Bhillatīrtha
Bhillatīrtha · bhilla-tīrtha, “the tīrtha of the Bhilla hunter”
Bhillatīrtha is a tīrtha on the southern bank of the Gautamī (the Godāvarī), in the northern region of Śrīgiri, where Mahādeva is always present as the liṅga called Ādikeśa. It takes its name from a Bhilla, a hunter of the forest people, whose simple and complete bhakti won the grace of Bhagavān Śiva. Brahmā tells Nārada its account in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa. The tīrtha destroys pāpas and ailments and grants bhakti to the lotus feet of Mahādeva.
Ādikeśa and the ṛshi Veda
On the south bank of the Gaṅgā, north of Śrīgiri, Mahādeva, the giver of all cherished desires, dwells in the form of a liṅga known as Ādikeśa, and the ṛshis worship him there with devotion. There lived a most virtuous ṛshi named Sindhudvīpa, and his younger brother Veda was also a great muni. Every day Veda worshipped Ādikeśa, the three-eyed destroyer of the three cities, with great devotion, offering divine forest flowers, roots, fruits and bulbous roots with mantras. When the sun reached midday he went to the village for bhikshā (alms).
The hunter’s pūjā
Whenever Veda had gone to the village, a hunter came to hunt on that holy mountain. He wandered far, killing animals as he pleased, and carried the meat on the tip of his bow. Tired, he would come to the liṅga of Śiva Ādikeśa, and his pūjā went like this:
- He kept the meat outside.
- He went to the Gaṅgā, took water in his mouth and some leaves in his hand, and came back to the deva with great devotion, the meat in his other hand to offer as naivedya (food offering).
- With his foot he moved aside the flowers left from Veda’s pūjā.
- He bathed Śiva with the water from his mouth.
- He offered the leaves.
- He placed the meat as naivedya, saying, “May Śiva be pleased with me.”
- He went home the way he had come, taking the rest of the meat with him.
He knew nothing but splendid bhakti to Śiva. Every day he came and did this alone, and Īśa was pleased with him. Brahmā says that until the Bhilla came, Śiva found no delight, and asks: who knows the measure of Śiva’s compassion for his devotees? It is beyond all measure. So a long time passed, Veda and the Bhilla both worshipping Ādikeśa, Śiva with Umā, every day.
Veda’s anger
At last Veda grew angry: “Who is the pāpī who spoils my pūjā, done with devotion and with mantras? He shall die at my hands. One who betrays gurus, devas, brāhmaṇas or his master deserves death even from a muni, and one who betrays Śiva deserves death from everyone.” He hid to see who it was.
The hunter came as before and worshipped as usual, and Ādikeśa spoke to him: “O hunter of great intelligence, you are tired. You have come after a long time. Why is it so? I am miserable without you; I find no happiness. Be at peace, dear son.” Veda, astonished and angry, said nothing. When the hunter had gone home, he went to the deva and complained. The hunter, he said, was given to deeds of pāpa, had no sacred rites or knowledge, killed living beings without pity, was of low birth, knew nothing of the order of the gurus and had not conquered his senses. “You have shown yourself to him, but you say nothing to me. I have controlled my senses, I perform the holy rites, I worship with mantras by the rules of the śāstras, and you are my only refuge; I have no wife and no sons. This hunter worships you with defiled flesh, and you are pleased with him. I shall punish this Bhilla. Some are pleased with the soft-hearted, some with the evil-minded; so I shall let fall a boulder on your head.”
Ādikeśa laughed and said: “Wait till tomorrow. Then you can drop the boulder on my head.” Veda said, “So be it,” threw aside the boulder in his hand, mastered his anger, and said, “I shall do it tomorrow.”
The wounded liṅga
The next morning Veda came, bathed, did his rites and his pūjā, and looked at the head of the liṅga. There he saw a terrible wound covered with blood. “What is this? A great calamity may befall us,” he thought. He covered it with clay and cow-dung, scrubbed it with kuśa grass, washed it with the waters of the Gaṅgā, and did his pūjā as usual.
Then the hunter, free of all pāpas, came and entered the shrine. Seeing the bleeding wound on the head of the liṅga of Śaṅkara Ādikeśa, he cried, “What is this?” and at once cut himself into a hundred and a thousand pieces with his sharp arrows. Brahmā says that no man of noble mind can bear to see his master wounded. Again and again the hunter reproached himself: “This has happened even while I am alive. What a painful thing has befallen us through the perversity of fate!”
The varas
Mahādeva beheld the devotee’s offering in wonder and said to Veda: “O highly intelligent one, see this hunter, a devotee full of noble feeling. You touched my head with clay, kuśa grass and water, but this hunter, O brāhmaṇa, has given his life to me at once. Bhakti, love and power are where there is intense thought. So I shall grant varas to him first, and then to you.”
Maheśvara told the hunter to choose a vara. He asked three things:
- “O deva, let your nirmālya (what remains after your pūjā) be given to us.”
- “Let this tīrtha be called after my name.”
- “Let this tīrtha give the fruit of all yajñas merely by being remembered.”
The ruler of the devas said, “So be it.” Śiva also granted Veda many kinds of varas.
The phala
From then on that excellent tīrtha is called Bhillatīrtha. It destroys all pāpas and ailments and gives bhakti to the feet of Mahādeva. A holy bath there, with dāna and the like, grants bhukti (enjoyment in this world) and moksha. By the hunter’s vara, merely remembering the tīrtha gives the fruit of all yajñas.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 99
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 99