Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.3974

c9.3974

e) Conjugal fidelity of Arundhatī. The Saptarṣis (the seven hermits) once left Arundhatī alone in a forest and went to the Mountain Himālayas to gather fruits and roots. In those days, due to severe summer, the earth became a wilderness. So the hermits lived in the Himālayas. Arundhatī all alone did penance in the forest. On one day Śiva took the form of a Brahmin and going near Arundhatī requested her for alms. She replied: “There are only Ziziphus fruits here, and nothing else to eat.” The Brahmin asked her to boil them. She placed the pot of Ziziphus fruits on the oven and sat there hearing the good stories told by the Brahmin. Thus without thinking about her hunger or thirst she sat there for twelve years hearing the stories narrated by the Brahmin. When the hermits returned from Himālayas, Śiva assumed his original form and said, “Hermits! This woman, sitting in the hermitage, has acquired more penance than you have acquired in the Himālayas. Good woman! What boon do you want?” She requested that that place should be known as the holy place called ‘Badarapacana (cooking of Ziziphus fruits). Śiva allowed it. Even today that place is considered a holy place.