Śrīgiri (Gautamī)

Śrīgiri · śrī-giri, “the auspicious mountain”

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

Śrīgiri is a holy mountain by the southern bank of the Gautamī, the Godāvarī. In its northern region, on the bank of the river, Bhagavān Śiva is always present as a liṅga called Ādikeśa, worshipped by the ṛshis. Brahmā tells Nārada, in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa, how a Bhilla hunter who hunted on this mountain won the grace of Ādikeśa by giving his very life, and how the tīrtha there came to be called Bhillatīrtha. North of Śrīgiri, on the southern bank of the Gautamī, lay the town to which a rākshasī carried the young brāhmaṇa Āsandiva, whom Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa later saved.

Ādikeśa and the Bhilla hunter

Brahmā tells Nārada that the tīrtha called Bhilla destroys pāpas and ailments and grants bhakti to the lotus feet of Mahādeva. On the southern bank of the Gaṅgā, in the northern region of Śrīgiri, Mahādeva, giver of all cherished desires, is always present in the form of a liṅga known as Ādikeśa, worshipped with devotion by the ṛshis.

There lived a most virtuous ṛshi named Sindhudvīpa, and his younger brother Veda, also a great muni. Every day Veda worshipped Ādikeśa, the three-eyed foe of the three cities, with great devotion, and at midday he went to the village for bhikshā (alms). Whenever he had gone, a most virtuous hunter, a Bhilla, came to hunt on that holy mountain. He wandered from place to place, killing animals, and carried the meat on the tip of his bow. Weary, he came to the liṅga of Ādikeśa. He kept the meat outside, 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 as naivedya (food offering). With his foot he moved aside the flowers Veda had left after his pūjā, bathed Śiva with the water from his mouth, offered the leaves, and placed the meat there, saying, “May Śiva be pleased with me.” Then he went home the way he had come. He knew nothing but splendid bhakti to Śiva.

Every day he came and did this alone, and Īśa was pleased with him. Each day Śiva awaited the coming of his Bhilla devotee. “Who knows the measure of Śiva’s compassion for his devotees?” Brahmā says. “It is beyond all measure.” A long time passed, Veda and the Bhilla each worshipping Ādikeśa every day.

Veda’s anger

Then Veda said in anger: “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 has spoiled my pūjā of divine forest flowers, roots, fruits and bulbs, and worshipped with flesh and leaves. I shall hide and see him.”

The hunter came as before, and when he had worshipped, Ādikeśa spoke to him: “O hunter of great intelligence, you are weary. You have come after a long time. Why is it so? I find no happiness without you. Be at peace, dear son.” Veda, hearing the deva speak, was astonished and angry, but said nothing. When the hunter had gone home, Veda went to the deva and said: “This hunter does pāpa. He has no sacred rites and no knowledge; he injures living beings without pity; he is of low birth, knows nothing of the order of the gurus and has not conquered his senses. You have shown yourself to him, yet you say nothing to me, who control my senses and worship with the proper mantras by the rules of the śāstra. You are my only refuge; I have no wife and no sons. He worships you with flesh, yet you are pleased with him. I shall punish this Bhilla. Indeed, I shall let fall a boulder on your head.”

Ādikeśa laughed and said, “Wait till tomorrow. Then you may drop the boulder on my head.” Veda said “So be it,” threw the boulder aside, and mastered his anger.

The wound on the liṅga

The next morning Veda bathed, performed his pūjā as usual, and looked at the head of the liṅga. There he saw a terrible wound, covered with blood. “What is this?” he said in astonishment. “A great calamity may befall us.” He covered the wound with clay and cow-dung, scrubbed it with kuśa grass, washed it with the waters of the Gaṅgā, and performed his pūjā.

Then the hunter came, free of all pāpas. Entering the shrine, he saw the head of the liṅga of Śaṅkara Ādikeśa with a bleeding wound. “What is this?” he cried, and at once he cut himself into a hundred and a thousand pieces with his sharp arrows. No man of noble mind, Brahmā says, can bear to see his master wounded. The hunter reproached himself again and again: “This has happened while I am still alive! What a painful thing has come upon us through the turn of fate!”

Mahādeva beheld his devotee’s act in wonder, and said to Veda, best of the knowers of the Vedas: “O highly intelligent one, see this hunter, a devotee full of noble feeling. You touched my head with clay, kuśa and water; but this hunter, O brāhmaṇa, gave his life to me at once. Bhakti, love and power are where the mind is wholly absorbed. So I shall grant varas to him first, and then to you.”

The vara and the phala

Maheśvara told the hunter to choose a vara (a boon) as he wished. The hunter asked three things: “O deva, let your nirmālya (what remains after your pūjā) be given to us. Let this tīrtha be called by my name. Let this tīrtha give the fruit of all yajñas merely by being remembered.” The master of the devas said, “So be it.”

From then on that excellent tīrtha is called Bhillatīrtha. It destroys all pāpas and gives bhakti to the feet of Mahādeva. A holy bath there, with dāna and the other rites, grants bhukti (enjoyment in this world) and moksha. To Veda too Śiva granted many kinds of varas.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 99

The town north of Śrīgiri

Brahmā tells Nārada of Vipratīrtha, also called Nārāyaṇatīrtha. In Antarvedī, the land between the Gaṅgā and the Yamunā, lived a brāhmaṇa learned in the Vedas, whose youngest son was the quiet and gifted Āsandiva. While his father was arranging his marriage, Āsandiva went to sleep one night without remembering Vishṇu, without purity and concentration of mind, and with his head to the north. So a ruthless rākshasī, able to take any form she wished, carried him off and quickly took him to a town on the southern bank of the Gautamī, on the northern side of Śrīgiri. That town was frequented by many brāhmaṇas, an abode of dharma and prosperity, and its king was Bṛhatkīrti, endowed with the virtues of a kshatriya.

The rākshasī, calling herself Kaṅkālinī, took the form of an old woman and wandered the earth with him as her son, and a brāhmaṇa gave his daughter to Āsandiva in marriage. Fearing the rākshasī would devour him and his good wife, Āsandiva told his wife everything. “What fear can there be for the devotees of Vishṇu who live on the banks of the Gautamī?” she said. “Bathe here, be pure, and praise Bhagavān Vishṇu, who is free from all ailments.” He bathed in the Gaṅgā, was freed of all pāpas, and praised Nārāyaṇa: “O Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa, you are the ātmā of the universe; O Mukunda, you are its maker, destroyer and protector; O Narasiṃha, friend of those who have no one, why do you not protect me, a wretched one?” Hearing him, Nārāyaṇa, who dispels the sorrow of the universe, slew the rākshasī with his radiant Sudarśana cakra of a thousand spokes, granted Āsandiva all the varas he desired and took him back to his father. From then on the tīrtha is called Vipratīrtha or Nārāyaṇatīrtha, where snāna, dāna and pūjā gain every desired thing.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 97

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapters 97, 99