Chapter 111 - The Greatness of Prayāga (māhātmya)

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Fire-god said:

1. I shall describe the greatness of Prayāga [i.e., prayāgamāhātmya], the excellent place, which confers enjoyment and emancipation. O Excellent sages! the gods Brahmā, Viṣṇu and others stay at Prayāga.

2. So also the rivers, oceans, siddhas (accomplished persons), gandharvas (semi-divine beings) (stay there). There are three fire-pits and the Ganges (flows) in the middle.

3. (The river Yamunā), the daughter of Sun, renowned in the three worlds flows there with force having all sacred spots before her.

4. (The land) in between (the rivers) Ganges and Yamunā is known to be the thigh of(goddess) earth. The sages knew that Prayāga is the generative organ situated in the thigh.

5. Prayāga and Pratiṣṭhāna are the woollen blanket and the mule. The holy place of Bhogavatī is the platform for the god of creation (Brahmā).

6-7. The scriptures and sacrificial rites are endowed with forms at Prayāga. By singing in praise of this sacred place, or by the repetition of (lord’s) names or by touching the earth here (one) gets free from all sins. Charity, ancestral rites and recitation (of names of the god) done at Prayāga, the place of confluence (of the two rivers), has undecaying merits.

8. O Twice-born! One who has resolved to die at Prayāga at the end (of his term of life) should not change his mind on the authority of scriptures or on the words of the people.

9-12. Ten thousand and six crores of sacred places are present only here. Hence Prayāga is the foremost (place). The Bhogavatī, sacred spot of Vāsuki (serpent chief) and the flight of swans are present here. One reaps the fruits of making a charity of a crores of cows by bathing at Prayāga three days in the month of māgha (February-March). The learned have declared thus. It is easy to have access to Ganges all along its course, but very difficult at the (following) three places—Gaṅgādvāra (Haridvāra), Prayāga and the confluence of Ganges with the ocean. One goes to heaven by giving alms here and one will become a monarch here itself.

13-14. One who dies at the root of the banyan tree and the confluence goes to the abode of lord Viṣṇu. The sacred sands on which Urvaśī (a nymph) had sported, the Sandhyāvaṭa, the Koṭitīrtha, the Aśvamedha, the pure Mānasa, and Vāsaraka are all excellent places.