Vṛddha-Gautama
Vṛddha-Gautama · vṛddha-gautama, “the old Gautama”
Gautama has other meanings too: see all meanings of Gautama. Vṛddhā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Vṛddhā.
Vṛddha-Gautama, “the old Gautama”, is a ṛshi of the Gautama family (gotra), a man of great tapas (austerity). Born without a nose and without the chance to study, he kept his brāhmaṇa life alive with the sacred fires and the Gāyatrī alone, and lived a thousand years unmarried. In a cave of the Himālaya he found the old woman who had waited ages for him; she won him learning and beauty, and he married her. When young ṛshis laughed at the pair, he went with her on Agastya Maharshi‘s counsel to the river Gautamī, and by his stotra (hymn of praise) and the Gautamī’s grace both of them gained beautiful forms. The ṛshis named him Vṛddha-Gautama, the river formed from their bath is the Vṛddhā, and the liṅga he installed at its confluence is Vṛddheśvara, at the tīrtha called Vṛddha-saṅgama. The Brahma Purāṇa also tells that a Vṛddha-Gautama of great intellect sent the boy Śukra to Bhagavān Śiva for learning.
Brahmā tells these accounts to Nārada Maharshi in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa.
His youth
When he was a boy, the son of a Gautama, he had no nose, and so his form was ugly. Shy and modest, he never went to a guru, and he was too bashful to study with other pupils. His father Gautama initiated him into the Vedas with great difficulty and then set out on a journey. The boy grew up supported by his brāhmaṇa mother and had no chance to study the Vedas or any śāstra. Yet he kept his vratas (vows) and performed the rites of the sacred fires (agnihotra), and he repeated the Gāyatrī mantra without fail; by this alone he kept his brāhmaṇa-hood. He grew long-lived, but no one gave him a daughter in marriage. Free of attachment, he wandered through the tīrthas, forests and holy āśramas of many lands.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 37
The old woman of the Himālaya cave
In the Himālaya he came upon a beautiful cave overgrown with creepers and resolved to stay. Inside lived a lean old woman, a kanyā (maiden) keeping brahmacarya and performing tapas alone. When he made to bow to her she stopped him: “You are to be my guru. Long life, learning, wealth, fame, dharma (righteousness) and svarga (the heavenly world) perish if a guru bows to his disciple.” Gautama, amazed, said he was younger and less learned than she.
She told him her birth. The kshatriya king Ṛtadhvaja once rested in this very cave on a hunt, and Suśyāmā, daughter of the king of the gandharvas, came to love him. She was born of their union, and her mother told her, “He who enters this cave will be your husband.” Her father ruled for eighty thousand years, performed tapas and went to svarga; her brother ruled for ten thousand years and died; she alone stayed in the cave, sought by no one, waiting for him. He was the only man who had ever entered it.
Gautama answered that he was a thousand years old and only a boy beside her. She said Brahmā had given him to her, and that she would give up her life before him if he refused. He said, “I have no tapas, no learning, no wealth and no nose. First make me handsome and learned.” She had pleased Devī Sarasvatī, the Waters and Agni by her tapas, and she propitiated Agni and made Gautama handsome and learned. Then, learned, handsome and radiant, he married her, and they lived happily in the cave for many years.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 37
The visit of the ṛshis and Agastya’s counsel
Vasishṭha, Vāmadeva and other ṛshis, wandering among the tīrthas, came to the cave, and Gautama and his wife received them with great hospitality. But some of the party, boys proud of their youth, young disciples and some middle-aged men, saw the old woman beside the radiant Gautama and laughed. “Is this your son or grandson, old lady?” they asked, and praised her mockingly for winning a son like Gautama, knower of all the Vedas, Vedāṅgas and śāstras, a son hard to win even by the puṇya (merit) of the three worlds. Then they took their leave.
Ashamed and grieved, Gautama and his wife asked Agastya Maharshi what land or tīrtha gives happiness, worldly enjoyment and moksha (liberation). Agastya said, “All desires are fulfilled at the river Gautamī. Go there; I shall follow.”
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 37
His stotra and the grace of the Gautamī
At the Gautamī he performed tapas with his wife, praised Bhagavān Vishṇu and Bhagavān Śiva, and propitiated Gaṅgā for his wife’s sake. His stotra has three verses: Bhagavān Śiva with his consort is the one refuge of the distressed, like a tree to travellers in the desert; Śrī Kṛshṇa removes the pāpas of all beings, like the rain-cloud to plants withering in drought; and the Gautamī is the ladder to the fort of Vaikuṇṭha, the river of amṛta.
The Gautamī, pleased, told him to consecrate her water with mantras and pour it from sanctified pots over his wife; then his wife was to pour it over him. They did so, and both gained beautiful forms, with every good mark, by the grace of the Gautamī.
The water of that bath became a river named after the old woman, the Vṛddhā-nadī, and the ṛshis who lived with them called him Vṛddha-Gautama. Vṛddhā asked Gaṅgā that the river bear her name and that its confluence with the Gautamī be an excellent tīrtha: that bathing, dāna and homa there increase beauty, good fortune, wealth, sons and grandsons, give long life, health, welfare and victory, increase joy and sanctify the pitṛs. Gaṅgā said, “Let it be so.” The liṅga Gautama installed there is glorified as Vṛddha, Śiva as Vṛddheśvara, and the tīrtha has since been called Vṛddha-saṅgama. There the ṛshi lived in great joy with his wife. Bathing and dāna (giving) there grant every desired thing.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 37
Vṛddha-Gautama and Śukra
When the boy Śukra, son of Bhṛgu, left his guru because the boys were taught apart, with unequal feeling, and he would not accept that difference between son and disciple, he resolved to return to his father only after gaining learning. He asked Vṛddha-Gautama, of great intellect, who could be guru of all three worlds. Vṛddha-Gautama told him to approach Bhagavān Śiva, the Jagadguru, and said: “Remaining pure in mind and body at the Gautamī tīrtha, propitiate Śiva with stotras. Pleased there, he who rules the three worlds will give you learning.” Śukra did so, and Bhagavān Śiva granted him the Sañjīvanī vidyā, which revives the dead, at the place on the northern bank of the Gautamī now called Śukratīrtha.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 25
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapters 25, 37