History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.23
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.23
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v5.c74.23.1
25. 10 for the first Sārasvata-sattra, 25. 11 for the 2nd and 25.12 for the third. The land between Vinaśana and Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa (which was the source of the Sarasvatī) was the proper locality for Sārasvata `sattra. At the confluence of Sarasvatī and Dṛṣadvatī an *iṣṭi* to Apām Napāt was performed wherein boiled rice (*caru*) was the offering. From the place where the Sarasvatī disappeared up to Plakṣa-Prāsravaṇa the distance was a journey on horse-back for forty days and nights When the sacrificers (in the sattra) reach Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa they should stop the performance of the items of the sattra and undergo the Avabhṛtha bath near the river Yamunā (modern Jumna) which flows through the country called Kārapacava (and not in the Sarasvatī even if it had water) For details, vide Kātyāyana Śrautasūtra (10. 15-19) which mentions (in 10. 19. 1) a spot called Parīṇaḥ in Kurukṣetra where the Vedic fires were to be kindled, the Āśv. Ś. S 12 6 1-28 which adds that at the distance of each throw of the Śamyā from the Vinaśana one day is to be spent by the sacrificers, the Kātyāyana Śrauta-sūtra (24. 5-6) which states that the iṣṭi at the confluence of the Dṛṣadvatī and Sarasvatī is to be offered to Agni Kāma, Āp. Ś. S 23. 12-13 (which gives more details than any one of the other three sūtras) In the Ait. Br.
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a story is narrated that the sages performed a sattra on the Sarasvatī and Kavaṣa who was sitting amongst them was driven out by them as not a brāhmaṇa but the son of a female slave and left in a sandy desert with the idea that he would die of thirst, but he praised the waters or *Apām napāt* with the hymn, Ṛg. X. 30 ('pra devatrā brahmaṇe') called 'Aponaptriya' and Sarasvatī came rushing towards the place where Kavaṣa stood and surrounded it, which (spot) thenceforward came to be called¹²⁵⁴ 'Parisaraka'. This shows that in the times of the Ait. Br. and long before it the bed of the Sarasvatī was dry. Devala¹²⁵⁵ mentions several places as Sārasvata tīrthas. The Ṛgveda¹²⁵⁶ VIII. 6.28 appears to hold that the valleys of mountains and the confluences of rivers are sacred. Mountains have been held by most ancient peoples to be the abodes of gods. Mount Parnassus north of Delphi was one of the most holy mountains in classical Greece and Olympus was supposed to be the home of the gods. In the Ṛgveda Parvata is a dual deity with Indra 'O, Indra and Parvata! may you two sharpen (or purify) us (our intellects)' Ṛg I 122 3¹²⁵⁷; O, Indra and Parvata! May you two, being in the forefront of battle, kill with the thunderbolt every one who desires to attack us with an army' Ṛg. I. 132. 6. In Ṛg. VI. 49. 14 a prayer is addressed to Parvata separately 'May the god Ahirbudhnya, may Parvata and may Savitṛ bestow on us food together with the waters on account of our prayers'. In Ṛg III.
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33 1 the two great rivers Vipāś (modern Beas) and Śutudrī are described as issuing from the lap of mountains. Here the word 'Parvata' is used in its ordinary sense. The Atharvaveda¹²⁵⁸ speaks of a salve (āñjana) from Traikakuda peaks of the Himālaya mountain 'May that salve which comes off the Himālaya from Traikakuda (peaks) destroy all wizards and all witches'. The Hira. Gṛ. I. 3 11.5 (S. B. E. vol. 30 p. 168) also refers to this salve. Gaut., Baud Dh S. and Vas. Dh. S. have the same sūtra ¹²⁵⁹ stating that the '*deśas* (localities) that are holy and hence destroyers of sin are all mountains, all rivers, holy lakes, places of pilgrimage, the dwellings of sages (ṛṣis), cowpens and temples of the gods' The Vāyupurāṇa ¹²⁶⁰ and Kūrma state that all parts of the Himālaya are holy, the Ganges is holy everywhere, all rivers falling into the sea and all seas are holy. The Padmapurāṇa (Bhūmikhaṇḍa 39. 46-47) says that all rivers, whether flowing through a village or a forest, are holy and that where no name of a tīrtha on rivers is known it should be called Viṣṇutīrtha. Kālidāsa speaks of the Himālaya as *devatātmā* (as vivified by the presence of gods) in the Kumārasambhava (I. 1). The Bhāgavata V. 19.16 names 27 holy mountains while the Brahmāṇḍa (II. 16. 20-23) names thirty.
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The grandeur and sublimity of snow-capped mountains, of large life-sustaining rivers and of great forests easily impress the minds of almost all people and induce them to think that there is something divine about them, that the Supreme Being is partially revealed in such surroundings. In Protestant Europe and the U. S. A. hardly anyone performs a pilgrimage to a holy place in these days. Instead, they tour different countries for rest, health and in search of natural beauty and a respite from humdrum existence But pilgrimage to a place supposed to be holy for the curing of disease is not rare even now. When one reads a work like that of Louis Carell, a great surgeon and a winner of the Nobel prize, on the miracles worked at Lourdes in France (in 'a Journey to Lourdes') one sees that pilgrimage has taken on a new motive in the West. Similarly, pilgrimage to the tombs of unknown warriors has become common owing to the two world wars.