Pippalatīrtha (Pippaleśa)

Pippalatīrtha · pippala-tīrtha, “the tīrtha of the pippala trees”

Pippala has other meanings too: see all meanings of Pippala.

Pippalatīrtha, also called simply Pippala, is a tīrtha on the Gautamī Gaṅgā (the Godāvarī) in the Daṇḍaka forest, the next tīrtha after Cakratīrtha. Its deity is Bhagavān Śiva as Cakreśvara, because here Bhagavān Vishṇu obtained his cakra, and as Pippaleśa or Pippaleśvara, after the pippala trees that reared the ṛshi Pippalāda. The place where Śambhu was pleased with Vishṇu is Pippala, and Brahmā says that even Śesha cannot tell its glory. Brahmā tells Nārada its account in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa, saying that what he tells is what the Vedas speak of.

The account is that of Dadhīci and his son. The ṛshi Dadhīci kept the weapons of the devas in his āśrama on the Gautamī, drank their splendour to protect them, and gave his own body so that the devas could make new weapons from his bones. His wife Gabhastinī, also called Vaḍavā, took her unborn son from her womb, left him under the pippala trees and entered the fire. Reared by the trees on Soma‘s amṛta, the boy Pippalāda learned of his parents’ death, came to Cakreśvara at Soma’s bidding, praised Bhagavān Śiva and performed tapas until he could look at Śiva’s third eye. From his eyes came a Kṛtyā in his mother’s form, holding a fire able to destroy the worlds. Śiva kept her a yojana away from the tīrtha, stationed Sūrya there in visible form with all the devas present in him, calmed Pippalāda and granted his varas. The tīrtha came to be called Pippaleśvara and Pratishṭhāna, and it gives the fruit of all yajñas.

The tīrtha and its names

Brahmā says that the tīrtha called Pippala comes after Cakratīrtha. Its deity is called Cakreśvara, because from here Bhagavān Hari obtained his cakra. The place where Vishṇu himself stood and worshipped Bhagavān Śaṅkara to get the cakra back is Cakratīrtha; the place where Śambhu was pleased with Vishṇu is known as Pippala. Even Śesha cannot tell the glory of this tīrtha. “Listen, O Nārada,” Brahmā says, “to why Cakreśvara is also named Pippaleśa. Listen with devotion, for what the Vedas speak of is being told by me.”

Dadhīci and the weapons of the devas

There was a famous ṛshi named Dadhīci, rich in every good quality. His wife, a chaste and highly intelligent lady of noble birth, was the sister of Lopāmudrā; she was known as Gabhastinī and glorified as Vaḍavā. Dadhīci performed tapas (austerity) together with her, kept the sacred fire, lived by the Gaṅgā, and was devoted to honouring devas and guests. He was as calm as Agastya, whose āśrama also stood there.

Once, after defeating the daityas, the devas came to that region: the devas, the Rudras, the Ādityas, the two Aśvins, Indra, Vishṇu, Yama and Agni, praised by the Maruts. They bowed to Dadhīci, and he and his wife received them with every honour of a householder. The devas said: “This alone is the gain of human life: the holy bath in the tīrthas, kindness to all beings, and meeting such as you. We have defeated the daityas and slain the rākshasas, and we have no more use for our weapons. If we keep them in svarga or in pātāla, the daityas will take them. No dānava or rākshasa dares come here, for this place is guarded by the power of your tapas. Keep our weapons in your āśrama.”

Dadhīci said, “Let it be so”, though his wife tried to stop him. She said: “What have we to do with the affairs of the devas? Those who abide in the Supreme should not meddle in the affairs of others; there is no happiness in it, here or hereafter. If we keep these weapons, the enemies of the devas will hate us; if they are lost or taken, the devas themselves will become our enemies. Friendship lasts as long as the deposit lasts. If one can give, let him give to the needy without a second thought; but the good do not keep what belongs to others. Give these weapons up at once.” Dadhīci answered: “I have given my word to the devas; to say ‘No’ now would give me no joy.” She fell silent, thinking that nothing but fate moves the lives of men. The devas left their shining weapons, bowed to the ṛshi and went home content.

Dadhīci gives his bones

A thousand divine years passed, and the devas neither spoke of their weapons nor seemed to think of them. Dadhīci said to his wife: “The asuras are powerful and hostile to me, and the devas do not come for their weapons. What is right now?” She said: “You know what is right. The daityas, grown strong by tapas, will take these weapons away.” So, to protect them, Dadhīci washed the weapons with holy water empowered by mantras. The water drew in the splendour (tejas) of every weapon, and Dadhīci drank it. Robbed of their splendour, the weapons slowly wasted away.

