Nārada Mahā Purana
6 - God Brahma’s Reply
Brahma said:
1.What surpns1ng thing has been seen by you? Why do your feel distressed? Distress at the good points in others is an agony that lasts till death.
2. O Sauri (Son of the Sun), how does a man not attain the highest region by observing fast on the day of the Lord, the mere utterance of whose name enables one to attain the same?
3. A single bow offered to Krishna is on a par with the sacred final (Avabhrutha) ablutions in ten horse-sacrifices. Moreover, the person who performs ten horse-sacrifices may be reborn in this Samsara, but the man who makes obeisance to Krishna is never reborn.
4. If at the tip of one’s tongue the two syllables HARI are present, what has one to do with the holy centres of Kurukshetra, Kashi and Vraja?
5-6. A Brahmana who indulges in sexual intercourse with a Chandala woman, especially during her monthly course, and eats food cooked in spirituous liquor, can eschew heaps of sins accumulated by perpetrating forbidden acts of eating the forbidden food and of cohabiting with a forbidden woman, if he but remembers Hari at the time of death. He (thereby) attains (Sayujya (complete identity) with Vishnu and is liberated from the bondage of worldly existence.
7.If one gets salvation on uttering his name, how is it that he should not get it by observing fast on his day? He who is sung about in it (fasting period), is the Purushottama who becomes contemplated.
8. Even if he were to utter the name of Lord Janardana sportingly or listens to it, a man acquires equality with the waters of Ganga in regard to sanctity and meritoriousness.
9. Purushottama, the Sovereign Lord of the worlds, is the cause of our birth. How can a wicked-minded fellow (like you) chastise the person who observes fast on his (Vishnu’s) day?
10. That you have not been ground down into powder, that you have not been tightly bound by them, is due to the honour bestowed on us. You are not trying to understand the real point from me.
11. The employee who does not know the most excellent and loyal devotees of the king on the Earth is subjected to arduous exertion and is again kept captive by them.
12. Persons favourite with the king should not be apprehended as culprits by an employee (a servant of a king). Achieving their objects through the favour of the master, they may get the employee dismissed.
13. Similar is the position of the sinners who bow down to Janardana. How will you restrain thc1n out of foolhardiness, O son of Bhaskara?
14. O son of Divakara (Sun-god), O son of Bhaskara I may help you with the devotee of Shiva or Bhaskara (Sun-god) or my own devotees, but never with the devotees of Hari.
15. Purushottama is the Primordial deity among all Devas.
16. Restraining the devotees of Madhusudana (God Vishnu) is not proper even if they fraudulently observe the holy rite of Ekadashi during the lunar fortnight.
17-18. If they have slighted you, I cannot help you.
O son of the Sun, if any help is rendered to you that will be injustice to me. It may even destroy my body. There may even be reversion from the post of Brahma that is attained through high merit which I have achieved during the course of my life in the company of Vishnu’s devotees.
Summary of chapter 131 of the Nārada Mahā Purana is as follows:
Maharshi Vashishṭha described the divine manifestation of Oṁkāreśvara, one of the foremost self-manifested (Svayambhū) Liṅgas situated within the holy city of Kāśī. The historical account explains how the sacred Pranava sound Oṁ materialized as a luminous Liṅga to bestow eternal wisdom upon sages and devatās. Vashishṭha enumerated the primary Liṅgas surrounding Oṁkāreśvara, instructing that worshipping these sacred forms with bilva leaves, holy Gaṅgā water, and chanting of Vedic mantras destroys the heaviest sins accumulated over hundreds of lifetimes.