Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c7.533

c7.533

After some time Guṇanidhi and his wife lost all they had and gradually Guṇanidhi turned himself into a thief and drunkard. Nobody in the village liked the couple and all the villagers combined together and sent the couple away from the place. Guṇanidhi and Muktāvali went to the forests and there they started a life of looting the travellers. After some years of a sinful life Guṇanidhi one day died lying beneath a Rudrākṣa tree. Servants of both Yama and Śiva came to claim the soul of Guṇanidhi. The servants of Yama said that the right place of Guṇanidhi the sinner, was in hell but the servants of Śiva said that even if he was a great sinner his place was in heaven because he died lying beneath a Rudrākṣa tree. In the end the Śivadūtas won and took Guṇanidhi to heaven.