Vidura and the Purāṇa Śravaṇa

Vidura was a brahmin of the village of Bāshkala who lived without dharma. His wife heard a Purāṇa at Gokarṇa, turned her life around and reached Śivaloka. From there she asked Devī Pārvatī to free her husband, who had become a piśāca (a ghostly being) in the Vindhya forest. This is the closing account of the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa part that teaches the greatness of hearing the Purāṇas (Purāṇa śravaṇa).

The village of Bāshkala

In the Dakshiṇāpatha (the southern region) there was a village named Bāshkala, where all dharmic conduct had collapsed. The people lived without brahmacarya (discipline) and without svādhyāya (study of the scriptures). They were violent, crooked, tied to kāma (desire), and without jñāna (knowledge) or vairāgya (detachment). The women were given to wrong conduct, with no wish for pativratā (faithfulness to a husband) or sadācāra (good conduct).

A brahmin named Vidura lived in this village. He was a fallen brahmin (brāhmaṇādhama) who could not stay away from a prostitute. Though he had a wife, he spent every night at the house of the veśyā (prostitute). When his wife said she needed his company, he proposed a degraded plan. She should receive men for payment and give him the money, and he would spend it at the prostitute’s house. She agreed.

Husband and wife both lived in complete moral ruin. In time Vidura died. He had lived without tapas (austerity), without dāna (giving) and without Śiva pūjā.

Vidura’s wife hears the Purāṇa at Gokarṇa

After her husband’s death, his wife went on with her way of life for some time. Then, by daiva-yoga (the working of fate), a holy season came. Moved by a pull she could not explain, she joined her relatives on a pilgrimage to Gokarṇa. She bathed in the sacred tīrtha and then went into a temple where a learned brahmin was telling a Purāṇa.

As he spoke, the kathā-vaktā (speaker of the kathā) described the naraka that waits for those who live by jāra-vṛtti (adultery and prostitution). He told how Yama’s messengers would force a red-hot iron rod (lohita-parigha) into the bodies of such women, in their own chamber of naraka.

The woman was struck as if by thunder. Her body shook again and again, and fear took hold of her. After the session she went to the brahmin. Weeping and bowing to the ground, she confessed:

“O brahmin! I have lived in this pāpa without knowing. Now hearing this I am terrified. My body shakes. I cannot eat. I cannot sleep. Who will protect me from this naraka? I have done pāpa without knowing the result. Now I have awakened. You are my father, mother, and guru. Save me.”

The brahmin said:

“You have heard the truth at the right moment by daiva grace. Paścāttāpa (genuine repentance) is the highest prāyaścitta. With paścāttāpa, the wise person performs the actual prāyaścitta prescribed by śāstra and is purified.”

He added:

“It is Satkathā-śravaṇa itself that gave you this paścāttāpa. Satkathā is always the source of the highest gati.”

Here prāyaścitta is an act of atonement, satkathā-śravaṇa is hearing the true kathā, and gati is the final goal.

Her change of life

With the brahmin’s guidance, Vidura’s wife stayed at Gokarṇa. She did all the prāyaścittas that the śāstra (scripture) lays down. Day by day the brahmin told Śiva kathā: the glory of Bhagavān Śiva, his devotees, and the nature of ātman and moksha, with vairāgya woven into every talk. As she listened day after day, the rajas and tamas (restlessness and dullness) in her mind slowly melted away. Her outer impurity fell off and her inner purity came forward.

She began to bathe daily at the tīrtha, put vibhūti (sacred ash) on all her limbs, and wear a rudrāksha-mālā (a garland of Rudrāksha beads). She ate little (mita-āhāra), sat in padmāsana (lotus pose), kept her speech in check, and listened to Śiva kathā with full attention. She served her teacher (guru-śuśrūshā) without a break.

Her meditation on Bhagavān Śiva grew deeper. It moved from effort to absorption, and from absorption to a constant presence. A mantra rose by itself from her heart:

“Viśveśa, prapaṃca-laya-sthiti-janma-kāraṇa, śiva, śāśvata, viśvarūpa, kālātīta — namassu.”

It means: O Viśveśa, the cause of the birth, the standing and the dissolution of the world; O Śiva, the eternal one, whose form is the whole world, who is beyond time, I bow to you.

Little by little, her gross and subtle impurities were used up. Her heart became fully clear, and her mind (citta) rested without a break in the form of Viśveśvara. In time she left her body at Gokarṇa. The messengers of Bhagavān Śiva took her to Śivaloka.

At Śivaloka, her prayer for Vidura

At Śivaloka, Vidura’s wife was received in the presence of Bhagavān Śiva. Around him were Gaṇeśa, Nandī, Bhṛṅgi, Vīrabhadra and all the divine attendants, and Devī Umā was there. She was honoured and made a dweller of that everlasting loka (realm).

After some time she went to Umā Devī and asked:

“O Parameśvarī! My husband — what gati has he obtained?”

Devī Pārvatī answered:

“Your husband, of crooked mind, has suffered naraka torments and is now a piśāca in the Vindhya forest.”

The wife then asked how he could be freed. Devī Pārvatī said:

“If he ever hears my kathā — the mahāpuṇya account of our glories — he will cross this durgati and come here.”

Here mahāpuṇya means of great puṇya, and durgati is a bad state.

The wife bowed to Devī Pārvatī again and again and asked her to take charge of his liberation. Moved by her prayer, Pārvatī called the gandharva Tumburu and told him:

“Tumburu! Go with her to the Vindhya mountains. There is a piśāca — her husband, an evil mind. Recite to him our sacred parampuṇya kathā, filled with our guṇas. Liberate him from durgati and bring him here.”

Tumburu and the piśāca

Tumburu went with the woman to the Vindhya forest. There he found the piśāca. It had a huge body, red eyes and enormous jaws. It laughed and cried by turns and leaped like a horse. Tumburu seized the piśāca and bound it tight. Then he began to recite Śiva kathā, the glories of Gaurī’s husband, before it.

The piśāca, bound and unable to move, heard the Śiva kathā. Seven days of unbroken telling went by. On the seventh day, the pāpa that had made the piśāca birth was used up by the power of the kathā. The piśāca got back its smṛti (awareness and memory of past lives). It left the piśāca body, took a divine form, and at once began to sing the glories of Pārvatī’s husband, Bhagavān Śiva.

Tumburu placed the now divine being in a vimāna (flying chariot). Together with his wife, singing the glories of Mahādeva, Vidura reached the sanātana kaivalya-pada, the eternal abode of Bhagavān Śiva.

The Sūta’s closing words

The Sūta sums up the greatness of hearing the Purāṇas:

“Satkathā is the root of all śreyas. Without it, a person is no better than a paśu. How can one bound in saṃsāra ever become mukta without satkathā?”

Here śreyas is the highest good, paśu is an animal, saṃsāra is the cycle of birth and death, and mukta is one who is freed.

Sources

• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Dharmāraṇya Khaṇḍa, Uttarārdha, Chapter 22