Mahābaleśvara: The Liṅga at Gokarṇa

Gokarṇa on the western sea

Having spoken of the liṅgas of other quarters, Sūta turns to the west. Hear with true devotion, he tells the sages, of the famous liṅgas of the western side, which destroy sin at a single sight.

In the city of Kapilā there are two, Kāleśvara and Rāmeśvara, both great and divine. On the shore of the western ocean stands Mahāsiddheśvara, which grants dharma, wealth, desire and liberation alike.

On that same western shore lies the holy region called Gokarṇa. It wipes out even the killing of a brahmin, and it fulfils every wish. There are crores of liṅgas there and countless tīrthas at every step. What more is there to say, Sūta asks: every liṅga at Gokarṇa is Śiva himself, and every drop of its water is a tīrtha. The great sages have sung the glory of all of them in the Purāṇas.

Chief among them is Mahābaleśvara. The Purāṇa says this liṅga is white in the Kṛta age, deep red in the Tretā, yellow in the Dvāpara and dark in the Kali age. It reaches down through all seven nether worlds, yet when the dark Kali age comes in full, it will turn soft.

Even people who had done terrible wrongs have worshipped Mahābaleśvara here and reached Śiva's own state. Whoever comes to Gokarṇa and worships him with devotion on a day of good nakṣatra is, Sūta says, a very form of Śiva; and whoever worships him at any time at all attains the realm of Brahmā. Śiva lives here always under the name Mahābala, for the good of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and the other gods.

Rāvaṇa's liṅga and the gods at the four gates

It was the rākṣasa Rāvaṇa, Sūta says, who obtained this liṅga by fierce tapas and set it up at Gokarṇa.

The gods themselves keep watch around it. At the eastern gate, to please Mahābala, stand Gaṇeśa, Viṣṇu, Brahmā, the great Indra, the Viśvedevas, the Maruts, all the Ādityas and Vasus, the two Aśvins, and the Moon with the lunar mansions — all of them gods who travel in celestial cars, each with their own attendants.

At the southern gate stand Yama, Death himself, Citragupta and Agni, with all the ancestors and the Rudras. At the western gate Varuṇa, lord of rivers, serves Mahābala together with the Gaṅgā and the other rivers. At the northern gate are Vāyu, Kubera, the goddess Bhadrakālī, Caṇḍikā and the other goddesses, with the Mothers.

Gandharvas, ancestors, siddhas, cāraṇas, vidyādharas, kiṃpuruṣas, kinnaras, guhyakas, birds, all kinds of piśācas and vetālas, mighty daityas, nāgas such as Śeṣa, and the sages — all of them sing the praise of Mahābaleśvara, receive what they long for, and live content. Many have done hard tapas there and won success that brings happiness in this world and the next. Worshipped and praised as it should be, this liṅga, Sūta says, is called the very door of liberation.

The fourteenth of Māgha

Worship of Mahābaleśvara on the fourteenth day of the dark half of Māgha — Śiva's own caturdaśī — grants liberation in a special way; on that day even sinners are lifted up.

People of all four varṇas come from every land to see the great festival of that night. Students, householders, forest-dwellers and renunciants, women, the old and children all come, see the lord of the gods, and go home fulfilled by Mahābaleśvara's power.

By worshipping this liṅga, Sūta adds, even a cāṇḍāla woman once went straight to Śiva's world. The sages, of course, want to know who she was.

Saumini

You are a true devotee of Śiva, the sages say to Sūta; tell us about this woman. Listen with devotion, he answers, for it is a wonderful story, full of Śiva's power, and it makes the listener's devotion grow.

In her previous life she was a brahmin girl named Saumini, lovely as the moon and blessed with every good mark. When she came of age her father married her, with all the proper rites, to a young brahmin, and for a while she lived happily with her husband.

Then the young man fell ill and, as time willed, he died. Grieving and shaken, Saumini stayed on in her home for some while. But she was young, and the Purāṇa says desire overcame her and she began to go with other men. When her relatives learned of it, they decided she was a stain on the family; together they dragged her away by the hair and abandoned her far from home.