At last the devas came and said: “Great danger from our enemies is upon us. Give back our weapons.” Dadhīci said: “Out of fear of the asuras, and because you did not come for so long, I have drunk the weapons. They are now in my body, in my bones. Tell me what is right.” The devas pleaded: “Without them we are lost; we cannot stay on earth, in pātāla or in svarga.” Then the ṛshi said: “I have the power of yoga. I shall give up my life-breaths. Make weapons from my bones, excellent weapons of excellent form.”

His wife was not near him then, and the devas, afraid of her, said: “Do it quickly.” Gladly the ṛshi gave up his life-breaths, so hard to give up, saying: “Use this body as you please. Let all the devas be pleased with my bones. What have I to do with this body?” He sat in padmāsana, fixed his eyes on the tip of his nose, and by the power of yoga drew his prāṇa (life-breath) with the inner fire into the subtle space of the heart. Fixing his mind on Brahman, immeasurable and supreme, he became one with Brahman.

Seeing him lifeless, the devas told Tvashṭṛ to make weapons at once. Tvashṭṛ said: “This is the body of a brāhmaṇa; I am afraid. If the bones are taken out, I shall make excellent weapons from them.” The devas gave bullocks faces as hard as the vajra and told them to tear open the body and give them the pure bones. The bullocks licked the bones clean and gave them to the devas; Tvashṭṛ made the weapons, and the devas, the bullocks and Tvashṭṛ all went away in haste.

Gabhastinī returns

After some time the ṛshi’s wife came back from her pūjā of Umā, carrying a pot of water, fruits and flowers, and a child in her womb. On the way her necklace slipped to the ground, her bangle fell from her wrist, her right eye throbbed, and a falling meteor blocked her path. Reaching the āśrama and not seeing her husband, she asked Agni, the sacred fire, and Agni told her everything: the coming of the devas, their request, the taking of the bones. She fell to the ground in anguish, and Agni slowly consoled her.

She said: “I cannot pronounce a śāpa (curse) on the immortals. What shall I do? I shall enter the fire.” Then, restraining her grief, the pativratā (devoted wife) spoke words of dharma: “All that is born in this world perishes; it should not be mourned. Men of puṇya give up their lives for cows, brāhmaṇas and devas. Blessed are those who, having gained a body fit for dharma, give it up for the devas and the brāhmaṇas. The life-breaths of every embodied being must depart; knowing this, the great-minded give them up for others. I tried to stop him, yet he agreed to keep the weapons. Who knows the mind of Vidhātā, the Creator?”

She worshipped the sacred fires with what remained of her husband’s body, his skin and hair. Then she cut open her womb, took out her son, and bowed to the Gaṅgā, to Bhūmi, the earth, and to the plants, trees and healing herbs (oshadhis) of the grove. “This boy has lost his father, his mother and all his kin,” she said. “May all beings, the guardians of the quarters and the herbs protect him. Those who care for an orphan as their own child are honoured even by Brahmā.” She placed the boy near the holy pippala trees, walked round the fire and entered it, and went to svarga with her husband.

Pippalāda and the pippala trees

The trees and creatures of the āśrama, whom Dadhīci had raised like his own children, wept. The trees said: “The ṛshi and his wife cared for us as our own parents never did. From now on this boy is Dadhīci to us; this boy is our mother. This is the eternal dharma.” The herbs and trees went to King Soma, the Moon, and asked for amṛta, and they fed the boy on that amṛta dear to the devas. He grew like the moon in the bright fortnight, and because the pippala trees reared him, he was called Pippalāda.

When he grew up he asked the trees: “Men are born of men, birds of birds, plants from seeds. How was I born of you?” The trees told him everything in order, and he fell to the ground in grief. Recovering, he said: “I will slay the slayers of my father; otherwise life is unbearable. He alone is a true son who deals with his father’s friends and enemies as is due.” The trees took him to Soma. Soma said: “Learn all the vidyās, and by my command you will have tapas, auspicious speech, heroism, beauty, strength and understanding.” Pippalāda answered: “All this is useless to me until I repay my father’s slayers. Tell me: in what land, at what time, with which deva, mantra or tīrtha can my aim be fulfilled?”

