Maitra and Śrutadeva

This account is about Maitra, a learned brāhmaṇa of Bhuvara village, and his son Śrutadeva. It is told in Chapter 7 of the Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya in the Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa. Maitra became a piśāca (a hungry, suffering being) because he never gave food to brāhmaṇas in the month of Vaiśākha. His son freed him.

Maitra’s fault

Maitra was a brāhmaṇa of Bhuvara, of the Saṅkṛti Gotra. He was learned and skilled in the Vedas, and known for his scholarship. In the month of Vaiśākha, the tradition calls on brāhmaṇas to give gifts of food to the learned. Maitra always refused. He gave no food to visiting brāhmaṇas in this holy month, year after year.

His fault was this one thing, and he kept to it every year: he did not give anna-dāna (a gift of food) in Vaiśākha, the month that Bhagavān Vishṇu, the slayer of Madhu (Madhusūdana), holds most dear. (Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 7)

The piśāca on the Narmadā

After Maitra died, his failure to give food in Vaiśākha brought its own result. He became a piśāca. As a piśāca he was made to eat his own flesh. He wandered the banks of the Narmadā river, starving and in pain, for a long time. (Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 7)

Śrutadeva finds his father

Śrutadeva is shown all through the Vaiśākha Māhātmya as the main ṛshi who received this teaching and passed it on to the king of Mithilā. He was on a pilgrimage to the Gaṅgā. His way took him through or near the banks of the Narmadā, and there he met the piśāca. Through his yogic sight, Śrutadeva knew the piśāca to be his own father, Maitra.

The meeting was painful. Śrutadeva saw his learned father thin and suffering, eating his own flesh on the river bank. He asked: “Father? Is this you? How did this happen?”

Maitra told him who he was. He said the cause was a whole life of refusing food-gifts in Vaiśākha, and he begged his son for help. (Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 7)

Maitra is freed

Śrutadeva kept the full Vaiśākha rites. He bathed in the morning before sunrise. He kept the fasts laid down. He worshipped Bhagavān Vishṇu as Madhusūdana. Above all, he gave anna-dāna to brāhmaṇas in Vaiśākha. He did all this with full devotion and a sincere heart. Then he gave the puṇya (merit) he had earned by this observance, and especially the puṇya of the anna-dāna, to his father.

As soon as the gift of puṇya was complete, the piśāca body fell away. Maitra appeared in a divine form. He was bright and adorned, and free of hunger and pain. A vimāna (a chariot that flies) came down for him. Before he left, Maitra in his divine form blessed his son with deep thanks, praised the greatness of Vaiśākha, and rose to the divine realm. (Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 7)

The account before this one

This account follows directly after the account of Hemanga in Chapter 6. In Chapter 6, neglect of the gift of water in Vaiśākha led to eleven wretched births. The one who turned away from water became a bird that cannot drink water even when it is there. In Chapter 7, neglect of the gift of food in Vaiśākha led to the piśāca state, eating one’s own flesh. (Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapters 6 and 7)

Sources

• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa, Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 7
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa, Vaiśākha Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 6 (the account of Hemanga, as the account just before)