Revākhaṇḍa ascribed to the Vāyupurāṇa (RKV) 178

English (machine translation) 178

Language: English

178.35 — 2 parts

178.1

Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then one should go, O king of kings, to the excellent Gaṅgāvāhaka, / of great religious merit, upon the Narmadā, near Bhṛgutīrtha.

178.2

There the Gaṅgā of great religious merit performed extensive ascetic austerities / of old for fully a hundred years, undertaking a supreme vow,

178.3

having meditated upon the taintless Nārāyaṇa, the god who is the source of the world, / the Self, the supreme abode, that river [did so], O lord of the earth.

178.5

Viṣṇu said: / "I am pleased with your ascetic austerity, O you born from my lotus feet; / what do you desire from me, O goddess? Speak, what may I do for you?"

178.6

Gaṅgā said: / "O Lord, fallen from your lotus feet, wandering as an attendant, / praising [others] as I pleased, O lord of the three worlds, worshipped by the heaven-dwellers,

178.7

the king Bhagīratha then, having performed very difficult ascetic austerity / and having propitiated Śaṅkara, the lord of the universe who brings happiness to the world,

178.8

brought me down indeed to the earth, O bearer of the earth; / by me indeed, by the command of you two, the descent was made to the earth.

178.9

Thinking of me as 'the Vaiṣṇava river', every person has bathed in me— / those who are slayers of brahmins in the world, and those who violate their guru's bed,

178.10

those who abandon their parents, and men who steal gold, / men who kill cows in the world, as well as those who harm living beings,

178.11

those who approach forbidden women, and eaters of uneatable food, / those who speak falsehoods, and those who betray trust,

178.12

the base men who steal the wealth of gods and brahmins, / and men who speak ill of gods, brahmins, gurus, and women,

178.13

the twice-born who are burned by a brahmin's curse, and those who commit suicide, / those who have fallen away from fasting, renunciation, and observed vows,

178.14

likewise drinkers of what must not be drunk, and those who revile their own gurus, / those who hinder gifts, and those averse to giving to a worthy recipient,

178.15

those who disregard the fertile seasons of their wives, who have no affection for their parents, / and whoever has no compassion for relatives and the afflicted,

178.16

and the breaker of field dams, the destroyer of an ancient path, / the atheist, one devoid of scripture, and the brahmin devoid of the twilight ritual,

178.17

one who eats without offering oblations, the discontented, one who eats everything, one who sells everything, / the miserly, atheists, cruel ones, and ungrateful twice-born,

178.18

the slanderers, sellers of liquids, those rejected at all times, / and the base twice-born who enjoy women of their own clan or another's clan—

178.19

they, reaching me, are freed from their thoroughly accumulated masses of sin; / burning with the alkaline filth of their sins, no comfort is found by me.

178.20

Act in such a way, O lord of the universe, that I may attain comfort." / Spoken to in this manner, the lord of gods, pleased, spoke to Jāhnavī:

178.21

Viṣṇu said: / "I shall dwell here accompanied by the bearer of the Gaṅgā [Śiva]; / you, in your bodily form, enter the Revā permanently right here.

178.22

Reaching the soles of my feet, flow, O river of the three paths; / when, at the time of abundant water, the Narmadā is filled with waters,

178.23

having reached the rainy season, she will be flooded with water, / having flooded both banks, the goddess, reaching me situated in the north,

178.24

when she will inundate with water the conch held in my hand, / then a sacred time called the Vaiṣṇava festival, endowed with a hundred occasions,

178.25

nothing is equal to it, whether vyatīpāta or planetary transition; / nor are the two solstices so meritorious, as it is more meritorious than the meritorious.

178.26

At that festival, O ruler of gods, having touched the conch, a man / performs a sacred bath in the mixed waters of the Gaṅgā and the Narmadā."

178.27

It is the religious merit of all religious merits, and the blessing among blessings. / Because it was held by Viṣṇu, peace proceeded from it.

178.28

A mortal surely reaches the end of their heap of sins there. / Having bathed at Śaṅkhoddhāra, a man should offer libations to the ancestors and gods.

178.29

They remain satisfied for twelve years, and [he attains] the fulfillment of all desires. / Whoever offers an ancestral rite at Śaṅkhoddhāra in the Gaṅgāvaha,

178.30

The ancestors dance through that offering of funeral cakes. / Having bathed at Śaṅkhoddhāra, a man should worship Balarāma and Keśava.

178.31

Keeping a vigil at night, he becomes purified, O Jāhnavī. / Whatever action committed by people on earth you consider unbearable,

178.32

Having bathed there on that auspicious festival day, dispel all of that! / Having spoken thus, O best of men, Viṣṇu vanished.

178.33

From then on, that supreme pilgrimage place, Gaṅgāvāhaka, / [has been honored] by sages headed by Brahmā, dear one, who arrived in succession.

178.34

Whoever bathes in that pilgrimage place with devotion, O Bhārata, / has bathed in all the pilgrimage places of the Gaṅgā, without doubt.

178.35

For those men of purified self who die in that pilgrimage place, / their state never turns back from the world of Viṣṇu.

Thus ends the one hundred seventy-eighth chapter, named 'The Description of the Glorification of the Gaṅgāvahaka Pilgrimage Place', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skandapurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.

178.35.p2

RKV Chapter 179

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Revākhaṇḍa (Vāyupurāṇa) — Sanskrit