Koṭi-vaṭa
Koṭi-vaṭa · koṭi-vaṭa, “the banyan of a crore”
Koṭi-vaṭa is a sacred banyan tree named in Chapter 219 of the Brahma Purāṇa. Under it Bhagavān Vishṇu, in his form as Varāha, stood as he prepared the first śrāddha (the rite for the departed ancestors), and from there he took the water of the tīrtha called Gaṅgādhara from Tuṅgakūṭa. Vyāsa tells the account to the munis when they ask how the living should perform śrāddha for those who have gone to the other world.
How Varāha came to perform the śrāddha
Vyāsa bowed to Jagannātha and to Varāha-mūrti and said that long ago Bhagavān Vishṇu as Varāha performed śrāddha and lifted out the pitṛs (the ancestors) who had sunk in the water of the Kokā. At the junction of the Tretā and Dvāpara yugas, the pitṛs, divine and human, lived on Mount Meru with the Viśvedevas. Ūrjā, the daughter of Candra, also called Kāntimatī and Svadhā, came before them and chose them as her husbands. The pitṛs gazed at her without end, and the Viśvedevas, seeing that they had fallen from yoga, left them and went to svarga. Candra, finding his daughter gone, pronounced a śāpa (a curse): the pitṛs would fall, and Ūrjā would become a river named Kokā on the Himālaya.
The pitṛs fell at the foot of the Himālaya, and Kokā flowed there with a hundred tīrthas. Living on the divine milk, the water of the Kokā and the fruit of the badarī tree, they passed ten thousand years like a single day. But with no pitṛs in the world and no “svadhā” uttered, the daityas, rākshasas and yātudhānas grew strong and fell on them. The pitṛs lifted a rock from the bank, the river’s current rose and its water flooded over them and over the Himālaya. Sunk in the water, they took refuge in Bhagavān Vishṇu and praised him: “Govinda, be victorious! Varāha-mūrti, protect us.” He showed his divine form, struck the rock away with his tusk and drew the pitṛs up; on the tusk of the divine boar they shone like gold. The place became Vishṇu-tīrtha.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 219
Under the Koṭi-vaṭa
Then Varāha gathered all that the first śrāddha would need. He took darbhas born from the hairs of his body and sesame born from his sweat, made a firebrand shining like the sun, and shaped a vessel for the holy water. Standing under the Koṭi-vaṭa, he took the water of the tīrtha called Gaṅgādhara from Tuṅgakūṭa. He took the herbs fit for yajña, honey and milk juices, fragrances, flowers, dhūpa and dīpa, a cow from the lake and gems from the ocean. He scratched the earth with his tusk, wetted it, marked the ground with kuśa, carried the firebrand around it and sprinkled it again and again. From the pores of his hair he took kuśa with tips pointing east, invited the ṛshis and said, “I will perform pitṛ-tarpaṇa.” They answered, “Do it.” So the first śrāddha began, with the Viśvedevas and the pitṛs invited, the arghya, the homa and the feeding of the brāhmaṇas.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 219
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 219