Chapter 41 - Virtuous fruits of bath in Gomatī

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

[Full title: Virtuous fruits of bath in Gomatī, worship of Kṛṣṇa, śrāddha and offering of food and charities to ascetics]

Śrī Prahlada said:

Śrī Prahlāda said:

1-14. Fortunate are the people in the human world who get the opportunity to take a bath in the Gomatī and thereafter follow it up with worship of Kṛṣṇa with ketakī flowers and basil leaves. People who do so, do not enter the terrible worldly life again. They do not die again for they seem to have already attained the path of immortality. Fruits which are obtainable by doing good to a crore of ascetics in other places can be had by just offering food to only one monk at Dvarakā. All sins of the past, the present as well as for the future simply get burnt up by remembering Dvārakā with all intent of mind. Aware of the fact fully that pain/difficulty would be the order of the day during the fierce Kaliyuga solely due to people’s ignorance/lack of understanding, the best of men do not give up Dvārakā with the full conviction that they would be rewarded for such good action on their part. Even the animals dying here continue to always remain present here in this island known after the God—bearer of conch, as the śveta island. The sacrificial fire after getting blown out by the wind from outside as well as those feeding on melted ghee, the drinkers of Soma, i.e. the drink of gods and one’s forefathers spanning twenty-one generations—put up at Dvārakā. Places of pilgrimage like Puṣkara, etc. rivers like Gaṅgā, holy regions like Kurukṣetra, such regions like Kāśī where no sin can germinate (i.e. it operates as a saline ground for sins to sprout), centres of pilgrimage identified as fit places for performance of śrāddha in memory of one’s forefathers such as Gayā and other holy centres like Prabhāsa and many other holy villages also remain present here, i.e. at Dvārakā. Holy cities like Kāśī which could not get obsolete in the Kaliyuga, remains always present here in the temple of Kṛṣṇa always granting liberation to the sinners.

O foremost among the demons! sitting awake in the night on the twelfth day of the brighter fortnight of the moon in the month of Vaiśākha, i.e. April in the worship of Kṛṣṇa surpasses all fruits that can be imagined for the time the Creation lasts encompassing different yugas.

O leader of demons! such fruits are also obtainable without any doubt by worship of Kṛṣṇa at Dvārakā during the period of solar and lunar eclipses as well as on that specific auspicious day as per estimation of Manu and his (fourteen) descendents. Especially one may adopt himself to worship the Lord on the day of saṅkrānti (i.e. the specific day of the month when the Sun transits from one zodiac sign to another) which is stated to be marked with difficulty/disfavour. Making devoted offering of sesame and of libations of water to one’s forefathers here preceded with a bath at Gomatī have been stated to yield undecaying happiness/appeasement for them. Those who do śrāddha for their forefathers by offering balls of cooked rice in front of the pool of water here, they (certainly) help generating undecaying satisfaction for them.