Skandapurana 3.2.28

English (machine translation) 3.2.28

Language: English

3.2.28.2

To the southwest of Govatsa, an iron staff is seen.

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There Rudra himself resides in the form of a self-manifest liṅga.

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At Mokṣatīrtha on the Sarasvatī, at the wane of the moon in the month of Bhādrapada,

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having worshipped brahmins according to the rules and given them a priestly gift, // 1

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the fruit of a funeral ball offered with devotion twenty-one times

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which mortals obtain at Gayā, is surely obtained here by offering a libation. // 2

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When a śrāddha is performed at the Iron Staff at the wane of the moon in Bhādrapada,

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the ancestors, released from existence as ghosts, sport in heaven. // 3

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[They say:] 'May there be born in our lineage one who offers water with sesame seeds,

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or a funeral ball, or even water during the ancestral fortnight when the moon is waning.' // 3

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On the new moon day in the month of Bhādrapada, a śrāddha should be performed by men

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at the Iron Staff, the sages declare, if ancestors are dear to them. // 5

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Having bathed in the water of Sarasvatī with milk and white sesame seeds,

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whoever offers libations to the ancestors, his ancestors are certainly satisfied. // 6

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There one should perform śrāddhas with roasted barley flour and milk,

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by those who desire liberation for the ancestors, on the new moon day. // 7

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Then at Rudratīrtha one should give a cow adorned with garments and other gifts;

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and at Viṣṇutīrtha one who desires liberation should give gold. // 8

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At Gayā, Janārdana is himself in the form of the ancestors;

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having meditated on the lotus-eyed one, a person is freed from the three debts. // 9

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Having gone there, he should pray to that god of gods, Janārdana:

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'I have come to Gayā, O God, desiring to give funeral balls to the ancestors.'

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"This rice ball is offered by me into your hand, O Janārdana.

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And you shall indeed be the giver to those who have gone to the other world."

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With this very mantra he should offer [it] there into the hand of Hari.

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When the moon has waned, on the fourteenth [day] in the month of Nabhasya, one should offer the rice ball;

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there will be imperishable satisfaction for the ancestors, no doubt.

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Through offering rice balls twenty-one times at Gayā,

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[and] with devotion through libations to ancestors at the Iron Staff, one attains satisfaction.

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The giver of water attains satisfaction and imperishable happiness here indeed;

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granting results, granting sons to devotees, granting health and fearlessness.

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Wealth acquired righteously, even a little given there, yields great fruit;

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and merely by a ritual ablution in that sacred ford, one becomes an attendant of Rudra.

Thus ends the twenty-eighth chapter, named 'Brief Description of the Greatness of the Sacred Ford,' in the Greatness of Dharmāraṇya, in the first part of the third Brahmakhaṇḍa of the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, in the collection of eighty-one thousand [verses].

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit