Ṛshitīrtha
Ṛshitīrtha · ṛshi-tīrtha, “the tīrtha of the ṛshis”
Deva-tīrtha has other meanings too: see all meanings of Deva-tīrtha.
Ṛshitīrtha is a holy tīrtha (a sacred place of pilgrimage and bathing) named in Chapter 25 of the Brahma Purāṇa, the Sarva-tīrtha-māhātmya, “the glory of all the tīrthas”. The Purāṇa gives it by name in its great list of the tīrthas and kshetras of the earth, with no word on where it lies or how it came by its name; what it does give is the rite by which all these tīrthas are served and the fruit they bestow.
In the list of tīrthas
The listeners asked the teller, “O knower of dharma, how many holy tīrthas and kshetras are there on the earth? Tell us,” and in his answer he named more than four hundred, beginning with Pushkara. Ṛshitīrtha comes in the first half of the list, after Pṛthusaṅgama, Daurvāsika and Piñjaraka, and before Brahmatuṅga, Vasu-tīrtha and Kumārika.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25
The inner tīrtha
Before he named the tīrthas, the teller spoke of the inner tīrtha. One whose hands, feet and mind are under control, and who has jñāna, tapas and a good name, gains the fruit of serving all the tīrthas. When the mind, speech and senses are pure, these are tīrthas within one’s own body, and they show the path to svarga (the world of the devas). If the inner faculty is corrupt, no number of baths in tīrthas makes it pure, just as an unclean toddy pot is not made pure though it is washed a hundred times. Tīrthas, dānas, vratas and āśramas cannot purify one whose nature is bad, who is a hypocrite and whose senses roam unchecked. Wherever a person lives with the senses restrained, that very place is for him Kurukshetra, Prayāga and Pushkara.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25
The rite and its phala
The chapter gives one rite for all the tīrthas of the list. One who serves these tīrthas with śraddhā (faith), performs the bath and the other prescribed acts, keeps the fast, is master of his senses, offers tarpaṇa (libations of water) to the devas, the ṛshis and the pitṛs, worships the devatās, and fasts there for three nights, gains distinct and endless fruits, and by them the fruit of the aśvamedha yajña. “There is no doubt,” the teller says.
The phalaśruti of the chapter: one who hears or reads this glory of the tīrthas every day is freed from every pāpa (sin).
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25