Revākhaṇḍa ascribed to the Vāyupurāṇa (RKV) 176

English (machine translation) 176

Language: English

176.33 — 2 parts

176.1

Glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then one should go, O king, to the excellent Piṅgalāvarta, / a pilgrimage place endowed with all virtues, granting desires, and hard to attain on earth.

176.2

Whatever vocal, mental, or bodily sin was committed in the past, / having reached Piṅgaleśvara, all of it dissolves away.

176.3

A bath and a gift made there at Devakhāta, O king, / all of that becomes imperishable; so said Śaṅkara.

176.4

Gathering auspicious water from all the pilgrimage places on earth, / it was released there by the gods after digging, and thus it became Devakhāta.

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / How did that Devakhāta come to be, O best of the twice-born? / How did all the gods release the water born of pilgrimage places there? / Tell me everything, O brāhmaṇa; my mind is eager to hear.

176.6

Glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / When Rudra, bearing a water-pot together with the hosts of gods, / wandered over the entire auspicious earth to purify his trident,

176.7

the gods then bathed at pilgrimage places beginning with Prabhāsa; / they placed the water gathered from all the pilgrimage places into a vessel.

176.8

Having reached Śūlabheda, the trident of the trident-bearer was purified; / taking the water that arose there, they arrived at Bhṛgukaccha.

176.9

There they saw Agni, tawny-eyed and diseased, / engaged in fierce ascetic penance, meditating upon Maheśvara.

176.10

Seeing Agni, the mouth of the gods, suffering from many diseases / caused by the sacrificial offerings of diseased brāhmaṇas and kings, / the gods together spoke to God Śaṅkara, the benefactor of the world.

176.11

The gods said: / Let grace be shown, O Śambhu, to diseased Piṅgala, / so that his body may again become free of pain and capable of receiving offerings; / make Piṅga so, O Maheśvara.

176.12

The Lord said: / O gods! I am indeed particularly pleased with your ascetic penance / and especially by your word; I grant the desired boon.

176.13

Piṅgala said: / If you are pleased, O Lord of gods, and what is desired is to be given, O God, / having made the sun and moon your eyes, you have remained here with a portion [of yourself].

176.14

O Śaṅkara, may my body indeed become renewed; / make it so, O Virūpākṣa, homage to you again and again!

176.15

Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then that venerable Śambhu, having assumed a form resembling the sun, / Śaṅkara dispelled that disease of his.

176.16

Then, having been made new again, he said once more to Śaṅkara: / Let Śambhu remain right here, and likewise Bhāskara himself,

176.17

for the benefit of living beings, for the appeasement of diseases, / for the destruction of sins, and for the increase of spiritual goods.

176.18

Having been addressed thus by the great-souled Piṅgala, the venerable Lord / made his descent and said this to the gods:

176.19

The Lord said: / Release the water, O gods, which was gathered from the pilgrimage places, / having made an auspicious, god-fashioned excavation to the north of me.

176.20

Let that divine water, which destroys all diseases / and takes away all sins, be cast there by all the gods and others.

176.21

Having been told thus, all the gods made an excavation to the north, / and the water born of pilgrimage places was released by the thirty-three groups of ten million.

176.22

All of them together, with Virūpākṣa at their head, proclaimed: / Whoever in this Devakhāta, after first applying clay,

176.23

bathes, and having bathed in the waters of the Narmadā on a Sunday, / performs a śrāddha for the ancestors and gives a gift according to one's means,

176.24

and worships Piṅgeśa, his dwelling shall be in heaven; / this has been spoken by the gods, and let the entire world hear it!

176.25

Diseases among mortals on earth, consumption, and scabies, / deformative ailments arising from cough, asthma, and fever,

176.26

fevers recurring every one, two, three, or four days, those arising from spirits, / and whatever other unnatural disorders, ringworm, and jaundice—

176.27

within seven days they perish through baths on Sunday. / And those leprosies divided into a hundred varieties of many kinds,

176.28

whoever bathes for one hundred and eight Sundays, / and having worshipped Śaṅkara, gives a vessel of sesame seeds to a twice-born,

176.29

his leprosies perish just as snakes are destroyed by Garuḍa. / Having spoken thus, all the thirty [gods] went to the abode of the thirty.

176.30

Mārkaṇḍeya said: / In rivers, god-excavated pools, ponds, and streams / one should always perform bathing; a man is freed from sins.

176.31

Whatever fruit is attained at sixty thousand pilgrimage places and sixty hundred pilgrimage places / in bathings and gifts, greater than that is obtained at Devakhāta.

176.32

Whoever, having bathed in the Devakhātas and gratified the ancestors, O king, / worships the supreme Piṅgaleśvara, the God of gods,

176.33

he attains the religious merit of both sacrifices, the horse sacrifice and the Vājapeya; / no doubt should be entertained in this matter.

176.33.p1

|| Thus ends the one hundred seventy-sixth chapter, named the description of the glorification of Piṅgaleśvara Pilgrimage Place, in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth Avantī section, in the Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses belonging to the glorious Skandapurāṇa

176.33.p2

RKV Chapter 177

Linked texts (1)

Revākhaṇḍa (Vāyupurāṇa) — Sanskrit