Rajatācala Mantra

Rajatācala Mantra · rajata-acala mantra, “the mantra of the silver mountain”

The Rajatācala mantra is the one-verse mantra with which the giver offers the Rajatācala, the mountain of silver, by whose gift a person reaches the supreme Candraloka. Śrī Kṛshṇa gives it to Yudhishṭhira in the Uttara Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa.

The setting

The Rajataśaila is made of ten thousand palas of silver at best, five thousand in the middle measure and two thousand five hundred at least; one who cannot may make it of somewhat more than twenty palas. The Vishkambha mountains are made from a fourth of it, of silver with their slopes adorned with gold, bearing golden images of the lokapālas with Brahmā, Vishṇu and Sūrya. Whatever is of silver in the other mountains is of gold in this one; the homa and jāgaraṇa are as for the mountain of grain. At morning the guru and ṛtvijas are honoured, the Rajatācala is given to the guru and the Vishkambha mountains to the ṛtvijas, and the giver, free of envy, with kuśa in hand, recites this mantra.

The mantra

पितॄणां वल्लभं यस्माद्धरीन्द्राणां शंकरस्य च।
रजत पाहि तस्मान्नो घोरात् संसारसागरात् ।

pitṝṇāṃ vallabhaṃ yasmāddharīndrāṇāṃ śaṃkarasya ca|
rajata pāhi tasmānno ghorāt saṃsārasāgarāt |

Rajatācala, since you are most dear to the pitṛs, to Hari and Indra, and to Śaṅkara, protect us from the fearsome ocean of saṃsāra. The Hindi gloss reads Hari as Śrī Hari and Sūrya, and the ocean as the ocean of sorrow.

Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 202–203

The phala

One who so gives the excellent Rajatācala gains the fruit of ten thousand cows given. That wise one dwells in Candraloka, honoured by the gandharvas, kinnaras and apsarās, until the pralaya.

Sources

• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 202–203