Dīpa

Dīpa · dīp, “the lamp”

Grammar: masculine and neuter noun, from the root dīp (to shine).

Meaning: the lamp that is lit for pūjā and for the pūjā of Śrī Hari.

In the scriptures: In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa the lamp is one of the things that Bhūdevī cannot bear to hold on herself. Bhūdevī tells Bhagavān Varāha that she can bear the whole moving and unmoving world with ease, but not a pearl, a pearl-shell, a Śivaliṅga, a Śālagrāma, a śaṅkha, a lamp, a gem, a ruby, a yajña-sūtra, a flower, a book, a tulasī leaf, a japamālā, a garland, camphor, gold, gorocana, sandal and the water of the Śālagrāma. Śrī Hari says that whoever, without knowledge, places these on the ground will stay in naraka for a hundred years. One puts down a leaf or a low wooden seat and places them upon it (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 8). The reciting of Bhūdevī’s stotra removes, among other pāpas, the pāpa of placing lamps and the other things on the ground. One who places a lamp on the ground becomes blind for seven births (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 9).

Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches Nanda that a woman who breaks a pumpkin and a man who puts out a lamp are both diseased for seven births and poor in every birth. A lamp, a Śiva-liṅga, a śālagrāma, a gem, an image, the yajñopavīta, gold, a conch, a diamond, a pearl, cow urine, cow dung, ghee and the water of the śālagrāma must not be left on the ground. The one who leaves them there falls, and becomes poor, miserly, a leper, without lineage, blind, lame and contemptible (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 75).

In the same teaching Śrī Kṛshṇa names the lamps among the sights that give puṇya: a lamp, gold and gems, with cows in milk, women with husband and children, tulasī and white flowers. On dīpa-dāna, the gift of a lamp, he says: “He who gives to Hari, the Paramātmā, a ghee lamp in a metal lamp with a golden wick, in his house there is no darkness. He does not see Yama‘s dūta or Yama. The giver comes to my mandira.” Giving a lamp to a brāhmaṇa, he does not suffer the torment of Yama and rejoices for a thousand years of the devas in the mandira of Indra. In proportion to the measure of the thing given, the giver obtains a seat in svarga, for the best gift a lakh of years and for another half that time (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 76).

Related terms: Bhūmi · Dāna · Śālagrāma

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapters 8–9; Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 75–76