Sadāprabha
Sadāprabha · sadā-prabhā, “ever shining”
Sadāprabha, “ever shining”, is a holy tīrtha (a sacred place of bathing and pilgrimage) named in the Brahma Purāṇa’s great list of the tīrthas and kshetras of the earth, in Chapter 25, the Sarva-tīrtha-māhātmya, “the glory of all the tīrthas”. The Purāṇa gives it by name only, with no word on where it lies or how it came by its name. Whoever serves the tīrthas of this list with faith and the prescribed rite gains endless fruits and the fruit of an aśvamedha.
In the list of tīrthas
The questioners, whom the teller calls brāhmaṇas, asked him, the knower of dharma: “We wish to hear how many puṇya tīrthas and kshetras there are on the earth. Tell us.” 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 (knowledge), 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 show the path to svarga. 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 washed a hundred times. Tīrthas, dānas, vratas and āśramas cannot purify one who is of bad nature, a hypocrite, whose senses roam unchecked. Wherever a person lives with the senses restrained, that very place is for him Kurukshetra, Prayāga and Pushkara. Then he named the tīrthas and kshetras of the earth, more than four hundred of them, beginning with Pushkara. Sadāprabha is named early in the list, after Manuvara and Somaśaila and before Merukuṇḍa and Somābhishecana-tīrtha. The list ends with the words “these are the tīrthas so named”.
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 the senses, offers tarpaṇa (water offerings) 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