Pushpabhadrā

Pushpabhadrā · pushpa-bhadrā, “auspicious with flowers”

Candana has other meanings too: see all meanings of Candana. Śmaśāna has other meanings too: see all meanings of Śmaśāna. Citrā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Citrā. Akshayavaṭa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Akshayavaṭa.

The Pushpabhadrā is a river of the earth, the beloved wife of Samudra (the Ocean). The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa gives it as five yojanas broad and five hundred long, always full of water, flowing with the Śarāvatī and the Gomatī into the western ocean. On its bank is Siddhāśrama, where Kapila Maharshi performed tapas and where Bhagavān Śiva sat beneath the Akshaya-vaṭa, the undying banyan, when Śaṅkhacūḍa came to him; in a forest on its bank in the north Śrī Hari found the elephant whose head became Gaṇeśa‘s. The accounts are told by Nārāyaṇa Ṛshi to Nārada.

Its course and Siddhāśrama

Nārāyaṇa describes the river as Śaṅkhacūḍa sets out to meet Bhagavān Śiva. The region of the Akshaya-vaṭa on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā, where Parameśvara was staying, is a siddhi-kshetra for siddhas, famous by the name Siddhāśrama, and in that puṇya-kshetra Kapila Maharshi performed tapas. It lies east of the western ocean, west of the Malaya mountain, north of Śrīśaila and south of the Gandhamādana mountain. The Pushpabhadrā is five yojanas broad and five hundred yojanas long and is always full of water. Because she always meets the ocean, she is the beloved wife of Samudra. Joined with the rivers Śarāvatī and Gomatī, she flows into the western ocean. Śaṅkhacūḍa came in his jewelled vimāna and saw Paramaśiva beneath the vaṭa tree on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā, brilliant as a crore of suns. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 18) The mountain Śataśṛṅga is near its bank. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 59)

On its bank

  • Suratha. Defeated by Nandi, King Suratha fled alone into a dense forest, and on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā he met a vaiśya; they became friends and went together to Medhas Muni at Pushkara. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 62)
  • The elephant’s head for Gaṇeśa. When Pārvatī‘s son had lost his head and the deva women on Kailāsa lay in a swoon, Śrī Hari mounted Garutmān and went to the bank of the Pushpabhadrā in the north. In the forest there a lord of elephants lay asleep with his wife and young ones, his head towards the north; Śrī Hari severed the head with his Sudarśana cakra and brought it back on Garutmān. (Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa, Chapter 12)
  • Indra and Rambhā. Nārāyaṇa tells, as the reason for Gaṇeśa’s elephant face, an itihāsa of the Pādma Kalpa. Devendra, maddened by his great wealth, went to the bank of the Pushpabhadrā and came to a very secluded flower garden, without any animals, sweet with the sound of bees and black cuckoos and with gentle fragrant breezes. There he was with the apsarā Rambhā, on land and in the waters of the Pushpabhadrā, for a long time; afterwards came Durvāsa‘s pārijāta flower and the loss of Indra’s fortune. (Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa, Chapter 20)
  • Sahasrāksha. Sahasrāksha, king of the Pāṇḍya country, took his thousand wives to a lonely flower garden on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā in the region of the Gandhamādana mountain; there he failed to honour Durvāsa Maharshi and received the śāpa by which he became the rākshasa Tṛṇāvarta. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 11)
  • Pippalāda and Padmā. Going to bathe in the Pushpabhadrā, Pippalāda Muni saw the young Padmā and asked who she was; the people told him she was the daughter of King Anaraṇya, and after bathing and worshipping Rādhānātha he went to Anaraṇya to ask for her. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 41)

A place of sport

Its banks are named among the secluded places of love and sport. Mālāvatī, mourning Upabarhaṇa, remembers a beautiful flower garden on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā, in a secluded mansion among sandal trees. (Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 13) Śaṅkhacūḍa and Tulasī sported on its sands. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 16) King Kārtavīrya, lamenting his queen, tells her that if she rises they will roam in the lonely place on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā in Nandanavana. (Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa, Chapter 35) King Sucandra and Kalāvatī stayed in the secluded ketakī groves on its bank. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 17) Śrī Kṛshṇa went with Rādhā to the sand-bank of the Pushpabhadrā. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 29) Nahusha names the bank of the Pushpabhadrā near the Śataśṛṅga mountain among the places he offers Śacī. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 59)

In the funeral rite

When Bhṛgu teaches Paraśurāma the funeral rite of his father, the Pushpabhadrā is among the tīrthas that the son remembers again and again at the cremation, with the Sarayū, the Bhadrā, the Narmadā and others. (Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa, Chapter 28)

Sources

  • Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 13; Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapters 16, 18, 62; Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa, Chapters 12, 20, 28, 35; Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 11, 17, 29, 41, 59