Cañcalāpāṅgī and the Tāmbūla Powder
Cañcalāpāṅgī was a very beautiful woman of the Dvāpara Yuga who lived as a harlot. Once she rested in a Vishṇu temple and, without any thought of pūjā, scattered the rest of her tāmbūla (betel preparation) powder on the temple wall. That one act saved her from the messengers of Yama and took her to Vaikuṇṭha. Chapter 6 of the Brahma Khaṇḍa of the Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells this.
Cañcalāpāṅgī
Cañcalāpāṅgī had very fine hair, eyes like a deer’s, a lovely waist and a charming smile. She lived as a harlot in the Dvāpara Yuga. She was full of every kind of pāpa, and she drew men into wrong company as liquor draws them into drunkenness. Her whole life was spent seducing men for their wealth.
The act by chance
One day she was travelling to another city to find a rich lover. She passed through a locality and went into a temple to rest. She sat there for a short time and ate tāmbūla. Out of idle curiosity she threw the remaining tāmbūla powder on the lower part of the temple wall. She did not mean it as worship. The powder simply landed on the wall and happened to decorate it.
Then she made an appointment with a merchant lover in a forest outside the city and waited there at night. The merchant did not come. She could not go back to the city, because the public road was dark and the guard of the fort was out. As she waited anxiously in the dark, a hungry tiger sent by the deva of death came and ate her.
Yama’s messengers and Vishṇu’s messengers
Yama’s messengers came to take her ātmā (soul). They looked terrible, like mountain peaks, with crooked feet, crooked faces, long noses and many jaws. They carried leather straps and hammers. They bound the harlot and were about to take her to Yamaloka.
But the messengers of Vishṇu were passing along the road and saw her. They were dark like clouds, with lotus-like, throbbing faces and charming noses. They wore divine ear-rings and carried the conch, the disc, the mace and the lotus. They challenged Yama’s servants: “Who are you, with these ugly forms, looking like asuras? Where are you taking this lady, who is most dear to Vishṇu?”
Yama’s messengers ran away. The messengers of Vishṇu were full of anger and struck them with discs that blazed like a crore (ten million) of suns. All of Yama’s warriors fled, crying out.
Citragupta’s account
Yama heard the report from his frightened servants. He asked Citragupta: “By what act of puṇya (merit) has this harlot gained moksha?”
Citragupta said that she had piled up very many pāpas from birth, but there was one act of puṇya. He said: “Once this harlot, wearing all her ornaments and looking for wealth and a lover, went to a certain city. She rested in the temple and ate a tāmbūla. Then, out of curiosity, she threw the remaining powder on the temple wall. By the power of that puṇya, the harlot, with her pāpa gone, is beyond your rule and goes to Vaikuṇṭha.”
Liberation
Yama and his messengers heard Citragupta’s words and turned their attention elsewhere. Cañcalāpāṅgī rode in a divine chariot yoked to royal swans, surrounded by the servants of Vishṇu, and went to the world of Vishṇu. By Vishṇu’s order she lived there with a crore of her family members in a golden palace and enjoyed many pleasures.
What the chapter teaches
Even the smallest act of adorning Bhagavān Vishṇu’s temple, done by chance, without devotion and without knowing what one is doing, can free even the jīva with the most pāpa (living being). The Brahma Khaṇḍa also teaches that a person who carefully and with devotion puts powder in Vishṇu’s temple to make it beautiful gains puṇya beyond measure. The Daṇḍaka narrative in Chapter 2 has the same theme: service done without intention to the home of Vishṇu cleanses completely.
Sources
- Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 6
- Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2 (the Daṇḍaka narrative, mentioned only as a parallel)