Madra
Madra
Madra is the country in which lay the famous city of Śākala. The Vāmana Purāṇa counts it among the holy places of Bhagavān Vishṇu: Bhagavān Vāmana told his guru Bharadvāja Ṛshi that in the Madra country his form is Purushottama, the supreme Purusha. The Purāṇa also tells of Sudharma, a merchant of Śākala in Madra, whose meeting with a preta in the desert led him to the Śravaṇa Dvādaśī vrata and, through many births, to his birth as King Purūravas.
Bhagavān Vāmana as Purushottama
Bhagavān Vishṇu was born to Aditi as Vāmana, and Bharadvāja Ṛshi performed his upanayana. When Vāmana wished to go to Kurukshetra, where the daitya king Bali was performing the aśvamedha, Bharadvāja asked him where his tejas-aṃśas (portions of his splendour) abide. Vāmana answered that the earth, the sky, pātāla, the oceans, divi (the realm above), the directions, the mountains and the clouds are all filled with his forms, and then named the holy places of his forms one by one. Among them he said: “In the Madra country I am Purushottama.” Purushottama is also among the names of the pāpa-śamana stotra of Agastya Maharshi, which Pulastya Maharshi gives in full to Nārada Maharshi.
Of all these places Bhagavān Vāmana said that they are sanātana (eternal), purātana (ancient) and pavitra (holy); they give dharma, they are full of tejas (divine radiance) and destroy pāpa (sin), and they are always to be praised. Devas, humans and sādhyas who practise darśana (seeing), sparśana (touching), kīrtana (praising) and smaraṇa (remembering) of these forms attain all four purushārthas: dharma, artha, kāma and moksha. “This is certain,” said Bhagavān Vāmana.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 61, 63
Śākala and the merchant Sudharma
Pulastya Maharshi told this account to Nārada Maharshi and said that it removes pāpa. It happened long ago, at the beginning of the Tretā yuga. In the Madra country there was a famous city named Śākala, and in it lived a merchant named Sudharma: wealthy, virtuous, learned in many śāstras and a great enjoyer of life. Once he set out for Surāshṭra with goods of great value, and in a desert on the way robbers took everything he had.
Under a lone śamī tree in that desert he met the leader of a band of pretas, who had once been a miserly brāhmaṇa of Śākala named Somaśarmā. In his whole life of seventy years Somaśarmā had made only one dāna (gift), on the Dvādaśī of Bhādrapada, and that one gift now fed him and his companions every day. He asked Sudharma to offer piṇḍa for him at Gayā and to keep the Śravaṇa Dvādaśī vrata. Sudharma did both, and all the pretas went to Brahmaloka. Keeping that vrata through birth after birth, Sudharma was born twice more in Śākala, and at last as Purūravas.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 53
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 53, 61, 63