Revākhaṇḍa ascribed to the Vāyupurāṇa (RKV) 92

English (machine translation) 92

Language: English

92.30 — 2 parts

92.1

Glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, O king of kings, one should go to Yamahāsya, which has no superior, / a pilgrimage place that takes away all sins, situated on the bank of the Narmadā.

92.2

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

92.3

Glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Excellent, excellent, O greatly wise one, son of a king, since you have asked me! / Long ago, your father came to the meritorious Narmadā for a bath.

92.4

Just as a garment washed by a washerman becomes spotless, / so did Dharmarāja become spotless, O Yudhiṣṭhira.

92.5

Beholding his spotless body, astonished, he laughed and said:

92.6

Yama said: / 'How do men laden with sins come to my city, / [when] by a single bath in the Revā the station of Viṣṇu is attained?

92.7

Those who, being capable, do not behold the Revā of auspicious water and holy nature, / should be regarded as equal to those born blind, or to the dead, or to cripples.

92.8

Those who, being capable, do not behold the river Revā of holy water—' / For this reason, O king, the ruler of the world laughed.

92.9

Having installed a god there, Yama went to heaven indeed. / At Yamahāseśvara, O king, having conquered anger and subdued the senses,

92.10

and especially having fasted with supreme devotion on the fourteenth day / of the dark fortnight in the month of Āśvina, one is freed from all sins.

92.11

One should keep vigil at night and kindle a lamp for the god / with ghee, O king of kings; hear the fruit that exists there:

92.12

He is freed from all sins arising from approaching women not to be approached, / born from eating food not to be eaten, and also arising from drinking what is not to be drunk.

92.13

Whatever [sin] there may be from riding beasts that should not be ridden, or from milking that which should not be milked, / by merely taking a bath, his sins vanish in many ways.

92.14

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

92.15

Everything given at Yamahāsya is imperishable, there is no doubt. / He who, having subdued his anger, worships the twice-born on the new moon day

92.16

by gifts of gold and land, by abundant gifts of sesame seeds, / by the donation of a black antelope skin, by the donation of a sesame-cow;

92.17

who with devotion will give to an eminent twice-born prescribed by ritual / a horse or an elephant, or two draught animals joined to a plow;

92.18

who give a maiden, the earth, a cow, or a milch-buffalo, / O best of kings, they do not approach Yama.

92.19

Even Yama becomes pleased life after life, O Yudhiṣṭhira: / Yama's mount is the buffalo, and female buffaloes are his mothers.

92.20

Through the power of giving them, Yama will surely be pleased. / Even if covered with sins, he does not meet Yama.

92.21

For this reason, the gift of a female buffalo is best here. / Water should be placed on her horn; she should be wrapped in smoke-colored cloth;

92.22

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

92.23

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

92.24

in the north one should give gold, and in the north-east ghee indeed. / One should give, saying: 'May the king Yama be pleased with me!'

92.25

Having spoken thus in front of the twice-born: 'The terrifying world of Yama, / the frightful sword-leaved forest, the very dreadful hearth of Yama,

92.26

the fierce Vaitaraṇī, and the frightening Kumbhīpāka, / the terribly grim Kālasūtra, and the twin mountains of Yama,

92.27

the saw, the oil press, and the very dreadful dogs and vultures, / the breathless ones, the great roarings, the Bhairava, and the Raurava—

92.28

these dreadful things are heard of in the world of Yama, O best of the twice-born. / By your grace they become gentle, through the power of this pilgrimage place.

92.29

Through the power of this gift, by the grace of the king Yama, / I shall not go to hell, O twice-born, in birth after birth.'

92.30

And those men who hear this narrative of Yamahāsya, / freed from sin, they too do not see the abode of Yama.

|| Thus ends the ninety-second chapter, named 'Description of the Glorification of Yamahāsyatīrtha', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand [verses].

92.30.p2

RKV Chapter 93

Linked texts (1)

Revākhaṇḍa (Vāyupurāṇa) — Sanskrit