Kālipriyā

Kālipriyā was the wife of Śaṅkara, a man of the Śūdra varṇa (one of the four social classes), in the country of Saurāshṭra in the Tretā Yuga. She was unfaithful to her husband and treated him with contempt. She killed him with a sword so that she could run away with another man. That man was eaten by a tiger the same night, and she was seized with remorse.

Later she met women who were doing the Kārtika pūjā (worship) of Rādhā and Kṛshṇa on the banks of the Narmadā. She joined them and gave up meat. She died on the full-moon day, and the messengers of Bhagavān Vishṇu took her to Goloka.

Her life with Śaṅkara

Kālipriyā always longed for another man. She thought her husband was as worthless as a blade of grass. She gave him only leftover food. She drank liquor and ate meat because she kept company with wicked people. She often hurt him with cruel words.

She thought: “This husband is not right for me. My true husband is some other man. When he dies, I shall enjoy myself as I like.”

The murder and the tiger

She made an agreement with the other man that they would run away to another country. At night she cut her husband’s throat with a sword and went to the meeting place. There a tiger ate the man.

Kālipriyā fainted. When she woke, she wept: “I killed my own husband and went to a stranger. Because of my bad luck, a tiger has eaten that man of mine too. What shall I do? Where shall I go?”

She went back to the house. She put her face against her dead husband’s face and wept for a long time. She grieved over the terrible deed.

The Kārtika pūjā on the Narmadā

Then she bowed at the feet of her dead husband and travelled to another city. There she saw the Kārtika pūjā of Rādhā and Kṛshṇa on the banks of the Narmadā. She asked the women what they were doing. They told her: “In the morning in Kārtika we offer an auspicious pūjā to Rādhā and Kṛshṇa. It removes the pāpa (sin) earned in a crore (ten million) of births.”

Kālipriyā gave up eating meat. She did the pūjā on the day sacred to Bhagavān Vishṇu. Free from that fault, she died on the full-moon day of Kārtika. The messengers of Bhagavān Vishṇu took her to Goloka, the lovely world of Rādhā and Kṛshṇa. She lived there for a long time.

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 20