Miśraka
Miśraka
Miśraka is a tīrtha of the earth named in the Brahma Purāṇa’s great list of the tīrthas and kshetras (Chapter 25). The text gives no location or account of its own for it. Whoever serves the tīrthas of this list with faith and the prescribed rite gains endless fruits and the fruit of an aśvamedha.
In the list of tīrthas
When the brāhmaṇas asked the teller, the knower of dharma, how many puṇya tīrthas and kshetras there are on the earth, he first taught the inner tīrtha. One whose hands, feet and mind are under control, and who has jñāna, tapas and a good name, gains the fruit of serving all the tīrthas. When the mind, speech and senses are pure, these are tīrthas within one’s own body, and they show the path to svarga. But if the inner faculty is corrupt, bathing in any number of tīrthas does not make it pure, just as an impure toddy pot does not become pure though washed a hundred times. Tīrthas, dānas, vratas and āśramas cannot purify one of bad nature, a hypocrite whose senses roam unchecked. Wherever a person lives with the senses restrained, that very place is Kurukshetra, Prayāga and Pushkara for him. Then the teller named the tīrthas and kshetras of the earth, beginning with Pushkara, more than four hundred in all. In that list Miśraka comes after Trivishṭapa and Pāṇikhāta, and before Madhūvaṭa, Manojava and Keśikī.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25
The rite and its phala
At the close of the list the teller gives the rite for all these tīrthas. One who serves them with śraddhā (faith), performs the bath and the other prescribed acts, fasts, masters the senses, offers tarpaṇa (water offerings) to the devas, ṛshis and pitṛs, worships the devatās and fasts three nights there obtains distinct and endless fruits, and by that the fruit of the aśvamedha yāga. “There is no doubt,” the teller says. And one who daily hears or reads this glory of the tīrthas is freed from every pāpa (sin).
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25