Skandapurana 4.40.41
English (machine translation) 4.40.41
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4.40.41.1
Skanda said: / The māhātmya of Avimukteśa has been described before you by me. / Now what do you wish to hear? I shall recount that again. // 1 // Agastya said: / Listening repeatedly to the māhātmya of Avimukteśa, both my ears / Have become exceedingly good at hearing; even so, I am not satiated. // 2 // Tell me, O Six-faced One, how may the attainment of these two / Be gained: the liṅga Avimukteśvara and the kṣetra Avimukta? // 3 // Skanda said: / Listen, O Pot-born one! I shall declare how attainment in this world may come to pass / Of this Avimukta, which bestows one's own highest good, O highly intelligent one! // 4 // The attainment of desired goals is obtained from a mass of merit; / And that merit, O vipra, arises from honoring the path of the Vedas. // 5 // From the contact of a man devoted to the path of the Vedas, O muni, [sins] perish; / Yet Kali and Kāla, finding a flaw, always seek to destroy him. // 6 // Through omitting what is prescribed by rule, and through performing what is forbidden, / Kali and Kāla indeed slay a brāhmaṇa upon seeing a flaw. // 7 // Therefore I will recount before you forbidden conduct; / Abandoning that from afar, a man will not become an inhabitant of hell. // 8 // Onions, village-pigs, śelu fruit, garlic, and gṛñjana carrots, / Cow's colostrum, taṇḍulīya greens, and mushrooms should always be avoided; // 9 // Red saps oozing from incisions, tree resins, pāyasa, apūpa cakes, śaṣkulī pastries, / Meat not offered to gods and ancestors, and milk from a cow whose calf is absent should be abandoned; // 10 // Milk from solid-hoofed animals is to be rejected, and likewise that of camels and sheep; / Curds should not be eaten at night, nor fresh butter by day; // 11 // The lapwing, the sparrow, the swan, the cakra bird, the plava, and the heron, / All carnivorous birds, the sārasa crane, the cock, and the parrot should be avoided; // 12 // Web-footed birds, wagtails, diving fish-eaters: / An eater of fish is an eater of all meat; therefore one must completely avoid fish. // 13 // But pāṭhīna and rohita fish are edible when appointed for rites to gods and ancestors; / And by meat-eaters, these may be eaten: hares, porcupines, and tortoises; // 14
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The hedgehog and monitor lizard are also praised, and [certain] known deer and birds; / By those desiring long life and heaven, meat is to be abandoned with great effort. // 15 // That killing of animals which is for the purpose of sacrifice leads to heaven, never any other; / One should avoid all stale food, except that which is saturated with unbroken fat. // 16 // At the risk of life, in a sacrifice, in a śrāddha, for medicine, or at the request of a vipra, / Eating meat in this manner without greed, one does not incur fault. // 17 // There is not such sin for one seeking a livelihood through hunting, / As that which occurs in the hereafter for one who indulges in meat out of greed. // 18 // Beasts, trees, deer, and medicinal plants were created by Brahmā for the sake of sacrifice; / A vipra who slaughters [them] is not a slayer, and their destiny too is auspicious. // 19 // For the sake of the ancestors, gods, and sacrifices, and also for the madhuparka offering: / In those cases, even killing is non-injury; elsewhere, the injury is exceedingly hard to cross over. // 20 // The fool weak in knowledge who harms living creatures for his own nourishment, / That person of wicked conduct has no happiness here nor anywhere in the next world. // 21 // The eater, the consenter, the cook, the buyer, the seller, the slaughterer, / The deliverer, and the cause of death—these eight are remembered as killers. // 22 // He who sacrifices every year with a horse-sacrifice for a hundred years, / And he who does not eat meat: of these two, the latter is superior. // 23 // Just as oneself, so another should be regarded by one desiring happiness; / Pleasures and pains are equal: as in oneself, so in another. // 24 // Whether happiness or whatever else is done to another, / All that which was done will indeed afterwards happen to oneself. // 25 // There is no wealth without trouble; for one devoid of wealth, whence rituals? / For one devoid of rituals, whence dharma? For one devoid of dharma, whence happiness? // 26 // Happiness is indeed desired by all, and that arises from dharma; / Therefore dharma must be performed here with effort by all four classes. // 27 // Transmundane rites should be performed with wealth acquired through righteous means; / And a gift should be given according to rule, at the proper time, to a worthy recipient, with sincerity. // 28
4.40.41.3
He who makes a gift contrary to the rules or to an unworthy recipient / does not merely lose that gift; the rest of his wealth also perishes.
What is given for times of distress, for one's family, or to clear a debt, / becomes inexhaustible both here and in the hereafter; of this there is no doubt.
He who has an orphan consecrated with the investiture of the sacred girdle, marriage, and other rites / through his own wealth, obtains unending welfare.
Such welfare is not attained through Agnihotra offerings, nor through sacrifices such as the Agniṣṭoma, / as the welfare attained by mortals when a single twice-born is settled.
That virtuous man who causes the hand of an orphan brahmin to be taken in marriage / attains happiness in this world and obtains inexhaustible heaven.
The maiden who sees her menstrual flow unmarried in her father's house— / her father is to be known as an embryo-killer, and that girl is considered a vṛṣalī.
He who out of delusion marries her becomes the husband of a vṛṣalī; / conversation with him, who is unfit to sit in the row [at a feast], must always be avoided.
Having ascertained the fault of both the maiden and the groom, / one should then arrange the alliance; otherwise the father incurs the fault.
Women are ever pure; they are not defiled by anything. / Month after month their menstrual flow removes their misdeeds.
Formerly women were enjoyed by the gods: by Soma, the Gandharvas, and Agni; / human men enjoy them later; therefore they are not defiled by anything.
Soma gave purity to women; the Purifier [Agni] gave universal sanctification; / the Gandharvas gave sweet speech; hence women are always pure.
Agni enjoys a maiden at the time of menstruation, the Moon at the appearance of body hair, / and the Gandharvas at the swelling of her breasts; therefore she should be given away prior to that.
One whose body hair is visible destroys her offspring; she whose youth has blossomed destroys her family; / she whose menstrual blood has appeared destroys her father; therefore one should avoid them.
Therefore, desiring the fruit of giving away a maiden, one should bestow her before pubic hair appears; / otherwise there is no fruit for the giver, and the recipient falls down [into hell].
Giving a maiden unenjoyed by Soma and the others, one obtains the fruit of the gift;
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giving one enjoyed by the gods, the giver does not go to heaven.
Beds, seats, vehicles, a corpse, a woman's mouth, kuśa grass, / and all sacrificial vessels—wise men hold that these are never defiled.
A calf is pure when the milk begins to flow, a bird when causing a fruit to fall, / women during sexual union, and a dog when catching deer.
Linked texts (1)
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit