41 - Varahadvadashivrata

Durvasas said:

I. Similarly, listen, O sage, to the worship of Vishnu as Varaha on Dvadashi day in the bright half of the month of Magha (Kumbha).

 2-3. Performing Sankalpa and puja, as stated earlier, on the Ekadashi day with sandal paste, incense and dry fruits, the pot filled with water should be placed in front.

4-5. Then (the devotee should utter): “I worship the feet of the lord as Varaha, waist as Madhava, belly as Kshetrajna, chest as Vishvarupa, neck as Sarvajna, head as Prajapati, hands as Pradyumna, Sudarshana (disc) as Divyastra (divine weapon), and Shankha (conch) as Amrutodbhava”.

6-9. Then he should place on the pot a vessel made of gold, silver or copper, fill it with valuable materials according to his capacity, and place on it a golden image of Vishnu as Varaha in the form holding the earth with all its mountains and forests. Thus, should be placed the golden image in the vessel filled with grain.

10. The image should be covered by a pair of white clothes and worshipped by offering sandal, flowers and dry fruits of various kinds.

11. Heaping flowers all round, he should keep awake and read the story of the appearance of the lord as Varaha.

12-13. After doing this, the next morning at sunrise, taking bath and performing worship he should give the image together with the pot to a pious Brahmin with family, who is learned in Vedas and devoted to Vishnu.

14. Now hear the results that accrue to a person who thus gifts the image of Vishnu in his form as Varaha.

15. In this life he gets happiness, prosperity, effulgence and gratification. If he is poor, he becomes rich and if without a son, gets one.

16. Everything inauspicious disappears, and auspiciousness sets in immediately as if by force. In the life beyond he gets eternal happiness. Listen to a story in this connection.

17. In the place called Pratishthana there was a famous king named Viradhanva.

18. He once went to the forest for hunting, and there near the hermitage of a sage he killed numerous deer.

19-20. There, quite unknowingly, he happened to kill five¹ sons of sage Samvarta, who Were all devoted to learning the Vedas and who had the appearance of deer.

1. According to the reading it is fifty, but this seems to a mistake.

Satyatapas said:

21. O Sage, be pleased to tell me how they looked like deer.

Durvasas said:

22. Once they saw in the forest several young deer, just born but without their mother nearby.

23. They took one of them each and put them in a cave, but they soon died. Sad at this they went to their father and told him about it.

The sage’s sons said:

24. O father, we have been the cause of the death of five young deer, though not deliberately. So be pleased to tell as what atonement we should do.

Samvarta said:

25. “My father used to injure and I too. And you my sons, also have developed a tendency to commit injury.

26. You put on deer skin and perform penance for five years. You will then become purified.”

27. They then put on deer skin and began meditating on the Supreme in the forest.

28. At the close of one year, King Viradhanva came to the place where these in deer-skin were sitting.

29-30. Seeing them at the-foot of a tree, the king mistook them to be real deer and killed them.  

31. But when he realised that he had killed not the deer but some Brahmins doing penance, he was struck with fear and went to the hermitage of sage Devarata.

32. He told the sage how he happened to kill Brahmins and stood there shedding penitent tears.

33-35. Devarata consoled him saying that he would be freed from the sin thus committed. He said that the (story of the) earth sinking into Patala and assuming the form of a boar lifting it up, would bring about the king’s purification by the lord himself.

36-37. Then the king became glad and asked him as to how the lord would become pleased that he would rid him of all his sins.

Durvasas said:

38-39. Thus asked, sage Devarata told him about this Vrata (detailed above). The king performed it, and as a result, enjoyed all pleasures in the world and, at the of his life, was taken to the world of Indra in a golden aerial vehicle.

40. Indra honoured him by rising from his seat and offering arghya.

Seeing Indra thus going towards him, the servants of Vishnu said:

41. Indra, you are not entitled to see him, because you are inferior to him in penance”. All other Dikpalas also were similarly turned away by the servants of Vishnu all of them being eclipsed by his superior lustre.

42-43. He then proceeded to Satyaloka which is unaffected by delugc and the heat which follows it and remains there now applauded by others. When Yajnapurusha (Vishnu) is pleased, what wonder is there that this happened so.

44. Worshipped in proper form, even once one attains effulgence, long life, sound health and abundant wealth and finally gets immortality.

45. When the worship is in all detail, lord Narayana who has the fourfold form, gives his own abode.

46-48. Just as he restored the Vedas by taking the form of the fish, and held the Mandara mountain in position by assuming the form of a tortoise at the churning of the milky ocean, so he raised up the earth from the nether world by taking the form of a boar.