A śūdra saw her wandering alone in the forest, took her to his house and made her his wife. Now she ate meat every day, drank liquor and went on as before, and in time she bore him a daughter.

The calf in the dark

One day, while her husband was away, she drank and found herself craving meat. In the pitch dark of night she took a sword and went out to the pen, where sheep were tethered among the cows. Drunk and careless, she struck down an animal that was crying out, thinking it a sheep. It was a calf.

She carried the carcass home, and only then saw what it was. Fear seized her, and — the Purāṇa says by the force of some old merit — she cried out, “Śiva, Śiva!” and for a moment fixed her mind on him. Then, still hungry for meat, she cut up the calf and ate her fill.

Many years went by. At last time took her and she went to the realm of Yama. Yama weighed her deeds and her merit, and after her term in hell he sent her back to be born among the cāṇḍālas.

A blind woman's life

So she was born from a cāṇḍāla mother — blind from birth and dark as coal. She lost her mother and father while still a child, and a severe leprosy took hold of her. No one would marry her.

Blind and starving, leaning on a stick, she wandered from place to place and quieted the fire in her stomach with the leftover scraps of other cāṇḍālas. In this hard way she lived out most of her years, until old age wore down her body and her suffering grew very great.

The bilva sprig

One day she heard that many well-to-do people were travelling toward Gokarṇa for the coming festival night of Śiva. Hoping for clothes and food, she too set off, slowly, to beg from them.

At Gokarṇa she moved about among the pilgrims, holding out her cupped hands, speaking pitifully and pleading with them. Into her outstretched hands one kindly pilgrim dropped a sprig of bilva. She turned it over again and again, decided it was nothing she could eat, and, faint with hunger, threw it away.

As it fell from her hands, the sprig landed — by sheer good fortune, on Śivarātri — on the top of a Śiva liṅga.

All through that fourteenth day she begged and begged, and by fate's design no one gave her anything at all. So, without knowing it, she had kept the great fast of Śiva's caturdaśī, and the joyful night vigil as well. When morning came she started for home, slowly, sunk in grief.

Carried to Śiva's world

Worn out by her long fast, stumbling at every step, she had not left that holy ground when she fell, and her life left her. By Śiva's grace she reached the highest state: Śiva's attendants came at once, set her in a celestial car and carried her away.

Sūta explains how it happened. In her earlier life, though she was a fallen woman, she had once spoken Śiva's name without meaning to; by that merit she came, in her next birth, to Mahābaleśvara's holy place. There, at Gokarṇa, on Śiva's night, she fasted, offered a bilva leaf on Śiva's head and stayed awake all night. Because that merit was gained with no desire for any reward, she still enjoys happiness today by Mahābaleśvara's grace.

Such is this great liṅga of Śiva, Sūta says: it destroys all sin swiftly and grants the highest bliss. And now, he tells the sages, hear another wonder of Mahābaleśvara, which makes devotion to Śiva rise in anyone who simply hears it.

King Mitrasaha and the false cook

In the prosperous line of Ikṣvāku there was a king named Mitrasaha, deeply righteous and the finest of all archers. His wife Madayantī was devoted to dharma and as faithful as Damayantī, Nala's famous queen.

The king loved hunting, and once he went into a dense forest with a large army. Roaming there, he killed a vile rākṣasa named Kamaṭha who had been tormenting holy men. Kamaṭha's younger brother, as wicked as he was, decided to defeat the king by trickery. He took on a false shape and came to the king.

Seeing a humble-looking man who had come to serve him, the king, without a second thought, made him head of his kitchens. After amusing himself in the forest for some time longer, he gave up the hunt and returned happily to his city.

When the day of his father's śrāddha came, the king invited his guru Vasiṣṭha to his home and fed him with devotion. The rākṣasa in the cook's disguise served Vasiṣṭha a dish of greens and meat mixed with human flesh.

The guru saw it and burst out: Shame on you, king! You are deceitful and wicked — you have served me human flesh. You will become a rākṣasa. Then, reflecting, he understood that this was the rākṣasa's doing, and he limited the curse to twelve years.

