Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya

Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, “the glory of the month of Vaiśākha”

The Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya is the account of the glory of Vaiśākha, the month when the Sun moves through Mesha (Aries). It is found in the Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, in twenty-five chapters. Vaiśākha is the month most dear to Bhagavān Madhusūdana (Vishṇu). The Vāmana Purāṇa makes Vaiśākha the first leaf of the twelve-leaved cakra of Keśava Vāsudeva, names its worship and its gifts, and tells how Ṛtadhvaja Maharshi asked Indra and the devas to dwell at the Sapta-Godāvarī tīrtha in this month.

The Māhātmya gives the whole dharma of the month: the holy bath, gifts (dāna), rules of food, the special tithis, and a long series of narratives of moksha (release) that show its power in the lives of kings, brāhmaṇas, piśācas and animals.

The frame of the narrative

The account is told in two frames. In the outer frame, Nārada visits King Ambarīsha, the great Vaishṇava bhakta, and tells him the glory of Vaiśākha in the form of the narrative of the ṛshi Śrutadeva.

In the inner frame, Śrutadeva of Mithilā tells the whole Vaiśākha Māhātmya to the king of Mithilā, Śrutakīrti, who is addressed as Maithileya.

At the end, Nārada closes the outer frame. Ambarīsha reaches moksha by hearing the whole narrative. Sūta Mahārshi presents the whole composition at Naimishāraṇya. (Chapters 1 and 25.)

The supremacy of Vaiśākha

Bhagavān Vishṇu himself declares why Vaiśākha is supreme. With Śrī Rāmā (Lakshmī) at his side, he surveys the whole world from the Sun’s entry into Mesha through its passage in Karkaṭaka (Mīna through Karkaṭa). He tests, and delights in, those who keep the dharma of the month.

The Māhātmya sets out these rewards:

  • A single holy bath in Vaiśākha at sunrise, before the Sun rises, gives puṇya (merit) equal to crores of baths at tīrthas. For six ghaṭikās after sunrise during the Sun’s passage through Mesha, all the devas of the tīrthas are present in any body of water.
  • Each step taken on the way to the bath gives puṇya equal to ten thousand aśvamedha yajñas.
  • The mere resolve to keep Vaiśākha Dharma, without any action, gives the puṇya of a hundred yajñas.
  • The puṇya of a single Vaiśākha bath lifts up twenty-one generations of ancestors and twenty-six generations of descendants.

The text gives this image. Just as butter is taken out of curds, so Bhagavān Vishṇu, who lives in the Milk Ocean, has taken out the dharma of Vaiśākha and told it to Ramā, wishing the welfare of all. (Chapters 1, 5 and 20.)

Dāna in Vaiśākha

The Māhātmya gives a carefully ranked order of gifts for Vaiśākha. The highest gift is pāna-dāna, the gift of drinking water. Free water booths (prapā) along the roads are the most fruitful act of dāna open to anyone. One who gives water freely to travellers outweighs, by that one gift, all other gifts together.

The gifts, in order:

  • Pāna-dāna (gift of water): the highest. All other gifts together cannot equal it.
  • Umbrella: protects the giver from all pāpa (sin). A mantra is prescribed for it.
  • Fan: cools travellers. It multiplies the phala of the Vaiśākha bath.
  • Footwear: lifts up the whole family. It makes even a hunter a ṛshi, as in the narrative of Vālmīki.
  • Cot, pillow, mat and blanket: given to the weary. Their phala is like that of a yajña.
  • Sandalpaste, camphor, flowers and betel: for coolness and fragrance.
  • Buttermilk with salt, curds and panaka (sweet drinks): given to the weary on the roads.
  • Ghee and rice: gifts that sustain.
  • Sugarcane stumps and a cucumber drink: given in the evening on the auspicious tithis.

(Chapters 2 to 4 and 20.)

Foods forbidden in Vaiśākha

The Māhātmya also gives a full list of foods that must not be eaten in the month. It includes bottle-gourd, garlic, carrot, eggplant, sesame-cake, Amaranthus, radish, Ficus religiosa and Aegle marmelos, among many others. Whoever eats them in Vaiśākha is born as a Cāṇḍāla and then in hundreds of animal births.

Special tithis of Vaiśākha

The Māhātmya names tithis of great sanctity within Vaiśākha.

Ekādaśī

A bath on this day gives the puṇya of a plunge in all tīrthas during crores of eclipses. Jāgaraṇa (staying awake for Bhagavān Hari) on the eleventh gives jīvanmukti (release while living). Worship with Tulasī leaves on Dvādaśī lifts up the whole family.

Akshaya Tṛtīyā

This is the Śukla Tṛtīyā. Bhagavān Vishṇu himself declared this day akshaya (without end): any good deed done on it gives lasting benefit. Bath, gift, śrāddha and worship on this day bring a reward that does not end.

Dvādaśī

This is the twelfth day of the bright half. A bath on Bhagavān Hari’s day gives the puṇya of giving a thousand cows during an eclipse on the banks of the Gaṅgā. Each lump of cooked rice given is equal to feeding a crore of brāhmaṇas. The narrative of Mālinī, told below, illustrates this.

Amāvāsyā of Caitra

This is the new-moon day when the Sun is in Mesha. It is declared equal to a crore of śrāddhas at Gayā. Even a śrāddha done with mere greens is greater than a crore of Gayā śrāddhas. A pot of sweet water scented with camphor must be offered on this day. One who fails to offer it becomes a killer of the pitṛs. The narrative of Dharmavarṇa, told below, illustrates this.

The Pushkariṇī tithis

The last three days of the month, Trayodaśī, Caturdaśī and Pūrṇimā, are together called Pushkariṇī. They are linked to the churning of the ocean (Samudra Manthana). Amṛta appeared on Ekādaśī. Bhagavān Vishṇu protected it on Dvādaśī, gave it to the devas on Trayodaśī, and killed the daityas on Caturdaśī. On Pūrṇimā the devas won back their rule.

One who cannot keep the whole month should keep at least these three days. During these three days all the tīrthas of the world give up the pāpa they have gathered. That pāpa falls on whoever does not bathe on these tithis.

(Chapters 22 to 25.)

Yama and Bhagavān Vishṇu

One of the most striking parts of the Māhātmya tells of King Kīrtimān of Kāśī. He enforced the Vaiśākha observance so fully across his kingdom that the narakas were completely emptied. Chitragupta’s scroll became blank and Yama was left helpless. Yama went to Brahmā, having given up his staff and scroll, and Brahmā appealed to Bhagavān Vishṇu.

Bhagavān Vishṇu’s answer is one of the best-known declarations of the Māhātmya. He says: “I will forsake Lakshmī, my vital airs, Śvetadvīpa, Vaikuṇṭha, Śesha and Garuḍa, but never my devotee who keeps Vaiśākha.” (Chapters 11 to 13.)

Narratives of moksha

The Māhātmya contains a long series of narratives of moksha. Each shows a different side of Vaiśākha Dharma.

  • Hemāṅga: King Hemāṅga of the Ikshvāku line went through eleven miserable births, three as Caṭaka birds, seven as dogs and one as a house-lizard. This was because he never gave water in Vaiśākha and thought it worthless. The water used to wash the feet of the ṛshi Śrutadeva fell on the lizard and gave it memory of its past.
  • Śrutadeva’s father: He was a learned brāhmaṇa who held back food from others. He became a piśāca who ate his own flesh. He was freed when Śrutadeva passed to him the puṇya of his Vaiśākha observance.
  • Hemakānta: A wicked prince killed three hundred brāhmaṇa disciples. He was freed at once from brahmahatyā (the pāpa of killing a brāhmaṇa) by one act: he shaded a muni with a Palāśa leaf in the midday heat of Vaiśākha. Vishvaksena appeared to raise him up.
  • The piśāca Chinnakarṇa: A disciple of Durvāsa walked out during the recital of Vishṇu-kathā. He spent over ten thousand divine years as the piśāca Chinnakarṇa. A fellow disciple freed him with the puṇya of one muhūrta of listening to Vaiśākha.
  • The Pāñcāla king: He had been a violent hunter in ten earlier births. Through keeping Vaiśākha, Bhagavān Vishṇu appeared on Garuḍa on Akshaya Tṛtīyā and gave the king ten thousand years and sāyujya (union with him).
  • Dantila and Kohala: The two sons of the ṛshi Mataṅga lived as a lion and an elephant because of a śāpa (curse). They were freed when a talk of the hunter with Śaṅkha about Vaiśākha reached their ears.
  • Stamba and Kāntimatī: Kāntimatī, the devoted wife of the brāhmaṇa Stamba, gave panaka to a muni in the heat of Vaiśākha. Stamba died thinking of a courtesan and was born again as a hunter. In the end this chain led to the birth of Vālmīki, in the Skanda Purāṇa‘s version.
  • Rocana and Vālmīki: A serpent named Rocana had been, in his earlier birth, a proud brāhmaṇa of Prayāga who disturbed Vaiśākha discourses. He was freed merely by hearing the Māhātmya from the mouth of Śaṅkha. Śaṅkha gave the hunter the Rāma mantra and foretold his birth as Vālmīki.
  • Dharmavarṇa and the pitṛs: The ancestors of the brāhmaṇa Dharmavarṇa hung by a blade of dūrvā grass over a pit in Pitṛ-loka. The mouse of Time was gnawing the grass. They begged for a son who would be a householder. Dharmavarṇa married, did the śrāddha on Caitra Amāvāsyā, and freed his whole line.
  • Mālinī: A woman who had done much pāpa suffered the tortures of naraka and a hundred births as a female dog. She was freed when the brāhmaṇa Padmabandhu passed to her the puṇya of his Dvādaśī. She was later born as Urvaśī.

(Chapters 6 and 7, 10 to 14, 15 to 17, 18 to 21, 22 and 24.)

Teachings on the cosmos

Chapter 19 keeps a Prāṇa-tattva section: the order of the cosmos, ending in Bhagavān Vishṇu. It is given within the dialogue with the hunter and Śaṅkha. The deva of wind (Prāṇa) is shown to be the highest among the devas by an example in which Prāṇa leaves the body and all its functions stop.

Chapter 20 gives the Bhāgavata Dharma teaching. It names three kinds of jīva: rājasa, tāmasa and sāttvika. It names three kinds of dharma: sāttvika, offered to Bhagavān Vishṇu; rājasa, offered to other devas; and tāmasa, offered to yakshas, rākshasas and piśācas. It defines a Bhāgavata. The section also covers the kinds of pralaya (dissolution), Mānava, Dainaṃdina and Brāhma, the length of Brahmā‘s kalpa, and the Catur-vyūha cycle of creation and dissolution.

(Chapters 19 and 20.)

The phalaśruti

Whoever listens to or reads this great account, which destroys pāpa and increases puṇya, reaches the highest goal. Moksha is within reach of those in whose house a manuscript of this book is kept.

Bhagavān Śiva himself told the greatness of Vaiśākha to Pārvatī on Kailāsa for a hundred years and still could not finish the subject. Even Brahmā is declared unable to describe its full glory in hundreds of years.

Ambarīsha, on hearing the whole narrative from Nārada, attained merging in the Supreme Brahman, who has no attributes. (Chapter 25.)

Per Vāmana Purāṇa

The Vāmana Purāṇa speaks of Vaiśākha in five places.

The first leaf of the dvādaśa-patraka yoga. In the cakra of twelve leaves of Keśava Vāsudeva, each leaf has a syllable, a place on the body, a rāśi and a month. The first leaf is the syllable Oṃ on the śikhā (the top-knot), with Mesha rāśi, and its month is Vaiśākha. For those who know this twelvefold form, the text says, there is no more death. (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 35)

Bhagavān Vishṇu as the months. When Bhagavān Vishṇu, after binding Bali, showed Brahmā his Viśvarūpa (universal form), Brahmā praised him as Time, shining in the form of the months Āśvayuja, Pushya, Māgha, Phālguna, Caitra and Vaiśākha, as well as Śrāvaṇa and Bhādrapada. (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 66)

In the Kālāshṭamī vrata to Bhagavān Śiva. In this year-long vrata, the worship of Vaiśākha is this: perform the abhisheka (sacred bath) with water scented with fragrant flowers, worship Bhagavān Śiva with clusters of sweet mango blossom, and offer dhūpa (incense) of the barks of milk-trees soaked in ghee, chanting “Kālaghna!” (slayer of Kāla). Offer naivedya (food offering) of ghee and fruits, and with it give the brāhmaṇa water-pots, sacred threads and food materials as dakshiṇā. (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 17)

The gift of the month. Prahlāda, teaching Bali the dānas that please Bhagavān Vishṇu month by month, says that in Vaiśākha one gives fragrant candana (sandal) and flower garlands; and in Jyeshṭha vessels filled with water, jaladhenus (water-vessels in the shape of a cow), palm-leaf fans, good sandal and vetiver root, which “should be given often to sādhus for the prīti (pleasure) of Trivikrama Deva.” (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 68)

Dwelling at Sapta-Godāvarī. At the Hāṭakeśvara kshetra, when the four marriages of Jābāli, Indradyumna, Śakuni and Suratha had been completed, with Gālava Muni as ṛtvij, Ṛtadhvaja Maharshi said to Indra and the devas: “It is best that all of you dwell in this holy Sapta-Godāvarī tīrtha, especially in this month of Vaiśākha.” They all agreed and did so. (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 39)

Sources

  • Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa, Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapters 1 to 25
  • Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 17, 35, 39, 66, 68