Aruṇā-Varuṇā-saṅgama
Aruṇā-Varuṇā-saṅgama · aruṇā-varuṇā-saṅgama, “the confluence of the Aruṇā and the Varuṇā”
The Aruṇā-Varuṇā-saṅgama is the confluence of the two rivers Aruṇā and Varuṇā with the Gaṅgā, the Gautamī, in Janasthāna. Brahmā tells Nārada, in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa, that both rivers are very auspicious and their confluence very holy, giving more puṇya than Lake Mānasa, the tīrtha Prayāga and the river Mandākinī. As its origin, which destroys all pāpas when heard, he tells the account of Ushā, the daughter of Tvashṭṛ, and Bhagavān Sūrya, which gave the neighbouring Aśvabhānu Tīrtha its names: Ushā’s shadow Chāyā, Sūrya’s pursuit of Ushā in the form of a horse, and the birth of the Aśvins in the Gaṅgā.
The holiness of the confluence
Brahmā says: the two rivers Aruṇā and Varuṇā are very auspicious, and their confluence with the Gaṅgā is very holy. It gives more puṇya than Lake Mānasa, the tīrtha Prayāga and the river Mandākinī. “Listen now to its origin, which destroys all pāpas.”
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
Ushā and her shadow
Brahmā tells Nārada that Āditya (Bhagavān Sūrya), the eldest son of Kaśyapa, is the eye of the three worlds, with hot and mighty rays and seven horses to draw his chariot. His wife was Ushā, the daughter of Tvashṭṛ, the most beautiful woman in the three worlds. Her children by Vivasvān were the wise Manu and Yama and the holy river Yamunā. Unable to bear the fierceness of her husband’s heat, Ushā made, with effort, a shadow (chāyā) of herself in her own form, and said to her: “Be like me. Look after my husband and children, and be my husband’s beloved until I return. Tell neither my children nor my husband.” The shadow agreed, and Ushā left the house.
Longing for her husband’s form to grow gentle, she went to her father and told him everything. Tvashṭṛ, though he loved her, said it was not right for a married woman to act as she pleased, and told her to go back. She said “No, no” again and again, and went to the land of the Uttara Kurus. There she took the form of a mare (vaḍavā) and performed severe tapas, her mind fixed on her husband.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
Chāyā and Yama
Meanwhile Chāyā, in Ushā‘s form, lived with Sūrya as his wife and bore him Manu Sāvarṇi, Śani and a wicked daughter, Vishṭi. She treated her own children and Ushā’s children differently, and Yama, ruler of the southern quarter, grew angry and kicked her. Chāyā pronounced a śāpa (a curse) on him: “Sinner, may your foot rot.” Weeping, Yama went to his father with his rotting foot and said: “She is not my mother. A true mother is not angered even when her children wrong her. A mother, mātā, is so called because all that her child does, good or bad, is measured in her. She stares at me every day as if to burn me, and speaks words as fierce as black fire.”
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
Sūrya follows Ushā
Bhagavān Sūrya understood: “This is Chāyā, not Ushā. To make me gentle, the daughter of Tvashṭṛ is performing tapas in the Uttara Kuru land in the form of a mare.” He went there in the form of a horse (aśva). Seeing the horse rush towards her, the chaste Ushā, who did not know who it was, fled south in fear, wondering who would save her, the ṛshis or the devas. Wherever she went, Sūrya followed. They crossed the Bhāgīrathī, the Narmadā and other rivers, parks, forests and the Vindhya mountain. Having heard that in Janasthāna on the Gautamī there were ṛshis who could protect her, the mare came to the āśrama of the ṛshis there.
The horse followed, and the people of Janasthāna stopped it. Bhagavān Sūrya, the husband of Ushā, pronounced a śāpa on them: “Since you stopped me, you shall become banyan trees (vaṭa).” With the eye of knowledge the ṛshis saw that he was Ushā’s husband, and they praised him with great joy.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
The birth of the Aśvins
While the ṛshis praised him, Sūrya came near the mare, and the face of the horse touched the face of the mare. Knowing now that it was her husband, the daughter of Tvashṭṛ shed his seed from her mouth, and from it the Aśvins, the twin devas, were born in the river Gaṅgā.
To see this wonder there came the hosts of devas, the Siddhas, the ṛshis, the rivers, the cows, the healing herbs and the hosts of the luminaries; the holy chariot of the seven-horsed Sūrya and his charioteer Aruṇa; Yama, Manu, Varuṇa and Śani the son of Sūrya; the holy rivers Yamunā, Tāpī and Mahānadī, which out of wonder had taken embodied form; and Sūrya’s father-in-law Tvashṭṛ. Sūrya said to him: “O Tvashṭṛ, set me on the lathe and pare away my blazing parts, to please Ushā, who has performed excellent tapas. Cut them away until she is pleased.” Saying “So be it,” Tvashṭṛ began to pare away the blazing parts of Sūrya in the presence of Somanātha, at the place known as Prabhāsa.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
The tīrthas at the confluence
The place where Ushā met her husband and the Aśvins were born is called Aśva Tīrtha, and also Bhānu Tīrtha, where the āśrama with five banyan trees stands. The Tāpī and the Yamunā came there to see their father, Sūrya. The confluence of the Aruṇā and the Varuṇā with the Gaṅgā there is splendid, and twenty-seven thousand tīrthas of the devas are there, one for each deva who came.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
The phala
- Hearing the origin of the confluence destroys all pāpas.
- Snāna and dāna at the tīrthas there give great and everlasting puṇya.
- Whoever remembers, reads or hears this account is freed from all pāpas and becomes righteous and happy.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 19