Skandapurana 2.9.23

English (machine translation) 2.9.23

Language: English

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Now, O sage, I will declare to you the rules for the forest hermit.

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The third stage of life is prescribed in the third portion of life's span. // 1

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If his wife is compliant in his personal service, dispassionate, and fond of austerity,

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then he should enter the forest together with her. // 2

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Otherwise, assigning her maintenance and protection to his sons and others,

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he should enter the forest alone, detached [from the world]. // 3

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He should dwell there fearless, taking delight in austerity, free from sloth;

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he should make a thatched hut for the sacrificial fire, but dwell outside himself. // 4

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He should practice the austerity of five fires in summer, dwell in water in the cold season,

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and endure downpours in the rainy season, with anger conquered and senses restrained. // 5

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He should wear garments made of grass, leaves, deer-skin, or bark.

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He should consume wild grains, or wild roots, fruits, and the like. // 6

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He may eat [food] cooked by fire, ripened by the sun, or even raw;

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moreover, in the absence of teeth, he [may eat food] pounded with a stone or mortar. // 7

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He should personally gather food according to the proper time day by day,

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or accept at that time [what is] brought by another, but never at any other time. // 8

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Even at the proper time, except in an emergency, he should not accept cultivated food;

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and with wild grains alone he should perform his fire rituals as before. // 9

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He should keep a water-pot, staff, and the equipment for the daily fire offering;

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he should wear his head hair, body hair, beard, and nails, and [keep] his teeth uncleaned. // 2.9.23.10

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He should bathe without massaging his limbs, and sleep on the bare ground.

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He should practice austerity according to the place, time, strength, and condition. // 11

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The Phenapas, the Audumbaras, and likewise the Vālakhilyas,

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and the Vaikhānasa—thus forest-dwellers are declared to be of four kinds. // 12

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According to his ability, for twelve years, or eight, or four in the forest,

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he should dwell, or for two, or even just one; then he should take refuge in renunciation. // 13

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If intense dispassion arises, then renunciation brings benefit;

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otherwise, the twice-born should live in that very forest for the rest of his life. // 14

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Having made renunciation according to rule, established in the fourth stage of life,

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he should wear a loincloth with a covering, and a single patched garment. // 15

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He should carry a staff, a water-pot, and a water-strainer;

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at the proper time he should beg alms in the house of a twice-born of good conduct. // 16

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An ascetic should not beg alms every day at the house of the same person;

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he must not become greedy for flavors, and should eat moderately, once [a day]. // 17

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A mendicant should mostly accept alms from one in the forest-dweller stage of life;

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for by that extremely pure food, his mind is certainly purified. // 18

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Even upon smelling meat or liquor, he should perform the Pārāka penance;

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he should be thoroughly pure in cleanliness and conduct, and must not touch Śūdras and others. // 19

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He should constantly worship Viṣṇu and eat what has been offered to Viṣṇu;

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he should recite the twelve-syllable or the eight-syllable mantra of Viṣṇu. // 2.9.23.20

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He should not engage in fallacious debate, nor narrate stories for the sake of a livelihood;

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he should not be attached to bad scriptures, nor pursue a worldly profession. // 21

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He should study good scriptures that examine bondage and liberation;

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he must not build monasteries and the like; he should abandon egoism and possessiveness. // 22

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Except during the four months of the rainy season, he should not dwell in one place when there is no calamity;

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and through knowledge he should truly understand the nature of the self and of Hari. // 23

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Desire, anger, fear, enmity, and the hoarding of money, grain, and the like—

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he must never cultivate; the ascetic should observe the restraints and the observances. // 24

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Even an ascetic endowed with intense knowledge and dispassion

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will surely fall through contact with women, wealth, ornaments, and fine clothes. // 25

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A renunciant should avoid fragrant substances such as flowers, sandalwood, and oils;

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otherwise, he will indeed come to identify the self with the body. // 26

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According to the amount of food one eats, lust for women enters him to that same degree;

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therefore, moderate and flavorless food is beneficial for a renunciant. // 27

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Worldly gossip must not be listened to by one desiring attainment of liberation,

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from hearing which men's relish for stories of Viṣṇu is instantly destroyed. // 28

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A renunciant should neither look at nor touch even a painted woman;

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merely from seeing the form of a woman, many ascetics have fallen. // 29

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The Kuṭīcaka, the Bahūdaka, the Haṃsa, and the Paramahaṃsa—

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thus the ascetic is declared to be of four kinds according to differences in dispassion. // 2.9.23.30

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Those ascetics of mine wearing ochre garments who will exist in the future

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must perform cooking and other duties for my sake, even while abiding in the fourth stage of life. // 31

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For those devotees of glorious Vāsudeva who possess intense dispassion,

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their duty is declared to be his service by day and by night. // 32

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For those who are abundant in knowledge and discernment, not even a single moment

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should pass in vain without the ninefold devotion to Viṣṇu. // 33

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Even if endowed with all virtues, if one is averse to the Lord,

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even if he is a relative, Vaiṣṇavas should certainly abandon him. // 34

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Food that has been offered to Hari and sprinkled with the water from his feet,

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mixed with tulasī, the Sātvata people should consume every day. // 35

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Association with women and with those attached to women

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must be completely avoided by those who contemplate Viṣṇu; otherwise, meditation will be [on them]. // 36

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Except for the Lord Vāsudeva alone, there is no other man

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at all who does not become infatuated upon seeing a woman. // 37

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A renunciant should never dwell where, by staying, hearing the voice

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and seeing women occurs repeatedly; by dwelling there, he would fall from his duty. // 38

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Lust, greed, enjoyment of tastes, affection, pride, and anger—

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these six faults that bring transmigration should be abandoned with effort. // 39

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Whosoever experiences a lapse from these prescribed duties,

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his expiation must be performed according to his capacity and according to scripture. // 2.9.23.40

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Thus, O Nārada, for the four classes and stages of life,

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and for the Vaiṣṇavas, the duties have been declared in brief by me to you. // 41

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The celibate student and the ascetic who abide in duty certainly go to the world of Brahmā.

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The forest-dweller reaches the world of the seers, and the householder attains heaven.

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Those people, however, who practice these [duties] with devotion to glorious Viṣṇu,

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all of them indeed, at the end of the body, reach the world of Viṣṇu.

Thus ends the twenty-third chapter, named 'Description of the Duties of Forest-dwellers and Renunciants,' in the glorious Vāsudevamāhātmya of the second [section], the Vaiṣṇavakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit