Pitṛ Tīrtha Māhātmya in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa
The Pitṛ Tīrtha section of the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa of the Padma Mahā Purāṇa covers Chapters 61 to 80. It is a long run of connected episodes. It begins with the tapas of Pippala and the teaching of Sukarma, who shows the power of pitṛ-bhakti (devotion to one’s parents). It goes on to the life of King Yayāti. He turns his kingdom into an earthly Vaikuṇṭha through Vishṇu-bhakti. He meets Aśrubindumati and talks with Mātali. Pūru takes his father’s old age and gives his own youth. At the end Yayāti declares that Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa will come as an avatāra (descent) in the line of Yadu.
Part one: Pippala and Sukarma (Chapters 61–63)
Pippala’s tapas and siddhi
Pippala, son of Kaśyapa, did tapas (austerity) for three thousand years in Daśāraṇya. He lived on air. He stayed still inside an anthill while serpents coiled around him and bit him. He was completely free of kāma (desire) and krodha (anger). His tejas (inner radiance) was so great that even the serpents became calm near him.
The devas came and showered flowers on him. They offered him any vara (boon). Pippala asked for viśvavaśya (rule over all) and for the state of a vidyādhara. Both were granted. (Chapter 61)
Pride and its correction
After he gained his siddhi (power), Pippala came to believe that nobody in all the worlds was his equal. A sārasa bird by a lake spoke to him sharply. The bird said that he was proud of three thousand years of tapas, but that Sukarma, son of Kuṇḍala of Kurukshetra, had more power even as a child than Pippala had now. The bird said that Pippala did not know what pārācīna jñāna (higher knowledge) is, and told him to go to Sukarma and learn. Pippala later learned from Sukarma himself that the sārasa was Brahmā in disguise. (Chapters 61–62)
Sukarma’s power and teaching
At Sukarma’s āśrama, Pippala saw Sukarma call Indra and all the devas to him with ease. He did it only through the power built up by his daily pitṛ-sevā (service to his parents), with no tapas, no yajña and no tīrtha.
In front of the gathered devas, Sukarma asked for only two things: steady pitṛ-bhakti, and that his parents might rise to Vishṇuloka.
Then he taught Pippala the difference between two kinds of knowledge. Pārācīna is the eternal, unmanifest Paramātman without form (nirākāra), whom only yogīs can reach. Arvācīna is the manifest order of the world, which proceeds through Brahmā. (Chapter 62)
Part two: Yayāti’s kingdom as Vaikuṇṭha (Chapters 64–75)
Yayāti’s reign and sons
Yayāti, son of Nahusha, had ruled for eighty thousand years. He was upheld by the puṇya (merit) of the great yajñas of his father Nahusha, which had won Nahusha the place of Indra.
