Bhṛśuṇḍi and Mudgala

Bhṛśuṇḍi was a Kaivartta hunter who lived by hunting, trapping and theft in the forests near Daṇḍakāraṇya. The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa tells his story in the Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 57 and 58. By chance he met Mudgala Muni at a Gaṇeśa tīrtha (a holy place of Gaṇeśa). He was given the mantra “Gaṇeśāya namaḥ” and did tapas (austerity) in two long periods. At the end he reached sārūpya-mukti, the liberation in which one takes the very form of Gaṇeśa, and he became the first devotee of the holy kshetra called Nāmāla. This narrative is told as part of the larger Śūrasena context.

The Kaivartta’s life without dharma

Chapter 57 begins on the bank of a forest river near Daṇḍakāraṇya. A man of the Kaivartta community lived there. He earned his living by hunting, trapping and stealing. He was not cruel by nature, but no one had ever taught him dharma. Violence and theft were just the habits of his life. He had gathered great pāpa (sin), not from any wish to do harm, but from long, unknowing adharma.

The meeting with Mudgala Muni

One day he was wandering in the forest after game. He came to a holy grove beside a river, where the great ṛshi Mudgala Muni had set up a Gaṇeśa tīrtha. The hunter walked into the grove with his weapons ready. Then something wonderful happened. His bows, arrows and hunting tools fell from his hands by themselves. He stood helpless and unarmed before the ṛshi.

Mudgala Muni looked at the fallen man with kindness, not blame. He knew that this was a moment of divine action: the grace of Gaṇeśa was drawing this wandering soul back from adharma. He spoke gently and asked about the man’s life. The Kaivartta was moved by the ṛshi’s kindness and by the holy peace of the grove. He told the whole truth of his life of pāpa.

Mudgala Muni did not weigh him down with long teaching. He put into his hands the great mantra:

Gaṇeśāya namaḥ

The meaning is “Salutation to Gaṇeśa.” The ṛshi told him to chant it without a break, with a one-pointed mind. He said that this holy name, said with śraddhā (faith), would cleanse all the pāpa he had gathered and open the door to the grace of Gaṇeśa.

The thousand years of tapas

The Kaivartta took the mantra with full faith and set out to do tapas. He found a quiet spot in the forest and sat still. He began to chant the mantra without a pause. As the years passed, the forest floor grew up around him. Leaves and soil piled at his feet. An anthill, the termite mound that in the Purāṇas marks the places of great meditators, began to form around his motionless body.

After a thousand years of unbroken tapas, the anthill had grown to cover his whole form. Yet inside this wall of earth the devotee still went on with his japa (chanting). Then something wonderful happened. From the mass of the anthill, a trunk-like limb of earth came out from above his eyebrow. It was like an āṅkuśa (elephant goad) and was shaped like an elephant’s trunk. It seemed that the form of Gaṇeśa himself was being shaped by the tapas.

For this wonder, a trunk (śuṇḍā) from the brow (bhrū), the ṛshi who watched over his progress gave him the name Bhṛśuṇḍi, meaning “he of the great trunk”.

The second tapas and Gaṇeśa’s grace

When he came out of the anthill, Bhṛśuṇḍi did not rest in what he had gained. He knew that sārūpya, the full likeness of form with Gaṇeśa, called for still deeper surrender. So he began a second period of tapas that lasted another hundred years. He stayed as fully absorbed in the Gaṇeśa mantra as before.

When this second tapas ended, Gaṇeśa appeared before Bhṛśuṇḍi in his divine form, shining like countless suns. The former hunter was now pure and full of light. He bowed to the ground in daṇḍa-praṇāma (full prostration). Gaṇeśa was very pleased with this soul, whose devotion was one-pointed and never wavered. Bhṛśuṇḍi had been born in the most unlucky circumstances and had changed himself by the power of the mantra alone. Gaṇeśa spoke to him with great love.

He gave Bhṛśuṇḍi sārūpya-mukti: the blessing of taking a form like Gaṇeśa’s own divine form and living in Gaṇeśa-loka in bliss. Gaṇeśa also declared that the place of Bhṛśuṇḍi’s tapas would from then on be known as the holy tīrtha of Nāmāla-kshetra. It would be a place of special power where Gaṇeśa’s grace flows richly, and where devotees who chant even the simple mantra “Gaṇeśāya namaḥ” would be quickly cleansed.

The rescue of the ancestors

Chapter 58 tells that Bhṛśuṇḍi, after reaching sārūpya, kept the Saṅkashṭa Caturthi vrata. With the puṇya (merit) that it gave, he was able to free his ancestors, who were suffering in the Kumbhīpāka naraka (hell). So the fruit of the vrata reaches not only the one who keeps it but also the members of his family line.

Sources

• Gaṇeśa Purāṇa, Upāsanā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 57–58