Puṇya
Puṇya, “merit”
Pāpa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Pāpa. Vimāna has other meanings too: see all meanings of Vimāna.
Grammar: neuter noun; as an adjective, puṇya means holy, auspicious, meritorious, as in puṇya-tīrtha and puṇyātmā.
Meaning: merit; the good fruit of dharmic karma, which brings happiness in this world and svarga after it. Its opposite is pāpa.
In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa:
The fruits of karma. Śuka, explaining to Parīkshit the image of the merchant band in the forest of saṃsāra, says that the band is the host of jīvas, who do karmas under the delusion that the body is the ātmā. The fruits of those karmas are of three kinds: puṇya, pāpa and miśra (mixed, puṇya and pāpa in equal shares). By the power of puṇya come the bodies of devatās, in which sattva predominates; by pāpa, bodies such as trees, in which tamas predominates; and by the mixed fruit, human bodies, in which rajas predominates, one birth after another. So the mahātmās say that on this road of saṃsāra karma of two kinds, puṇya and pāpa, is the birthplace of saṃsāra; and the jīva who has gained svarga by puṇya is born again in the world of men as soon as that puṇya is spent (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 14).
Puṇya and the births of the jīva. The Yamadūtas tell the Vishṇudūtas that to those who act with the pride of being the doer, sometimes puṇya comes and sometimes pāpa. As the past and the future are inferred from the present, so from the puṇya and pāpa of this birth those of past and coming births can be judged; and because of unseen puṇya and pāpa the jīva gets the gross and subtle bodies that have birth and death (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 1).
Ajāmila‘s former puṇya. Freed from the Yamadūtas, Ajāmila says that there must be some puṇya from before in him, for he has had darśana of the best of the devatās. “In me, the husband of a dāsī, there is no śauca. Had there been no former puṇya, my dying tongue would not have uttered the name of Śrī Hari” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 2).
The gopīs. In the Veṇu-gīta the gopīs ask what puṇya the flute can have done, that it enjoys the nectar of the lips of Dāmodara, who belongs to the gopīs (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 21). And Śrī Kṛshṇa calls the young gopīs who kept the vrata puṇyavatīs, women rich in puṇya: “You, rich in puṇya, have attained siddhi” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 22).
Svarga won by puṇya does not last. Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Uddhava that the happiness of svarga is, like the happiness of this world, mixed with sorrow, and the puṇya that gives it is spent every moment. The yajamāna who has worshipped the devatās with yajñas goes to svarga and moves among the apsarās in a pure vimāna earned by his puṇya, while the gandharvas sing his praise. While he enjoys himself in the gardens of the devatās, his puṇya spent, he slips down from svarga, and he does not even know it: as soon as the puṇya is spent, Kāla throws him down, though he does not wish it. The ātmā itself has no touch of puṇya or pāpa (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 10).
Related terms: Pāpa · Karma · Svarga · Saṃsāra · Puṇya-tīrtha
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 14; Skandha 6, Chapters 1–2; Skandha 10, Chapters 21–22; Skandha 11, Chapter 10