Mahodara Muni
Mahodara · mahā-udara, “the big-bellied one”
Mahodara was a muni who was linked with the Kapālamocana tīrtha (holy place) on the river Sarasvatī. This tīrtha is also called Auśanasa. A human skull (kapāla) was stuck in his leg and gave him great pain. Nothing could remove it.
At the Kapālamocana tīrtha the sacred waters set him free. The skull came away and he was released from his affliction. The tīrtha gets its name from this event. Kapālamocana means “release from the skull”. The Vāmana Purāṇa, which names him Rahodara, tells how the skull came to him: it was the head of a rākshasa slain by Śrī Rāma in Daṇḍakāraṇya.
His affliction
Mahodara was a great muni who carried an unusual burden. A human skull was stuck in his leg, or thigh. The Śalya Parva tells this briefly and does not say how it came about. It does not say whether it was the result of an earlier act or of a curse. It says that no ordinary means could remove the skull, and that Mahodara could not free himself by common effort.
Freed at the tīrtha
Mahodara came to the sacred tīrtha at Kapālamocana, also called Auśanasa. The waters of the tīrtha freed him. The skull fell away from his body and he was free of his affliction. This gave the tīrtha the name Kapālamocana.
The place is also linked with Paraśurāma. He bathed here to wash away the pāpa (sin) gathered through his killing of the kshatriya class across twenty-one generations.
Per Vāmana Purāṇa
In the Saro Māhātmya of the Vāmana Purāṇa, Romaharshaṇa, going through the tīrthas of the Sarasvatī, comes to the Auśanasa tīrtha, also called Kapālamocana. There Uśanas, that is Śukra, attained siddhi and the place of a graha, and there the muni Rahodara was freed from a terrible head. The brāhmaṇas asked how the head had taken hold of the muni and how the power of the tīrtha removed it, and he told them.
Long ago, while Śrī Rāma was in Daṇḍakāraṇya, he slew many wicked rākshasas. With a sharp sword he cut off the head of one of them, and the head flew off and fell in a great forest. Rahodara, a brāhmaṇa who had resolved to visit the tīrthas, was wandering in that forest. The rākshasa’s head struck his thigh, split the bone and entered inside. With his thigh broken he could not reach the tīrthas he had resolved upon; yet, with pus flowing, bearing the pain, he served all the tīrthas on earth.
He told his pain to the ṛshis he met on the way, and they advised him to go to the Auśanasa tīrtha. Rahodara went there, and as soon as he touched the water, the head came loose from his thigh and fell into the water. His pain left him and he was freed of pāpa. Purified, he returned to his āśrama and told everyone the whole matter in detail. Hearing it, all the ṛshis rejoiced at the glory of the tīrtha and named it Kapālamocana, “release from the skull”.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 18
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Śalya Parva, Chapter 42
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 18