Skandapurana 2.2.43
English (machine translation) 2.2.43
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2.2.43.1
Jaimini said:
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In the month of Phālguna, one should perform the supreme swing festival,
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Where Govinda sports indeed for the sake of bestowing grace upon the world.
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One should make a secondary image of the God of Gods named Govinda;
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In front of the temple, one should make an elevated sixteen-pillared
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Square pavilion with four doors, furnished with an altar platform,
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With a beautiful canopy, adorned with garlands, chowries, and banners,
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And an auspicious seat upon the altar platform, made of śrīparṇī wood.
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One should celebrate the Phalgūtsava for five days or three days.
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Prior to the full moon day of Phālguna, O brahmins, on the fourteenth day at nightfall,
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One should celebrate the fire festival to the east of the swing pavilion.
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That is proclaimed as a constituent rite of the pilgrimage favoured by Govinda.
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Having chosen the preceptor, with fire produced from friction,
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Having prepared the ground according to the prescribed rules, [he should gather] a very high heap of straw;
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and having made it completely level, he should place the fire therein.
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Having worshipped according to the rite, he should offer oblations with the Kūṣmāṇḍa rites;
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and having worshipped Govinda, he should circumambulate that all-pervading Lord.
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He should diligently protect that fire as long as the festival lasts.
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In the morning watch on the fourteenth lunar day, [taking] the auspicious image of Govinda,
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and seating it before Hari, he should worship Puruṣottama.
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With the remaining offerings of worship, he should also worship the secondary image.
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Then, having taken down the garment and garland, O best of brahmins,
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the master of mantras, contemplating the supreme light, should deposit [it] into the image.
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Then that image directly becomes Puruṣottama [himself].
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He should convey it indeed to the pavilion for bathing on a palanquin of jewels,
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amidst various sounds of musical instruments preceded by the sounding of conches,
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with shouts of victory, as well as hymns of praise, and showers of flowers,
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with umbrellas, flags, banners, chowries, and fans,
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and with continuous lamps, he should then conduct a great festival.
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At that time, the gods, headed by Brahmā,
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come along with the hosts of seers to witness the great festival of Govinda.
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Having established [the deity] upon an auspicious seat, he should worship [him] with articles of homage;
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he should perform his ceremonial bath according to the rule of the great bath,
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with all the five nectars, or with any one of them.
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At the conclusion of the bath, he should consecrate [him] with fragrant water according to the Śrīsūkta.
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Having sprinkled the god, he should adorn him with garments, ornaments, and garlands;
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having waved lights before him and worshipped him, he should carry him around the temple.
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Seven times then he should lead the god to the swing-pavilion,
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along the highway well-adorned with banners, ornamental arches, and the like;
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in the lower area he should move that pavilion around seven times;
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in the upper area seven times, and on the pillared altar indeed seven times;
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and at the end of the festival he should move it around twenty-one times.
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This pastime of the Blessed Lord, declared from the mouth of Brahmā,
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was performed long ago indeed by the royal sage Indradyumna.
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In a delightful spot in Vṛndāvana, arranged with trees
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bowing down with fruits and flowers, buzzing with impassioned black bees,
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sweet with the cooing of cuckoos, crowded with diverse flocks of birds,
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fashioned with manifold adornments, perfumed with various aloes,
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its quarters scented with the fragrance of clumps of blooming screw-pine,
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adorned with jasmine, aśoka, punnāga, and campaka trees;
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in the pavilion erected inside that forest, having attractive ornamental arches,
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decorated with garlands and garments, beautified with chowries;
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upon a swing-bed of jewels, in the midst of it, he should seat the Lord,
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wearing a diadem of fine gems, his chest adorned with a necklace of pearls,
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his ears illuminated by earrings fashioned of priceless gems,
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charming with divine ornaments properly placed and appropriately radiant,
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seated in the centre of a blooming lotus, accompanied by Śrī, the bearer of the universe,
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bearing the conch, discus, mace, and lotus, wearing a forest garland,
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very gracious, of handsome nose, radiant with a broad chest,
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praised with shouts of victory, with hands folded in devotion,
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with bowed heads, by the gods headed by Brahmā standing in the sky before him,
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by gandharvas, apsarases, kinnaras, siddhas, and cāraṇas,
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by Hāhā, Hūhū, and other divine singers, swiftly
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performing dances, songs, and instrumental music, vying with each other,
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and worshipped with delight by thousands of lotus-eyes,
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who scatter in all directions the powder born of fragrant sandalwood.
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Having thus seated Govinda, he should worship him with articles of homage,
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meditating on the Lord of the world stationed in the midst of a troop of cowherd women, at the foot of a kadamba tree,
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sporting with gestures, laughter, and amorous dalliance in the forest,
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mounted upon a vehicle swung in playful sport by the gopīs and cowherds;
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and he should scatter fragrant powders,
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with camphor, red, yellow, and white, all around in every direction,
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along with divine garments, divine garlands, divine fragrances, and fine incenses.
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worshipped with the waving of chowries, songs, and hymns of praise.
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One should gently swing [the deity] seated on the swing seven times.
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Those who see Kṛṣṇa at that moment attain liberation; of this there is no doubt.
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The destruction of the group of five sins, beginning with the murder of a brahmin, shall take place.
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Thus one should swing the God three times, he who removes all sins,
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who shows grace to men through devotion, the sole cause of worldly enjoyment and liberation,
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whose sportive activities, both artificial and natural,
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destroy the multitude of sins and dispel primal ignorance.
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Seeing him a second time destroys minor sins such as cow-slaughter;
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at the third time, it destroys all sins without remainder; of this there is no doubt.
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Having seen the God swinging, one is freed from all sins;
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one is released from [sufferings] that are spiritual, material, and supernatural.
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Having caused this festival to be performed, a king becomes a universal emperor;
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a brahmin certainly becomes a master of the four Vedas and endowed with wisdom.
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Thus ends the forty-third chapter, named 'Mounting the Swing', in the Puruṣottamakṣetra-māhātmya in the second Vaiṣṇava section of the venerable Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].
Linked texts (1)
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit