Pañcagavya
Pañcagavya · pañca-gavya, “the five things from the cow”
Grammar: neuter noun; a compound of pañca (five) and gavya (what comes from the cow): “the five things from the cow”.
Meaning: the mixture of the five products of the cow: milk, curd, ghee, cow-dung and cow’s urine, used to bathe the deity in abhisheka and to purify.
In the scriptures: in the Kālāshṭamī vrata, in the month Phālguna, one fasts according to rule on the kṛshṇa ashṭamī, and the next day bathes Bhagavān Śiva with pañcagavya, which the text explains as cow’s milk, curd, ghee, cow-dung and cow’s urine. One worships him with jasmine flowers, offers dhūpa of sandal, makes naivedya of rice cooked with ghee and jaggery in a copper vessel, and gives it with two cloths as dakshiṇā to a brāhmaṇa, uttering the name of Rudra (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 17).
When the devas went with Janārdana and Indra to Mount Mandara, they could not see Bhagavān Śiva seated before them. Bhagavān Vishṇu told them that they had lost their sight for the garbha-havana of Bhavānī (the offering of her unborn child into the fire), and gave them the way out: purify the body by the taptakṛcchra vrata, then bathe Mahādeva with a hundred and fifty pots of milk, sixty-four of curd, thirty-two of ghee, sixteen of pañcagavya and eight of honey, and last with pure water in twice as many pots as all of these. With rocana smeared on him a hundred and eight times, with flowers, dhūpa and the japa of the Śatarudrīya, their pāpa would go and Bhagavān Śiva would give back their sight (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 36).
Related terms: Abhisheka · Go · Kālāshṭamī · Taptakṛcchra · Rocana
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 17, 36