Mahāpātaka, Upapātaka and Atipātaka in the Śiva Purāṇa
Mahāpātaka Upapātaka Atipātaka · mahā-pātaka upapātaka atipātaka, “the great, lesser and gravest wrongs”
Pāpa means a wrong action and the harmful effect it leaves behind. The Umā Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa sorts pāpa into three main kinds: mahāpātaka (great wrongs), upapātaka (lesser wrongs) and atipātaka (extreme wrongs).
This teaching is given by Sanatkumāra to Vyāsa. Along with it comes the principle that Śiva‘s grace is the highest means of release, greater than every prāyaścitta (act of atonement). It lays the ground for the long description of the narakas (realms of punishment after death) that follows in Chapters 7–10.
The Bhavishya Purāṇa gives this teaching in its own form. There Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Mahārāja Yudhishṭhira the twelve pāpas of mind, speech and body, the four mahāpātakas with the fifth who keeps company with their doers, and sixteen upapātakas.
The Three Kinds of Pāpa
The Umā Saṃhitā teaches that pāpas are sorted by how serious they are, and by the results they bring: time spent in naraka and the births that follow. The three main kinds are set out below.
Mahāpātaka: The Great Wrongs
The Umā Saṃhitā confirms the five classic mahāpātakas recognised in the Dharmaśāstra (the texts on dharma):
- Brahma-hatyā: killing a brāhmaṇa
- Surā-pāna: drinking alcohol (for brāhmaṇas)
- Steya: stealing gold or wealth from a brāhmaṇa or a teacher
- Guru-talpaga: violating the guru’s wife (or, more widely, a teacher’s wife)
- Mahāpātaki-saṃsarga: keeping company with those who commit the four wrongs above
These create the heaviest karma (the results of action). They lead to the longest and most painful time in naraka, after which one is reborn in the lowest forms of life.
Upapātaka: The Lesser Wrongs
Upapātakas are serious wrongs that lead to shorter periods in naraka. The Umā Saṃhitā lists several kinds, including:
- Giving up one’s agni (sacred household fire) or one’s Vedic study without good reason
- Being ungrateful to those who have helped one
- Selling what should not be sold (the Vedas, sacred knowledge)
- Falsely claiming a varṇa or learning one does not have
- Breaking vows and agreements
- Harming one’s parents or elders
- Living off a wife’s earnings (for a brāhmaṇa)
Atipātaka: The Extreme Wrongs
The Umā Saṃhitā adds a third kind, the atipātaka: wrongs whose harm reaches even further than the classic great wrongs. They include:
- Killing a pregnant woman or a child
- Destroying a village or breaking a dam
- Abandoning someone who has come for shelter
- Betraying a trust
The Way of Release
A central teaching of this section of the Umā Saṃhitā is the order of the prāyaścittas (acts of atonement).
The classic Dharmaśāstra gives various prāyaścittas for different pāpas: acts of tapas, pilgrimages and ritual acts. But Sanatkumāra teaches Vyāsa that all these prāyaścittas have limits, and may fail to wash away the deepest stains fully. The highest prāyaścitta for every pāpa, even the mahāpātakas, is Śiva‘s grace, gained through one-pointed bhakti (loving devotion).
A devotee of Śiva who has given himself fully to Śiva is freed from the results of even the gravest pāpas. This is not permission to do wrong. It is a statement that Śiva’s anugraha (grace) is greater than the automatic workings of karma. The devotee who has truly taken refuge in Śiva need not fear the gathered weight of past pāpa, for Śiva’s fire of jñāna (true knowledge) burns up all karma as fire burns a heap of cotton.
Link to the Description of the Narakas
The detailed sorting of pāpas in Chapters 5–6 is the foundation for the four chapters describing the narakas that follow (Chapters 7–10). Each naraka is described with the kind of pāpa that leads to it, the nature of the punishment, how long it lasts in divine time, and the form of life in which the wrongdoer is reborn once the time in naraka ends.
Per Bhavishya Purāṇa
In the Uttara Parva, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Mahārāja Yudhishṭhira that by base karma jīvas fall into a fearful naraka and undergo many yātanās (torments), and that this base karma is called pāpa and adharma. The divisions of adharma are known by the differences in the turn of the mind (citta-vṛtti). By the divisions gross, subtle, very subtle and so on, pāpas are of crores of kinds, and he describes only the great ones, in brief.
The twelve pāpas of mind, speech and body
Three are of the mind (mānasa): thinking of another’s wife, thinking of harm to another, and being set on an evil deed.
Five are of speech (vācika): unrestrained chatter (pralāpa), unpleasant speech, untruth, speaking ill of others (paranindā) and tale-bearing (piśunatā).
Four are of the body (kāyika): eating what must not be eaten, hiṃsā (harm), false kāma-sevana, which is leading an unrestrained life, and taking another’s wealth.
By doing these twelve one reaches naraka, and these karmas have many further divisions. Those who bear dvesha (hatred) towards Mahādeva or Bhagavān Vishṇu, who lift one out of the ocean of saṃsāra, fall into a fearful naraka.
The mahāpātakas
Brahmahatyā, surāpāna, stealing gold and going to the guru’s wife are the four mahāpātakas. A man who stays in contact with those who do these pāpas is counted the fifth mahāpātakī. All these go to naraka.
The upapātakas
Śrī Kṛshṇa lists the upapātakas:
- Promising a thing to a brāhmaṇa and then not giving it
- Taking a brāhmaṇa’s wealth
- Extreme ahaṅkāra (pride)
- Extreme krodha (anger)
- Dāmbhikatva (hypocrisy)
- Kṛtaghnatā (ingratitude)
- Kṛpaṇatā (miserliness)
- Excessive attachment to vishayas (the objects of the senses)
- Dvesha towards good men
- Carrying off another’s wife
- Going to an unmarried girl (kumārī-gamana)
- Selling wife, son and the like
- Living on a woman’s wealth (strī-dhana)
- Not protecting one’s wife
- Taking a loan and not repaying it
- Speaking ill of devatās, Agni, sādhus, cows, brāhmaṇas, the king and a pativratā
These and the like are the upapātakas, and those who keep company with men doing these pāpas are also pātakīs (doers of pāpa). After death Yamarāja takes men who do such pāpas to naraka. Those who do pāpa by mistake should perform prāyaścitta as the elders direct. Those who do pāpa by mind, speech and deed, who make others do it, or who approve of men doing it, all go to naraka.
Good men who go for refuge to Śrī Sadāśiva with their whole ātmā are not touched by pāpas, like water on a lotus leaf. So one should worship Īśvara with bhakti and constantly keep away from every kind of pāpa.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 5–6
Freed by the Tila-dhenu Dāna
Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Yudhishṭhira that by the rite of the tila-dhenu dāna, as told by Bhagavān Varāha, the giver is freed from mahāpātakas such as brahmahatyā and from all upapātakas, and dwells in svarga. Whatever pāpa was done in childhood, youth or old age, by mind, speech or deed, and all pātakas, mahāpātakas and upapātakas, are removed by this dāna.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 152
Sources
- Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapters 5–6
- Śiva Purāṇa, Umā Saṃhitā, Chapters 7–10
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 5–6, 152