, holding her husband as her life-breath, always intent on her husband's pleasure.

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Now, at a certain time, that king with his retinue / went to a foreign land to slay a host of foes difficult to approach.

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Having slain them and taken abundant wealth, he set out for home; / then, O king, he sent a deceptive messenger ahead, [saying]:

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'Having gone, say to Sunandā: "Indrasena has been killed in battle"; / then, by my command, her demeanor regarding her devotion to her husband is to be observed.

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If that lovely woman should form a resolve toward death, / then she is to be protected with effort, and my joke is to be spoken.'

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Having been spoken to thus, the messenger went at that very moment, O best of kings, / and announced to her what had been said by that king.

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Then, having heard his word, Sunandā of sweet smile, / holding her husband as her life-breath, a great chaste wife, departed this life, O best of kings.

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At that very time when that Sunandā, whose ornament was good conduct, died, / at that time that king too was overtaken by that sin.

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Then he saw a second shadow over his body, / and his body became heavier, accompanied by lethargy,

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devoid of radiance, foul-smelling, and discolored, O best of kings. / Then the king arrived home, and having heard of the destruction

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that had befallen his wife, afflicted with grief and sorrow, he wailed piteously. / Knowing himself to be a sinner thoroughly defiled by the murder of a woman,

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by the instruction of brahmins he then became intent on pilgrimage; / having performed her funeral rites with only minimal retinue, / he went first to Vārāṇasī and there gave abundant gifts

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at Kapālamocana sacred ford, which destroys all sins, / where the Three-Eyed One was formerly freed indeed from [the sin of] killing a brahmin.

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That second shadow of his did not disappear there, O lord of the earth; / then he reached Kanakhala, which is very holy and confers purity upon mortals;

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likewise the forest of Puṣkara, and from there Amarakaṇṭaka; / then, O king, that best of kings reached Kurukṣetra,

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Prabhāsa, and Somatīrtha; and then in Kṛmi-jāṅgala, / Ekahaṃsa; then, O king, holy Pāriplava;

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Rudrakoṭi, Virūpākṣa, and then Pañcanada, O king. / Wandering about these and other sacred fords and holy shrines, / O protector of the earth, the king became exhausted.

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Then, at the end of a thousand years, he arrived at Mount Arbuda; / there the lord of men saw sacred fords and shrines,

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various hosts of ascetics, and brahmins who had mastered the Vedas; / he gave abundant gifts spontaneously to the brahmins.

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And on that very mountain he reached the sacred ford Raktānubandha; / having bathed there, as soon as the ruler of the earth came out and looked,

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so soon that second shadow arising from the killing of a woman was seen no more; / all his limbs attained lightness, O lord of the earth,

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the foul smell vanished, and a supreme increase of radiance occurred. / Then, having become joyful at heart and given copious gifts, / being praised in the four directions by bards, he set out for home.

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Then, O king, as soon as the best of kings crossed the boundary / of Raktānubandha,

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so soon that second shadow was seen on his body again, O best of kings; / that very same smell was on his limbs, and that loss of radiance, O king.

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Then, burning with distress, he went back to that very place that moment; / having arrived back at Raktabandha, he became free from sin once again.

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Knowing the supreme māhātmya of the sacred ford, that best of kings / fetched firewood there, built a funeral pyre, O king, / gave gifts to the foremost twice-born, and entered the fire.

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Then, having abandoned his bodily frame and ascended an aerial chariot, / wearing divine garlands and garments, he went to the world of Śiva.

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When that best of kings had arrived in the world of Śiva, / the divine seers then spoke this utterance in great wonder:

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'This is indeed the supreme purifier, a sacred ford higher than [all other] sacred fords; / for from this contact with the sacred ford Indrasena was freed from sin.'

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From that time forth, that sacred ford became renowned on the surface of the earth; / because it binds attached living beings,

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therefore it is proclaimed on earth as Raktānubandha. / O king, one who, having gratified the gods there, performs a funeral offering,

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The man who bathes there at the transit of the sun, / endowed with supreme faith, is freed from the sin of killing a brahmin.

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When a man offers an ancestral rite there or in Gayā, the sacred field of the ancestors, / great seers say the fruit is equal to an ancestral rite at Gayā.

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Or on an eclipse of the moon or the sun, O best of kings, / the man who gives a cow there delivers seven generations.

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Thus ends the thirty-first chapter, entitled “Description of the Greatness of Raktānubandha,” in the Arbuda Section, the third part of the Prabhāsa Section, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit