Pāpapraṇāśana Tīrtha

Pāpapraṇāśana · pāpa-praṇāśana, “the utter destroyer of pāpa”

Mahī has other meanings too: see all meanings of Mahī. Pitṛ-tīrtha has other meanings too: see all meanings of Pitṛ-tīrtha.

Pāpapraṇāśana, “the utter destroyer of pāpa”, is a tīrtha on the Gautamī at the āśrama of Gālava Maharshi. It is also called Dhautapāpa, “where pāpa was washed away”, and Gālava-tīrtha. It dispels the fear of pāpas (sins). Brahmā tells Nārada its account in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa: the brāhmaṇa Sanājjāta and his mother Mahī, who had come together without knowing each other, were made pure by the grace of the Gaṅgā; he was cleansed day after day by his bath here, and at Gālava’s word mother and son bathed together and were freed of every pāpa. This tīrtha destroys every pāpa, great or minor, small or large, and yields puṇya (merit).

Mahī and Sanājjāta

There was a brāhmaṇa named Dhṛtavrata, whose young wife Mahī was the most beautiful woman in the world. Their son Sanājjāta shone like the sun. Mṛtyu, urged by Kāla, took Dhṛtavrata away, and the widow, seeing no one to protect her, went with her young son to the āśrama of Gālava Maharshi and left the boy in his care. Deluded by pāpa, she wandered from land to land and came to live as a veśyā (courtesan) in Janasthāna.

In Gālava’s āśrama the boy mastered the Vedas and the Vedāṅgas, but through the faults of his mother he too became given to passion. Wandering through many lands, he came in time to Janasthāna, and by the strange turn of daiva (fate) mother and son came together as man and woman, neither knowing the other, for a long time.

Yet by the puṇya of his father he kept a good mind. He never gave up his brāhmaṇa prayers. Each morning he rose early, went to the Gautamī, and performed śauca (purification), bath, sandhyā and the rest, bowed to the brāhmaṇas and returned. When he went to the river his body was afflicted with disease (kushṭha) and foul blood oozed from it; when he returned after bathing in the Gautamī he was handsome and calm, radiant like Agni and Sūrya, like the sun in human form. He himself did not know of his two forms.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 22

Gālava’s word

Gālava, who lived on the bank of the Gautamī with other ṛshis, saw the brāhmaṇa every day before and after his bath and wondered at it. One day he called him back and asked: “Who are you? What do you do? Who is your wife?” The brāhmaṇa promised to answer the next day. That night he asked the woman he lived with her name and family, and she answered: “I am Mahī, wife of the brāhmaṇa Dhṛtavrata. My son Sanājjāta was left in the āśrama of Gālava.” Hearing this he fell to the ground, and when he told her who he was, she too was overcome with grief, and the two lamented the whole night.

At dawn he went to Gālava and said: “I am the son of Dhṛtavrata, brought up by you; you tied my sacred thread. This is Mahī, my mother. What shall I do? How shall I make prāyaścitta (expiation)?” Gālava spoke kindly: “Every day I see in you this sign of two forms; that is why I asked. The wrong you did has perished entirely in the Gaṅgā. By the holiness of this tīrtha and the grace of this Devī, the Gaṅgā, you have been purified every day. When you come you are with pāpa; when you go you are without it. Nothing remains for you to do. Your mother has repented much and turned from pāpa, by the grace of daiva and the puṇya of her past acts. By bathing in this tīrtha she too will become pure.”

Mother and son both bathed there, O Nārada, and by that holy bath both were freed of their pāpas, without doubt.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 22

The names and the phala

From then on the tīrtha is called Dhautapāpa, and it is also known as Pāpapraṇāśana and as Gālava. Whether a mahāpātaka (a great pāpa) or an upapātaka (a minor one), small or great, Dhautapāpa destroys it all, and it yields puṇya. To its south lies Pitṛtīrtha, pure, very rare, and the dispeller of all pāpas.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapters 22–23

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapters 22–23