Tuṅgakūṭa
Tuṅgakūṭa · tuṅga-kūṭa, “the lofty peak”
Tuṅgakūṭa is a tīrtha named in Chapter 25 of the Brahma Purāṇa, in the list of the holy tīrthas and kshetras of the earth. The listeners asked the teller, “O knower of dharma, how many tīrthas and kshetras of puṇya are there on the earth? Tell us,” and in his answer he names more than four hundred, beginning with Pushkara. Tuṅgakūṭa comes early in the list, right after Badarī-parvata and Soma-tīrtha and before Skandāśrama and Koṭi-tīrtha. Chapter 25 gives no location or account of its own for it. In Chapter 219 it is the place from which Bhagavān Vishṇu as Varāha took the water of the tīrtha Gaṅgādhara for the first śrāddha.
The inner tīrtha
Before he named the tīrthas, the teller said: 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 show the path to svarga. If the inner faculty is corrupt, no number of baths in tīrthas makes it pure, as an unclean toddy pot is not made pure though washed a hundred times. Tīrthas, dānas, vratas and āśramas cannot purify one 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.
The rite and the phala
One who serves these tīrthas with śraddhā (faith), performs the bath and the other prescribed acts, fasts, masters the senses, offers tarpaṇa (water offerings) to the devas, ṛshis and pitṛs, worships the devatās and fasts three nights there gains distinct and endless fruits, and by them the fruit of the aśvamedha yāga, without doubt. One who hears or reads this glory of the tīrthas every day is freed from every pāpa.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 25
The water of Gaṅgādhara from Tuṅgakūṭa
Chapter 219 names Tuṅgakūṭa again. The munis asked Vyāsa how sons and other relatives should perform śrāddha for those who have gone to the other world. Vyāsa bowed to Jagannātha and to Varāha-mūrti and told them how, long ago, Bhagavān Vishṇu as Varāha performed śrāddha and lifted out the pitṛs who had sunk in the water of the river Kokā. Bhagavān Varāha struck away with his tusk the rock that held them down and drew them up out of the water.
Then he made ready the first śrāddha. He took darbhas born from his hairs and sesame born from his sweat, made a firebrand shining like the sun and shaped a vessel for the holy water. Standing under the banyan called Koṭi-vaṭa, he took the water of the tīrtha called Gaṅgādhara from Tuṅgakūṭa. With the herbs fit for yajña, honey and milk, fragrances, flowers, dhūpa and dīpa, a cow from the lake and gems from the ocean, he prepared the ground and performed the pitṛ-tarpaṇa with the assent of the ṛshis.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 219
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 25, 219