Kalmāṣapāda

The king felt the curse was unjust, given rashly, and he was beside himself with anger. He took water in his cupped hands to curse his guru in return. But his wife Madayantī, faithful and devoted to dharma, fell at his feet and begged him not to curse his teacher.

Respecting her words, the king held back the curse and let the water fall on his own feet — and his feet turned dark. From that day, by the power of that water, he was known in the world as Kalmāṣapāda, “the one with stained feet.”

Then, by the curse of that best of sages, Mitrasaha became a terrible rākṣasa roaming the forest. Like Death himself in form, he wandered there and devoured animals of every kind, and men.

The young couple in the forest

One day, as he roamed, he came upon a newly married pair, a young sage's son and his bride. The man-eating rākṣasa seized the youth to eat him, as a tiger seizes a fawn.

Seeing her husband crushed under the rākṣasa's arm, the young wife was terrified and pleaded with him in heartbreaking words. She begged him again and again, but the merciless man-eater, his heart corrupted, tore off the brahmin youth's head and ate him.

Overwhelmed with grief, the poor faithful woman wept, gathered her husband's bones and built a great pyre. As she entered the fire to follow her husband, she cursed the king in his rākṣasa form: From today, if you ever go to a woman, you will die that very moment. With these words she entered the flames.

When the twelve years of his guru's curse had run their course, the king regained his own form and went home gladly. But Madayantī knew of the brahmin woman's curse. Dreading widowhood, she held back her husband when he came to her with desire.

The shadow that followed him

Childless, and with no more taste for the pleasures of kingship, Mitrasaha gave up his whole kingdom and went into the forest.

Then he saw her: Brahmahatyā, the sin of killing a brahmin, in a hideous form, following close behind him and threatening him again and again. Desperate to be rid of her, he tried every means — japa, vows, sacrifices — and bathed at tīrtha after tīrtha. Nothing drove her away.

At last he came to Mithilā. Tormented by this sin, he reached a garden outside the city, and there he saw the sage Gautama approaching. The king went to that pure-hearted sage, and merely seeing him brought some peace. He bowed to him again and again.

Gautama asked after his welfare. Feeling a little comfort under the sage's kind gaze, the king drew a long, hot breath and spoke. This brahmin-killing, which no one else can see, threatens me at every step and gives me endless pain, he said. Because of the curse I ate a brahmin's son, and a thousand penances have not quieted that sin. I have wandered everywhere trying one remedy after another, and still it does not leave me. Yet today I feel my birth has borne fruit, for just seeing you fills me with joy. I have taken refuge at your lotus feet — give peace to a sinner like me.

Gautama's counsel

Moved with compassion, Gautama told him the surest way out of grave sin. You are fortunate, king, he said. Put away your fear of these great sins. When Śiva rules over all, what fear can there be for those who take refuge in him?

Listen, Gautama went on. There is another famous holy place of Śiva, called Gokarṇa, which removes the gravest sins. There Śiva lives in person under the name Mahābala, and no sin, however great, can stand there. The liṅga of Mahābaleśvara is the emperor of all liṅgas: it takes four different colours in the four ages and destroys every kind of sin.

Gokarṇa lies on the shore of the western sea, and its liṅga wipes out the great sins. Even terrible sinners have gone there, bathed again and again in all its tīrthas, worshipped Mahābaleśvara and reached Śiva's state. You too, Gautama said, go to that place of Śiva, bathe in all its tīrthas, worship Mahābaleśvara well, be freed of all your sins, and reach Śiva's world.

Freedom at Gokarṇa

Taking the great sage's word, the king set out with a glad heart for Gokarṇa. There he bathed in all the tīrthas and worshipped Mahābaleśvara, and, freed from every one of his sins, he reached Śiva's highest state.

Whoever hears this beloved story of Mahābaleśvara every day, Sūta says, goes to Śiva's world together with twenty-one generations of his family. So, he tells the sages, I have described to you the supremely wonderful glory of the liṅga named Mahābaleśvara, which destroys all sin.