162 - The greatness of Chakratirtha

Varäha said:

1. Listen, O Earth, I shall tell you about another thing namely what occurred in days of yore in Chakratirtha to the north of Mathurä.

2. There once lived a pious Brahmin in the city of Mahägruhodaya which is a to the whole earth.

3. He went from there with his son to the holy Sáligräma.

4. He lived there with full control of senses, bathing in the tirthas and worshipping the deities.

5. There he got the acquaintance of a Siddha (with yogic powers) who belonged to Kalpagräma and was living in Känyakubja.

6. As days passed, he heard the Siddha describe the glory of Kalpagräma.

7-8. The Brahmin then desired to go there and requested the Siddha to help him in this on account of their mutual friendship.

9. Hearing the words of the Brahmin, the Siddha said that only Siddhas could go there and not one like him.

10. But he offered to take him there with his son by his yogic power.

11-12. Then holding the Vaidic Brahmin in the right hand and his intelligent son in the left, he flew up and released them both at Kalpagrama.

13. They lived there for a long time and then the Brahmin became afflicted by an ailment.

14-15. He then reached the last stage of his life and wishing to die in peace, he asked his son to take him without delay to the bank of Gañgä.

16. The son took the father .to the bank of Gañgä, but he was crying, out of his affection for the father.

17. There a long time passed, and he was controlling himself out of devotion for the father.

18. In Kalpagräma, the beautiful daughter of the Siddha was on the look-out for a suitable husband for her, but could get none.

19. There one day the Brahmin’s son chanced to enter the house of the Siddha for food.

20. The Siddha asked about his whereabouts and he told him everything.

21. Then knowing his identity by his yogic power, he honoured him and gave him his daughter in marriage.

22. From then onwards he was taking food in the father-in-law’s house and remaining near the father, attending on him.

23. As time passed, the father became extremely weak and the son asked the father-in-law about it.

24. “When will my father die?’, he asked. The father-in-law laughed and told him.

25. “O Brahmin, your-gather has been eating Shüdra’s food for a long time. Because of this, death stands away from him.

26. (The essence of) this food remains in his feet and not above the knees. When the effect of the Shüdra’s food is over, he will die.”

  27. He reported to the father what the father-in-law said.

28. Hearing this the old man condemned himself very much.

29. At sunrise the next day the son went to the father-in-law’s house, as usual.

30. When the son was gone, the father, being very much afflicted by his illness and wishing to die, stood up and looked around.

31. Seeing a stone near him he dragged it towards him by his foot and with it smashed both his feet. He then died.

32.When the son returned after his bath and food, he saw the father dead (and knew how).

33. He wept for long, but then he coolly thought of the Shastra and came to the conclusion that the father did not deserve obsequies,

34. Because Äpastamba (the law-giver) has declared so regarding those that die by snake-bite, by wounds caused by animals with their horns, by the bite of carnivorous animals or by suicide. 

35. And one who corm-nits suicide is long tormented in hell; for him expiations may be done but not libation through usual obsequies.

36. Fate is powerful and valour is helpless there.

37. He then Went to his father-in-law’s house, only to be told by him in great sorrow.

38. “The sin of killing a Brahmin has come upon you. So you may go wherever you like”

39; He then said to the father-in-law: “I never committed the murder of a Brahmin at any time. Then how has this sin come upon me?”

40. Hearing these words of the son-in-law, the father-in-law said: “O dear man, the means of death was suggested to your father by you. And by that fault the effect of killing the Brahmin has come. upon you.

41. By sleeping near such a condemned person, by eating with him and by talking to him, one gets condemned oneself in the course of one year.

42. Therefore, O great Brahmin, you can no more live in my house.”

43. Hearing these words of the father-in-law, he requested him to direct him what he might do when thus rejected.

  44. The ascetic Brahmin then asked him to leave Kalpagrama and go to Mathurä, as nowhere else would it be possible for him to get himself purified.

45. He immediately left Kalpagräma and in due course reached Mathurä.

46. There he began to live outside the settlement of the Brahmins.

47-48. He started feeding himself on the remnants of the food from the rest-house constructed in Mathurä by king Kushika of Kanyäpura with provision to feed two thousand Brahmins every day.

49. He used to take bath in Chakraütirtha, but never begged alms for his food.

50. As days passed in this manner, the father-in-law began to think about him and knew by his yogic power what he was doing.

51. He persuaded his daughter to go to Mathurä and give her husband food.

52. By the spiritual power (of’ the father), she could go to Mathurä every day (from Kalpagräma) with food for her husband.

53. At the close of the day, she used to go there with food and he used to eat what was given by his wife. 

54. He used to keep his eating vessel in a hollow and live in the rest-house. In this way a full half-year passed.

55. Then the people there began to ask him as to where he was staying and from where he was taking food.

56. He then told them the whole matter. Then, O Earth, all those Brahmins declared in one voice that he had become purified.

57. “You have already become purified by the power of Chakratirtha. You have now become further purified by this declaration of ours”.

58. Hearing their words, the Brahmin became very happy and went from there to Chakratirtha for bath.

59. Then the wife arrived with food and, delighted at heart, spoke to him.

60. “Take this food I have brought for you. I now see you free from sin that was in you”.

61. Hearing this, he asked her to say again what she said.

  62. She did so and added, “I have not been speaking to you before since you were possessed of the sin of killing a Brahmin.

63. Now you have become freed from it by the power of Chakratirtha. O my lord, get up, let us go to the pleasant Kalpagräma”

64. He then went with her to Kalpagräma.

65. For Bhadrešhvara the offering of money is commendable and before this deity there is a vessel for putting it. The full benefit of Chakratirtha is got only by seeing Bhadrešhvara.

66. O Earth, Chakratirtha is hundred times more holy than Kalpagräma. The sin of killing a Brahmin is removed there by fasting for a full day and night. 

67. Of what need is Kalpagräma or Väränasi for one who goes to Mathurä and dies there?

68. Even a bird, why a worm too, that dies there becomes four-armed (like Vishnu).