Story of Gokarṇa

A sacred place of Purāṇic importance situated on the extreme north of Kerala.

Origin.

There was once on the banks of the river, Tuṅgabhadrā, a village made sacred and prosperous by the brahmins who lived there. In that village lived a noble brahmin named Ātmadeva. His wife was a quarrelsome woman named Dhundhulī. Even after many years of married life they got no children and Ātmadeva, greatly grief-stricken, left his home and went to the forests. He was sitting on the shore of a lake after quenching his thirst from it when a Sannyāsin came that way. Ātmadeva told him about his domestic life and pleaded that he should suggest a way to get a son for him. The sannyāsin sat in meditation for some time and contemplated on the horoscope of Ātmadeva and regretfully informed him that according to his horoscope he was to have no children for seven successive births. He, therefore, advised Ātmadeva to abandon all his worldly pleasures and accept sannyāsa for the rest of his life. But Ātmadeva was not to be discouraged by this prophecy and he urged the sannyāsin to help him somehow to get a child. The sanyāsin then gave him a fruit and asked him to give it to his wife and ask her to observe a life of fasting for a period of one year.

Greatly pleased with this boon Ātmadeva returned to his house and told his wife all that had happened and gave her the fruit. She liked to eat the fruit but a year’s fasting seemed troublesome to her. She was thinking of how to get over this difficulty when her younger sister came to her and suggested a plan. She said "Sister, I am pregnant. I shall give you the child I deliver. You can declare it as your child and make your husband believe so. You can announce in public that you have eaten the fruit and have consequently become pregnant. We can, to test its merit, give the fruit to a cow." Dhundhulī liked the plan very much and so did everything like that.

The news that Dhundhulī was pregnant spread in the city. Very soon her sister gave birth to a child and that child was proclaimed as the child of Dhundhulī. On the pretext that Dhundhulī was short of breast-milk her sister started doing the breast-feeding. The child was named Dhundhukāri.

After three months the cow that ate the fruit delivered a child. The ear of the child was like that of a cow and so he was called Gokarṇa. Dhundhukāri and Gokarṇa grew together. Dhundhukāri became a very evil-natured boy while Gokarṇa grew into a scholarly one. Dhundhukāri who was the very seat of everything bad made the life of their parents wretched and the disappointed Ātmadeva renounced all and went to the forests and did penance and attained mokṣa. Unable to bear the torture by her son, Dhundhulī committed suicide by jumping into a well. Gokarṇa started on a pilgrimage.

Dhundhukāri lived in his own house surrounded by prostitutes. Thieving was his only means of livelihood. Knowing this the servants of the king started to capture Dhundhukāri and the prostitutes who lived with him, for their safety, bound Dhundhukāri with ropes and put him into fire and killed him. The soul of Dhundhukāri became a great phantom. Hearing the news of the death of his brother, Gokarṇa returned home. He conducted a śrāddha at Gayā to give peace to the soul of his departed brother. But the phantom of Dhundhukāri was not pacified. This phantom troubled him always. Gokarṇa was not afraid of it and asked him what he wanted and the phantom pleaded that in some way Gokarṇa should get him absolved of all his sins. Gokarṇa then consulted Pandits to know what method should be adopted to save a soul which could not be saved even by a Gayā-Śrāddha. The Pandits advised him to do penance to propitiate the Sun. The Sun who appeared before Gokarṇa as a result of his penance declared that if he did read the entire Bhāgavata in seven days Dhundhukāri would get mokṣa. So Gokarṇa performed a Saptāha and among those who assembled to hear it was the phantom of Dhundhukāri also. The phantom finding no place to sit crept into a sevenlayered bamboo and sat there listening to Gokarṇa. When the first day was over the first layer broke and it went on like that every day and on the seventh day the seventh layer broke and when Gokarṇa finished the twelfth Skandha the phantom rose from the bamboo to heaven. When it was going to heaven it looked at Gokarṇa and told him that his mokṣa was due to the result of his hearing the saptāha reading. When Gokarṇa asked him why none of the others who heard it got it he said that it was because none had heard it with such rapt attention as he had done.

Gokarṇa then conducted another reading of Saptāha and the people present heard the same with rapt attention. When the reading was over, a chariot of Viṣṇu from Vaikuṇṭha descended and carried away all those who heard the reading. The place where Gokarṇa sat and read the Saptāha became known later as the famous Gokarṇa. (Chapters 1 to 3, Bhāgavata Māhātmya).

Mitrasaha and Gokarṇa.

A King of Ayodhyā named Mitrasaha who became famous by the name of Kalmāṣapāda, became a demon by a curse of Vasiṣṭha. He attained mokṣa by living and worshipping God in the temple at Gokarṇa. (See under Śivarātri for details).

Gokarṇa and the origin of Kerala.

Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa gives a story associating Gokarṇa with the origin of Kerala.

By the request of Bhagīratha the river Gaṅgā fell on earth and flowing as different brooks emptied its waters in the ocean. The level of the water in the ocean went up and the temple of Gokarṇa and the land of Kerala were submerged in waters. The sages who were in the temple somehow escaped and took refuge on the mountain Sahya. Paraśurāma was doing penance there then and the sages went to him and told him of their plight. Paraśurāma went and stood in Gokarṇa and threw an axe to the south. All the land from Gokarṇa up to the place where the axe fell rose up from the ocean to form a piece of land which was named Kerala. (Chapter 97 of Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa).

Other Purāṇic details regarding Gokarṇa.

(i) Bhagīratha did penance to bring Gaṅgādevī to Earth at Gokarṇa. (Sarga 12, Chapter 42, Bāla Kāṇḍa, Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa).

ii) The serpent named Śeṣa spent much time living here. (Chapter 36, Śloka 3, Ādi Parva).

iii) Arjuna visited Gokarṇa while he was on his pilgrimage. (Śloka 34, Chapter 26, Ādi Parva).

iv) Gokarṇa was one of the abodes of Śiva. Brahmā, Maharṣis, Bhūtas and Yakṣas used to stay at Gokarṇa to worship Śiva. (Śloka 24, Chapter 85, Vana Parva).

v) The holy place of Gokarṇa is renowned in all the three worlds (Śloka 15, Chapter 88, Vana Parva).

vi) Gokarṇa is a tapovana also. (Śloka 51, Chapter 6, Bhīṣma Parva).

vii) Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna and Pradyumna together killed Nikuṃbha, who had kidnapped Bhānumatī, at Gokarṇa. (Chapter 90, Viṣṇu Purāṇa).