Soma sends him to Cakreśvara

After long thought, Soma said: “Whether it is bhoga (enjoyment) or moksha (freedom), everything comes from Bhagavān Maheśvara.” Pippalāda said: “How shall I see Maheśvara? I am a boy, with no skill and no power of tapas.” Soma said: “Go to the Gautamī in the Daṇḍaka forest and praise Śiva as Cakreśvara. There the compassionate Bhagavān Śiva is pleased with very little effort. There Śambhu was seen in person by Vishṇu and gave him varas and the cakra honoured by the devas. The healing herbs know that tīrtha. Praise Śaṅkara there with full devotion, and he will grant all your wishes.”

At Soma’s bidding Pippalāda came to the place where Rudra, the giver of the cakra, dwells, and the pippala trees, full of compassion, took him to their groves. He bathed in the Godāvarī, bowed to the Īśvara of the three worlds and praised Bhagavān Śiva.

Pippalāda’s stotra to Bhagavān Śiva

1. I bow to Śambhu, the first Īśvara, in whom the steadfast take refuge for moksha, having given up all desires and all action and mastered mind and breath.
2. He is the witness of all, the indwelling self of all, Sarveśa, the Īśvara of all, the treasury of every art. May Smarāri, the foe of Kāma, knowing all that is in my mind, show me grace.
3. Daśānana, Rāvaṇa, conquered the guardians of the quarters and shook Kailāsa. Pressed down by Śiva’s toe, he sank below the nether worlds. Hearing his cries, Bhagavān Śiva laughed with the Devī and pardoned him. So, O Maheśvara, you give even to the undeserving.
4. Bāṇa became renowned by his daily pūjā of Candraśekhara, who bears the moon on his crest, and surpassed Indra in prosperity.
5. When Viśākha, Skanda, came after conquering his enemies to bow to his father, he saw Vināyaka seated on Śiva’s lap. Bhagavān Śiva laughed and took him too on his lap, yet the child, by a child’s nature, would not leave his mother’s lap; and Śiva took the form of Ardhanārīśvara, half the Devī.

Śiva’s vara and the Kṛtyā

Then Bhagavān Śiva, full of delight, said: “Pippalāda, may it be well with you. Choose any vara you wish.” Pippalāda said: “My father, renowned, humble and ever truthful, was slain by the devas, and so was my mother, a pativratā. Overwhelmed with grief and anger, I do not wish to live. Grant me the power to destroy the devas.” Śiva said: “If you can look at my third eye, you will be able to strike your foes.” Pippalāda tried and could not. “Then perform tapas,” said Śiva, “until you can look at my third eye, and you will surely gain your wish.”

Though a boy, he resolved on tapas and meditated on Śiva alone in that very place for many years. Each day he rose early, bathed, bowed in order to his elders and gurus, sat at ease, fixed his mind in the Sushumnā, crossed his arms over his navel in the sign of the svastika, forgot the world, and meditated on the splendour of Śiva. At last he looked at the third eye of Bhagavān Śiva and said with joined palms: “Śiva granted me that whatever I wished would come to pass once I saw the splendour of the third eye. Give me that which will destroy my enemies.”

At that moment a voice from the sky said: “O brilliant one, your mother went to svarga saying this: ‘Men who forget their own good, who harm others and whose minds wander, fall into the depths of naraka.'” Hearing it, Pippalāda was enraged; when the fire of pride burns within, Brahmā says, counsel is useless. Because he was thinking of his mother Vaḍavā with the child in her womb, a Kṛtyā came out of his eyes in her very form, holding within her a fire to destroy all beings, as terrible as the tongue of Mṛtyu. “Give! Give!” she cried. “What is my task?” Pippalāda said: “Devour the devas, my enemies.” Saying “So be it”, she seized Pippalāda himself, for, she said, his body was made by the devas.

The frightened ṛshi ran to Śiva and praised him, and Śiva said: “O Kṛtyā, by my command, seize no living being within one yojana of this place. Go far from here and do your work.” So the Kṛtyā, in the form of Vaḍavā, stood one yojana to the east of Pippalatīrtha.

Sūrya and the devas at the tīrtha

From her came a great blaze able to burn up the world. The devas, afraid, ran to Śiva: “O Śambhu, protect us; the Kṛtyā and her fire are upon us. You alone are the refuge of the distressed.” Śiva said: “This Kṛtyā harms no one within a yojana of this place. Stay here day and night, and you will have nothing to fear.” The devas said: “How shall we live here, leaving the svarga you gave us?” Śiva said: “Here is the deva whose eyes and faces are on every side, who ever blazes with his rays, the father of all beings. Let Bhagavān Sūrya alone stay here for ever in visible form; all the others will be counted present here in him.”