In this account Yayāti had four sons:
- Ruru/Turu, the eldest
- Pūru, the second, son of Śarmishṭhā
- Kuru, the third
- Yadu, the fourth
(Chapter 64)
The talk with Mātali
Indra was troubled by Yayāti’s rule. He sent Mātali to bring Yayāti to svarga (heaven). Yayāti did not accept. Instead he held a long talk with Mātali that runs through many chapters (64–71). It covered these subjects:
- how the human body is made
- how old age (jarā) comes from the fire of desire using up śukra
- death and the departure of the ātmā (soul)
- pāpa-karma (sinful acts) and the torments of naraka (hell), with long descriptions of the punishments for particular kinds of pāpa
- Śiva-dharma
- the order of the lokas
At the end Yayāti turned down svarga. He said that he would make it on earth through Vishṇu-bhakti. Mātali went back to Indra and told him this. (Chapters 64–71)
The earthly Vaikuṇṭha
Yayāti declared Vishṇu-bhakti to be the highest dharma in all his lands, and the kingdom was changed. Disease stopped. Death stopped. The people stayed young, as if they were always twenty-five years old. Yama’s messengers were driven off, because they could find no one to take. Yamadharmarāja himself reported this to Indra. The kingdom had become a Vaikuṇṭha on earth. (Chapters 72–75)
Part three: Manmatha’s trap and old age (Chapters 76–77)
Indra’s plan
Indra could not move Yayāti by inviting him to svarga, so he tried another way. He called on Manmatha, Rati and Vasanta to stage a nāṭaka (a play) before Yayāti. The play was meant to bring on moha (delusion) through the power of kāma. (Chapter 76)
How old age entered
Yayāti watched the play in a state of moha. During it he went out to relieve himself. When he came back he did not wash his hands, and he sat down again in that state. This lapse in ācāra (right conduct), the failure to wash his hands, was the opening through which jarā entered his body. The old age that his kingdom had driven out of all its people found its way into the king himself, through a lapse that Manmatha’s skill had brought about. (Chapter 76)
The Kāma-saras and Aśrubindumati
Yayāti was afflicted with jarā. He wandered into the forest while hunting and came upon the Kāma-saras, a vast divine lake five by ten yojanas in size. First he met Viśālā, daughter of Varuṇa and a sakhī (friend) of Aśrubindumati. She explained how the lake began.
When Manmatha was burned, Rati wept in grief. Her tears made the lake, and from them came jarā, parting (viyoga) and sorrow (duḥkha) in the world. When Manmatha returned, Rati wept for joy. Those tears made a lotus of a thousand petals, and from it Aśrubindumati was born.
Then Yayāti saw Aśrubindumati herself, sitting on the lotus and playing the vīṇā. (Chapter 77)
Part four: Pūru and the Gāndharva marriage (Chapters 78–79)
Turu refuses
Yayāti went back to his sons. He asked each one in turn to take his jarā, so that he could go to Aśrubindumati as a young man. Turu, the eldest, refused. Yayāti laid a śāpa (a curse) on him. The śāpa took away his śikhā (tuft of hair), his Vedic study and his ācāra. It brought on him the pāpa of killing a brāhmaṇa (brahmahatyā) and a skin disease (kushṭha), and gave him mleccha descendants. Yadu also refused, on other grounds, later. (Chapter 78)
Pūru accepts
Pūru, the son of Śarmishṭhā, took his father’s jarā at once and gave his own youth. Yayāti became like a boy of sixteen. (Chapter 78)
The Gāndharva marriage
Yayāti, with his youth restored, went back to Aśrubindumati. Viśālā pointed out that the problem of his other wives was still there. Yayāti took a vow to give himself wholly and only to Aśrubindumati. The Gāndharva marriage (vivāha) was held. They lived together for twenty thousand years. Aśrubindumati became pregnant. She asked for an Aśvamedha yāga, and then asked to visit the divine lokas. (Chapter 79)
Part five: Yadu’s śāpa and the coming of Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa (Chapter 80)
Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā grow jealous
Even after Yayāti’s vow, Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā were jealous of the place Aśrubindumati held. They turned dushṭabhāva (ill will) toward her. Aśrubindumati told Yayāti what they had done. Yayāti was enraged. He ordered his son Yadu to kill the two women. (Chapter 80)
Yadu refuses and receives a second śāpa
Yadu refused. He said that all the veda-paṇḍitas (Vedic scholars) agree that killing one’s own mother is a mahāpāpa (a great sin). No order from a father, however angry, could make mātṛhatyā (killing one’s mother) right. For this second refusal Yayāti laid a śāpa on Yadu again. (Chapter 80)
The declaration of the avatāra
Right after the śāpa, Yayāti declared that Bhagavān Śrī Nārāyaṇa would take birth as an avatāra with a part of himself (svāṃśa-avatāra) in the line of Yadu. In this way he made holy the very line he had just cursed. The line that a father’s anger had condemned would be the line Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa himself chose for his coming into the world. (Chapter 80)
Sources
- Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 61–80