History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.202

v5.c71.s1.202

*Tīrthayātrā* :—Pilgrimage will be dealt with exhaustively in a later section. It was believed that going on a pilgrimage and bathing in such holy rivers as the Ganges freed a man from sins. Viṣṇu Dh. S. (35.6) lays down that those guilty of *mahāpātakas* may become pure by Aśvamedha sacrifice or by visiting all the sacred places on the earth. Devala says that a man removes the consequences of such grave sins as the murder of a brāhmaṇa that he may have committed unintentionally by the performance of great sacrifices or by going on a pilgrimage. Parāśara (XII. 58 ff) prescribes¹³⁴ pilgrimage to see Rāma's bridge to Laṅkā for a murderer of a brāhmaṇa who has studied the four Vedas. Devala states: 'a man becomes freed from sin by approaching holy places and shrines, brāhmaṇas that practise austerities, that all rivers that fall into the ocean, all great mountains, all shrines and all forests are holy.' The Matsyapurāṇa (184 18) says that a heap of sins as big as the mountain Meru or Mandara becomes destroyed when man reaches Avimukta (Benares). The Kūrmapurāna¹³⁵ (pūrvārdha 29.3) says 'I do not see any other expiation for destroying all sins in the Kaliyuga for all beings except Benares'. Even in the times of the Peshwas of Poona pilgrimage was prescribed for brāhmaṇa murder (vide 'Selections from Peshwa Records,' vol. 43 p. 107) and the brāhmaṇas were ordered that after the sinner performed the penance they were to dine with him and recognize that he had been purified In an order dated śake 1659 (1737 AD) the Peshwa Bajirao the first informs the Deshmukhas, Deshpandes and Mukadams that four brothers named Zende approached him with the story that their father was born when their paternal grandmother lived with one Pilaji Zende after she became a widow and that she intended to remarry that man but that had to be postponed owing to famine, that the caste meeting were prepared to take them into the caste and hold them pure if a Government order was issued Then the Peshwa issued an order that they should go to Tulapur on the banks of the Bhīmā river and that they and their male progeny together with their wives should be restored back to the caste and complete association with them as to taking food and marriage be carried on with them from generation to generation.¹³⁶ The Pr. Prakāśa quotes a verse from the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa about the penance for brāhmaṇa murder to the effect that for him who dwells to the north of the Vindhya mountain Parāśara prescribes the sight of Setubandha as a penance and then remarks that a man from the north of Vindhya has to travel 360 yojanas to reach Setubandha and that since 360 Prājāpatya penances are declared to be enough to remove the sin of brahmahatyā, it impliedly follows that each yojana towards a tīrtha is equal to one Prājāpatya. The Smṛtyarthasāra (pp. 149-150) quotes several verses from the Purāṇas stating that gods like Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, great sages like Bhṛgu, Vasiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra, great kings like Hariścandra, Nala, Sagara obtained greatness by means of tīrthas and that Pāṇḍavas, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Nārada, Vyāsa and other sages engaged in pilgrimages for securing kingdoms and for removal of evil fortune. This subject of *tīrthas* will be dealt with at length in a separate section.