Snāna

Snāna, “the bath”

Kuśa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kuśa. Śravaṇa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Śravaṇa.

Grammar: neuter noun, from the root snā (to bathe): “bathing”.

Meaning: the bath, above all the holy bath taken in a sacred river or at a tīrtha, with dāna (giving) and the other rites that go with it.

In the scriptures: in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa, Brahmā tells Nārada how Gautama Maharshi, having brought the Gaṅgā to Brahmagiri, wished to bathe near her banks. He remembered Bhagavān Śiva, who at once appeared, and with joined palms Gautama asked him the rules for bathing in the tīrthas. Śiva taught him: first cleanse the body and perform the Nāndī and the other rites; feed brāhmaṇas and take their leave; go to the river keeping brahmacarya; on the way, do not speak with fallen persons. One whose hands, feet and mind are well controlled, who has learning, tapas and a good name, gains the fruit of the tīrtha. The pilgrim gives up a vicious nature and keeps to his own dharma; he massages the limbs of tired fellow pilgrims and gives them food; he gives garments and blankets to good people who are poor; and he keeps listening to the divine accounts of Hari and of the Gaṅgā. One who goes on tīrtha-yātrā keeping these rules gains the fruit of the tīrtha. Śiva then said that the Gautamī, at his command, grants moksha through the holy bath to all men always, and that one bath in her when Bṛhaspati is in Siṃha equals sixty thousand years of bathing in the Gaṅgā (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 7).

Along the Gautamī, Brahmā names the fruit of snāna at tīrtha after tīrtha. At Yayāta, where Bhagavān Śiva is called Kālañjara, there are a hundred and eight tīrthas, and snāna and dāna in them, and hearing and reading their account, suppress all pāpas and give bhukti (worldly enjoyment) and mukti (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 76). At Apsaroyuga, on the southern bank, a holy dip makes a man mukta, free; a chaste woman who takes her ṛtu-snāna there at the confluence will bear a son, and even a barren woman will bear a son if she stays there three months with her husband and bathes (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 77). At Koṭitīrtha, on the southern bank, a holy plunge, dāna and the like, done with a pure and concentrated mind, give a crore times the fruit (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 78). Snāna and dāna at the tīrtha Narasiṃha destroy all graha-doshas, and one who bathes there and worships Narasiṃha finds nothing hard to reach in svarga, the mortal world or the nether worlds (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 79). At Paiśāca-tīrtha Śunaḥśepa bathed in the Gautamī, remembered Śambhu and Vishṇu, and offered tarpaṇa to his father Ajīgarti, who was freed from the state of a preta and went in a vimāna to the abode of Vishṇu (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 80). Snāna and dāna at Bhīmeśvara undoubtedly bestow mukti, and one who bathes where the Godāvarī joins the sea redeems his pitṛs from naraka and goes to the city of Śiva (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 103). At Adri-tīrtha, on the mountain Indragopa, where Himālaya installed a great liṅga, snāna and dāna fulfil cherished desires (Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 104).

At the close of the Māhātmya, Gaṇeśa tells Umā what Bhagavān Śiva said to Gautama: by snāna, dāna and the like, done with devotion in the Gautamī, a man gains more merit than a devotee who, in Śiva’s presence at a solar or lunar eclipse, keeps all the vows and gives adorned cows with their calves to Vishṇu or to a king at a confluence famous over the world. Brahmā adds that when Bṛhaspati is in Siṃha all the tīrthas of the three worlds come to the Gautamī to bathe, and snāna in the Bhāgīrathī for sixty thousand years equals a single bath in the Godāvarī at that time (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 105).

Related terms: Tīrtha · Dāna · Tarpaṇa · Tīrtha-yātrā

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapters 7, 76–80, 103–105