Chapter 67 - The Importance of Gopikācandana

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Maheśvara said:

1-13. That best brāhmaṇa, having heard like this from the mouth of Yama told it to me and the independent sage went (his way). O best brāhmaṇa, that house where there is gopīkācandana is of the nature of a holy place. This has indeed been told by Viṣṇu. In the house of that brāhmaṇa where there is gopikācandana, grief and delusion do not stay. Nor is there any inauspicious (event). The ancestors of him (or them) are happy and his (or their) progeny grows in whose house gopikācandana is present day and night. The clay from Gopīpuṣkara is pure and purifies the body. By rubbing (one’s body with it) physical and mental diseases that are there, perish. Therefore, it giving salvation and fulfilling desires is put on their bodies by men. The holy places and sacred places roar till that time, O brāhmaṇa, as long as gopikācandana is not seen or heard about. It should be meditated upon, it should be worshipped; it destroys dirt and sins. Merely with its touch a man becomes as pure as a god. It gives salvation and is highly purifying at the time of (one’s) death. O best brāhmaṇa, what should I say? Gopīcandana gives salvation. A wise man should rub his body with the mixture of Tulaśī[Tulasī?]-wood of (i.e. sacred to) Viṣṇu, so also the clay at the root (of the tree) and gopikācandana and haricandana also. He who puts on a mark with the fluids (i.e. pastes) of gopikācandana has always visited all holy places in Jambū Dvīpa. Freed from all sins he goes to the highest position of Viṣṇu. He has also performed the Śrāddha after having gone to Gayā. So also the man who has put on (the mark with) gopīcandana, (even though) he is a drunkard, or has murdered a brāhmaṇa or a cow or a child, is freed that moment only due to having (the mark of) gopīcandana.