Skandapurana 6.3.92

English (machine translation) 6.3.92

Language: English

6.3.92.1

Glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, king of kings, one should go to the unsurpassed Yamahāsya, / A sacred ford that removes all sins, situated on the bank of the Narmadā.

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Yudhiṣṭhira said: / How did Yamahāsya come to be on earth, O best of twice-born? / Tell me all this, for great indeed is my curiosity.

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Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Well asked, well asked, O highly wise son of a king! / Formerly, your father came to the holy Narmadā for the sake of ritual ablution.

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Just as a cloth washed by a washerman becomes stainless, / so that Dharmarāja became stainless, O Yudhiṣṭhira.

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Seeing his stainless body, he said, laughing in astonishment:

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Yama said: / How can men burdened with sins come to my city? / By a single ritual ablution in the Revā, the state of Viṣṇu is attained.

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Those who, being capable, do not behold the auspicious Revā of holy waters, / are to be considered equal to those blind from birth, or to the dead and the crippled.

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Those who, being capable, do not behold the river Revā of holy waters— / for this reason, O King, the punisher of the world laughed.

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Having installed the deity Yamahāseśvara there, O King, / Yama, with anger conquered and senses controlled, went to heaven.

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Especially on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight in the month of Āśvina, / fasting with supreme devotion, one is freed from all sins.

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One should keep vigil at night and kindle a lamp for the deity / with ghee, O lord of kings. Hear the fruit that lies therein:

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He is freed from all sins born of approaching women who should not be approached, / born of eating food that should not be eaten, and arising from drinking what should not be drunk.

Whatever [sin] arises from riding an animal that should not be ridden, or from milking an animal that should not be milked, / by the mere ritual ablution of that person, thus do the sins depart in manifold ways.

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That man shall never behold the world of Yama. / This is the supreme secret of the ancestors on earth, O ruler of men.

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For those who give at Yamahāsya, everything is imperishable, there is no doubt. / The one who, with anger conquered, worships twice-born men on the new moon day,

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by giving gold and land, by giving an abundance of sesame seeds, / by bestowing a black antelope skin, and by giving a cow made of sesame seeds,

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and who with devotion give to an eminent twice-born described in the ordinances / a horse, or an elephant, or two [oxen] bearing a yoke together with a plough,

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a maiden, land, a cow, or a buffalo cow yielding milk— / those who give [these], O best of kings, do not approach Yama.

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Yama too becomes pleased in every birth, O Yudhiṣṭhira. / The mount of Yama is the buffalo, and female buffaloes are his mothers.

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By the power of giving them, Yama will surely be pleased. / He does not reach Yama even if covered with sins.

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For this reason, the gift of a female buffalo is supreme here. / Water should be placed on her horns, and she should be covered with a dark grey cloth.

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Her hooves should be made of iron, her back covered with copper, handsomely adorned. / [One should place] a heap of salt in the east, a heap of molasses in the south-east,

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cotton in the southern direction, and butter in the south-west; / the seven grains in the west, and husked rice is prescribed in the north-west.

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In the north he should give gold, and in the north-east, ghee; / saying, ‘May the king of death, Yama, be pleased with me,’ he should give [it].

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Having spoken thus before the twice-born: ‘The realm of Yama is full of great terror, / the forest of sword-leaved trees is terrible, Yama’s furnace is most dreadful,

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the fierce Vaitaraṇī, the fear-inspiring Kumbhīpāka, / the terrible Kālasūtra, and the twin mountains of Yama,

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the saw, the oil-press, the dogs, and the dreadful vultures, / the Nirucchvāsa, the Mahānāda, the Bhairava, and the Raurava—

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these dreadful things are heard of in the realm of Yama, O best of twice-born. / By your grace may they become gentle through the power of this sacred ford.

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By the power of this gift, by the grace of King Yama, / may I not go to hell, O twice-born, birth after birth.’

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Those men who listen to this narrative of Yamahāsya / are also freed from sin and do not behold the abode of Yama.

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Thus ends the ninety-second chapter, titled ‘Description of the Greatness of Yamahāsyatīrtha’, in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth section, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses, the glorious Skandapurāṇa.

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit