Maṅgalā, Wife of Śivaśarma

Maṅgalā was the second wife of the brāhmaṇa Śivaśarma. The Bhūmi Khaṇḍa of the Padma Mahā Purāṇa calls her a mahāpativratā, a wife of the highest devotion to her husband. Her whole life was given to serving him (patī-śuśrūshā). Over many years of steady pātivratya (devotion to a husband) she gathered a great store of puṇya (merit).

Śivaśarma’s first wife was Sudevā, who had lived against dharma. She was found reborn as a śūkarī (female boar). She was caught in an animal birth and had no way to free herself. Maṅgalā gave all her puṇya from patī-śuśrūshā to the śūkarī. At once the śūkarī left her animal body, rose in her own divine form as Sudevā, and went to svarga (heaven).

Pātivratya as her practice

What marks Maṅgalā most is the depth and constancy of her patī-śuśrūshā, her devoted service to her husband Śivaśarma. The Bhūmi Khaṇḍa stresses that this was not only outward obedience to what is expected of a wife. It came from her heart. Her husband was her deva, her tīrtha and her yajña all in one. The Purāṇa teaches that this kind of pātivratya, lived without a break and from the heart, gives a power equal to the greatest tapas (austerity). The Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells this in Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 51.

The liberation of the śūkarī

Sudevā had been reborn as the śūkarī and was recognised nearby. Maṅgalā understood her plight. An animal cannot do deliberate acts of dharma, so it cannot gather puṇya that frees it in that birth. It stays in that birth until the birth runs out in natural death and its karma (action) ripens toward a better birth. Sudevā’s animal birth came from her failures in patī-śuśrūshā in her earlier life. That was the very virtue Maṅgalā had raised to its highest degree.

Maṅgalā made her decision and performed a formal puṇya-dāna, the gift of her gathered puṇya. She gave all the spiritual store of her patī-śuśrūshā to the śūkarī. The result was immediate. The animal body fell away, and Sudevā rose in her divine form and went to svarga. The Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells this in Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 52.

What the Purāṇa shows

The Bhūmi Khaṇḍa shows that puṇya can be given away as dāna (a gift) to one who needs liberation. It presents this as a real possibility and not as a figure of speech. The virtue that Sudevā neglected, patī-śuśrūshā, is the same virtue through which she was freed. Maṅgalā’s puṇya was strong enough to lift a being from an animal birth to svarga.

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 51–52