At Śambhu’s bidding the devas made Sūrya from the Pārijāta tree, and Tvashṭṛ said to him: “O master of the universe, stay here and protect these devas. We too shall stay here, before Śambhu, by our aṃśas (portions).” All round Cakreśvara, within a yojana along the banks of the Gaṅgā, the devas took their places, each holding a quarter of an aṅgula of the bank, three crores and five hundred of them. “Who can tell or hear the glory of these tīrthas?” says Brahmā.

Pippalāda is calmed and sees his parents

The devas asked Śiva to calm Pippalāda, and Śiva said: “Even if the devas are destroyed, your father will not return. He gave up his life to accomplish the devas’ work; who is so kind to the distressed? Your mother, a pativratā without equal, not even Lopāmudrā or Arundhatī, has gone to svarga. By your father’s bones the devas are victorious for ever; your mother’s deed and your own fame spread everywhere. Now protect the devas who fled in fear of you; there is no puṇya higher than protecting the distressed. One who has gone to svarga stays there as many years as his fame lasts on earth; only those without fame are counted as dead.”

Pippalāda grew calm, bowed to Śiva and asked that the tīrtha be known in the three worlds by the name of those who had reared him like father and mother, the pippala trees, and that the devas own it higher than every other tīrtha; then he would forgive the devas for ever. The devas agreed. Śiva praised his understanding, humility, learning, heroism, truthfulness and devotion to his father, and Pippalāda asked two varas: that the virtuous who bathe in the Gaṅgā here and see Śiva’s lotus feet gain their desires at once and reach Śivaloka after death; and that his father, his mother, the pippala trees and the devas see Śiva and reach his loka. “So be it,” said Maheśvara.

The devas, freed from fear, asked him to choose a vara for himself. He said: “I wish to see my parents, whom I know only by report. Even beasts and birds see their mothers; for me it has been hard.” The devas said: “Today you will see them.” And he saw his parents in a splendid vimāna, adorned with gold, fanned by apsarās and praised by kinnaras. He bowed to them before Śiva, and flowers fell on him from svarga amid cries of victory. Dadhīci blessed his son: “Take a wife. Keep bhakti for Śiva and serve the Gaṅgā. Beget sons, perform yajñas with due dakshiṇā, and then come to svarga.” Pippalāda said, “I shall do so”, and his parents returned to svarga.

The Kṛtyā, the fire and the three tīrthas

The Kṛtyā would not be turned back, for she had been made to devour everything; so at Brahmā‘s counsel the devas told her and her fire to devour all things in due order. Vaḍavā became a river and joined the Gaṅgā. Her fire, the primordial fire, was carried in a golden pot by the maiden Sarasvatī with the Gaṅgā, the Yamunā, the Narmadā and the Tapatī, and set down at Prabhāsa, where Somanātha dwells, and there it slowly drinks the water of the ocean.

Then the devas asked Śiva how the bones of the cows and their own bones could be purified, and Śiva said that by bathing in the Gaṅgā they would be freed of pāpa. From the tīrtha of Cakreśvara three tīrthas came forth: Pāpanāśana, where the devas were freed of their pāpas; Gotīrtha, where the cows were purified; and Pitṛtīrtha, where the bones of Dadhīci became sacred. The cows and devas took leave of Śiva, saying that where the three-eyed Bhagavān Śiva and the Gaṅgā are, there the devas dwell, with Sūrya established for them. In time the pippala trees reached the lasting joys of svarga. Pippalāda made the trees the lords of the kshetra and worshipped Śaṅkara; he married the daughter of Gautama, begot sons, won wealth and fame, and went to svarga with his friends.

Names and phala

From then on the tīrtha is called Pippaleśvara. It is sacred and gives the fruit of all yajñas, and the mere remembrance of it destroys pāpas; how much more a bath there, dāna, and the darśana of Sūrya established there. Cakreśvara and Pippaleśa are the two names of Bhagavān Śiva here. One who knows this with its inner truth gains every cherished desire. The tīrtha is also called Pratishṭhāna, because Sūrya is installed there and the abodes of the devas are established there; it is dear even to the devas. Within a yojana of it the Kṛtyā harms no one.

The phalaśruti: this account is most sacred. One who reads it, hears it or remembers it lives long, becomes dhārmika and wealthy, and, remembering Śambhu at the time of death, reaches him.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 40

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 40