The Rat Revives the Lamp
In the Tretā Yuga a rat went into a temple of Bhagavān Vishṇu to eat the ghee in a lamp. By chance, the flame burned brighter. This counted as a dīpa-dāna (gift of a lamp) to Bhagavān Vishṇu. His messengers took the rat’s jīva (living being) away from Yama’s servants and carried it to Vaikuṇṭha. This is told in Chapter 3 of the Brahma Khaṇḍa of the Padma Mahā Purāṇa.
The brāhmaṇa Vaikuṇṭha
In the Tretā Yuga there lived a pure brāhmaṇa named Vaikuṇṭha, who was devoted to Bhagavān Vishṇu. In the month of Kārtika he offered a ghee lamp before Bhagavān Vishṇu, and then went home.
The rat’s act
After the brāhmaṇa left, a rat came into the temple to eat the ghee burning in the lamp. As the rat began to eat the ghee, the flame blazed up brighter. The fire startled the rat, and it ran away in fear.
In that one moment the lamp burned more strongly because of what the rat did. This was a dīpa-dāna to Bhagavān Vishṇu, though the rat did not mean it. By the grace of Bhagavān Vishṇu, all the rat’s pāpa (sin) was destroyed at that instant. Soon after, a serpent bit the rat and it died.
Yama’s messengers and Vishṇu’s messengers
On Yama’s order, his messengers came with nooses and hammers to take the rat’s jīva to Yamaloka. They tied it with leather bands.
At that moment the messengers of Bhagavān Vishṇu arrived in the sky. Each had four arms and held a conch, a disc and a mace, and they rode on Garuḍa. They brought a golden aerial chariot, bright and fair, yoked to royal swans that moved as the one inside wished. They cut the nooses that bound the rat’s jīva. They said to Yama’s servants: “O fools, this is Vishṇu’s devotee. You have bound him in vain. O servants of Yama, go back if you desire to live.”
Yama’s messengers trembled. They joined their palms and asked: “By what power of puṇya (merit) are you taking this great pāpī (sinner) to Vishṇu’s city?”
Vishṇu’s messengers answered: “The rat revived the lamp in front of Vishṇu. For that act, we are taking it to Vishṇu’s abode. He who, even without any wish to do so, revives the lamp offered to Vishṇu, gives up the pāpa earned in crores of births and goes to Vishṇu’s abode.”
The ascent and the new birth
Yama’s messengers heard this and went back the way they had come. Vishṇu’s messengers placed the jīva in the divine chariot and took it to Vaikuṇṭha. It stayed near Bhagavān Vishṇu there for a hundred ages of Manu.
Then, by the grace of Bhagavān Vishṇu, the jīva was born in the human world as a princess. For a long time she enjoyed pleasures with her sons and grandsons. From that life, through service to Bhagavān Vishṇu, she again went up to the world of cows, Goloka.
The teaching
This account belongs to the Kārtika māhātmya, the glory of the month of Kārtika and of offering lamps to Bhagavān Vishṇu. The Brahma Khaṇḍa teaches that offering a ghee lamp to Bhagavān Vishṇu in Kārtika, even for a short time, earns the puṇya of a horse yajña. Even brightening Vishṇu’s lamp by chance, with no thought of devotion, is enough to free a jīva from all pāpa and carry it to Vaikuṇṭha. The puṇya of the lamp is greater than that of a thousand horse yajñas.
Sources
- Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 3