Chapter 69 - Mode of conducting the bathing festival (snāna)

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

The Fire (Lord) said:

1. O Brahman! Listen! I shall describe in detail (the mode of conducting) the bathing festival. The pitchers should be placed in a drawn figure in the shed in front of the temple.

2. First of all, God Hari (Viṣṇu) should be contemplated, propitiated and offered oblations before doing anything. One should offer oblations hundred or thousand times along with the final one.

3. The materials for bathing [i.e., snāna-dravya] should then be brought and the pitchers also should be placed. The pitchers to the necks of which threads have been tied should be made fragrant and they should be held in a circle.

4. A square should be drawn and divided into eleven compartments. The gruel should be placed at the centre, the adjacent parts having been cleaned.

5. The nine angular points commencing with east should be filled with powdered rice etc., and the pitcher should be brought by the wise man after having formulated the kumbha mudrā^[1].

6. Darbha grass should be put on them with the puṇḍarīkākṣa (an epithet of Viṣṇu) (lotus-eyed) mantra. A pitcher filled with water and containing all gems should be placed in the middle.

7. The barley, paddy, sesamum, uncultivated rice, śyāmāka (grains), horse gram, green gram and white mustard seeds. (should be put) in the eight directions in order.

8-9. A pitcher filled with ghee should be placed in the middle of the eastern side in the midst of nine pitchers. The remaining pitchers should be filled with the decoctions of the (barks of) palāśa, aśvattha, nyagrodha, bilva, udumbara, śirīṣa, jambū, śamī and kapittha. The central pitcher in the nine pitchers in the south-east should be filled with honey.

10. The remaining eight pitchers should be filled with the earth taken from loosening by cow’s horn, elephant’s tusk, horse hoofs, mountains, Ganges bed, sacred spots, rivers and fields.

11-12. In the nine pitchers on the south, the central one should be filled with sesamum. The other eight pitchers should be filled with nāraṅga, jambīra, kharjūra, nārikela (coconut), pūga (arecanut), pomegranate, panasa fruits. In the nine pitchers on the south-west, the central pitcher should be filled with milk.

13-15. (The remaining eight pitchers should be) duly (filled with) saffron (kuṅkuma), nāga, campaka, mālatī, jasmine, punnāga, karavīra, and mahotpala flowers. In the nine pitchers on the west, the central pitcher should contain the coconut water. (The other pitchers should contain) waters of the river, ocean, tank, well, rain water, water from the melted ice, waters of the falls, and of the Ganges. In the nine pitchers on the north-west the central one should have banana fruits.

16. The divine herbs sahadevī, kumārī, siṃhī, vyāghrī, amṛtā, viṣṇuparṇā, śataśivā and vacā should be placed in the other eight pitchers.

17-19. In the east and the northern (directions) among the nine pitchers one should place the central one having curd. The other pitchers should duly be filled with the fragrant substances—cardamom, tvacā, kuṣṭha, bālaka, the two varieties of sandal, the kastūrikā creeper and the black agallochum. (In the central pitcher among the nine pitchers on the north east) one should fill waters for purification. In the other pitchers we should have (the materials) candra, tāra, śukla, girisāra (iron), trapu (tin), camphor, śīrṣa and gems.

20. They should be anointed with ghee and lifted up and bathed with the principal mantra with perfumes and worshipped. Having offered oblations into the fire, the final oblation should be offered.

21. Offering should be made to all spirits. After paying fees to (the priest), (the priest and the brahmins) should be fed after having installed the images of deities, sages and other divinities.

22. Having installed (the image of the god) in this way one should conduct the bathing festival. One who bathes (the image) in one thousand eight pitchers gets all fortune.

23. By bathing at the conclusion of the rite, the bathing festival concludes. The marriage and other festivals of (the goddesses) Gaurī (consort of Śiva), Lakṣmī (consort of Viṣṇu) should be celebrated after the bathing festival.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

A posture made with the hands representing a pitcher.