Mahī, Wife of Dhṛtavrata

Mahī, “the earth”

Mahī has other meanings too: see all meanings of Mahī.

Mahī, the most beautiful woman in the world, was the wife of the brāhmaṇa Dhṛtavrata and the mother of Sanājjāta. Left a widow, she gave her son to the ṛshi Gālava and fell from the dharma of her family, living as a veśyā in Janasthāna. In the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa, Brahmā tells Nārada how she and her son were purified by the Gautamī, and why the tīrtha is called Pāpapraṇāśana, the destroyer of pāpa.

Her fall

Mṛtyu, urged by Kāla, took away Dhṛtavrata. The young widow, seeing no one to protect her, went with her little son to the āśrama of Gālava on the bank of the Gautamī and entrusted him to the ṛshi. Then, deluded by pāpa, she wandered from country to country and came to live in Janasthāna as a veśyā. In Gālava’s āśrama her son mastered the Vedas and Vedāṅgas, yet because of his mother’s faults he too became given to desire, wandered, and came to Janasthāna. By daiva the mother and the son came together, neither recognising the other, and so it remained for a long time.

The truth made known

Sanājjāta still kept his sandhyā and bathed every morning in the Gautamī, and Gālava saw that he came to the river diseased and foul and left it radiant like the sun. When the ṛshi asked who he was and where he lived, Sanājjāta went home and asked the woman her name, family and native place. She answered: “There was a pure, initiated brāhmaṇa named Dhṛtavrata. I am Mahī, his wife. My son, an intelligent boy known as Sanājjāta, was left in the āśrama of Gālava. Because of my past faults I abandoned my kula-dharma and live here as a veśyā, but know me to be a brāhmaṇa woman.” Hearing this, he fell to the ground, and when he told her who he was, the two lamented the whole night.

Purified in the Gautamī

At dawn Sanājjāta told Gālava everything and asked for a prāyaścitta. Gālava said that the wrong he had done had perished day by day in the Gaṅgā, by the sanctity of the tīrtha and the grace of Devī Gaṅgā. Of Mahī he said: “This mother of yours has repented much and has stopped committing pāpa. By the great puṇya of satsaṅga, turning away from desire comes by the grace of daiva, and through the puṇya of her past acts she has repented enough. By taking her holy bath in this tīrtha she will become pure.” Mother and son bathed there and were freed of their pāpas. From then on the tīrtha is called Dhautapāpa, Pāpapraṇāśana and Gālava-tīrtha, and it destroys every pāpa, great or small.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 22

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 22