श्रीशिवमहापुराण
Every citation against Śrī Śiva Mahāpurāṇa
Every claim elsewhere on this site that stands on a verse of this text, graded by how well the passage actually carries it — including where a widely-kept practice or a popular telling turns out not to be what the text itself says.
436 citationsThe text says otherwise
37A claim made elsewhere on this site that this passage actually contradicts.
-
The Māhātmya's own illustrative story — Devarāja, a liquor-selling brāhmaṇa who murdered his parents and wife and lived with a courtesan — is freed and carried to Śiva's world simply through lying ill and passively overhearing the Purāṇa recited near him, with no repentance or moral correction described anywhere in the story.
This conflicts with a claim (seen elsewhere in this corpus) that the benefit comes only when listening prompts genuine self-reflection, not from passive hearing alone. The text's illustrative case is offered as proof of the opposite: "by merely hearing it, even a great sinner comes to share in release" (2:37).
-
The gandharva who bound the piśāca and recited the Śiva Purāṇa to him was Puṣpadanta.
The text names the gandharva Tumburu, sent by the goddess — not Puṣpadanta. The core story (a bound piśāca freed by hearing the Purāṇa) is right; the gandharva's name is wrong.
-
Bhairava manifested at the very moment Śiva first appeared as the infinite jyotirliṅga column of light.
The column of light appears in chapter 7, when Śiva intervenes in the Brahmā-Viṣṇu dispute — no Bhairava is present there. Bhairava is created only in the next chapter (8:1), for an unrelated reason: to punish Brahmā for false witness given afterward.
-
Bhairava severed Brahmā's fifth head to dismantle his pride.
Bhairava seizes Brahmā's fifth head and raises his sword (v.4), but Viṣṇu intervenes in tears (vv.6-7) and Śiva turns Bhairava back before the blow falls (v.8) — the chapter's own theme states "Brahmā is spared his life." Brahmā is cursed with loss of worship, temple and festival instead of losing his head.
-
Bhairava is uncontrolled and liable to turn on the one who worships him.
Chapter 8 shows the opposite twice in eight verses. Bhairava does not act until commanded (8.2-8.3), and he is stopped mid-act: at Viṣṇu's plea "the Lord, pleased, before the assembled gods, then turned Bhairava back from punishing Brahmā" (8.8). He neither begins on his own initiative nor continues once told to stop. The corpus builds its own working rule directly on this — that Śiva's worship is kept running beside any serious Bhairava upāsanā, because the capacity to hold what that practice generates comes from him.
-
भैरव अनियंत्रित हैं और अपने उपासक पर पलट सकते हैं।
आठ ही श्लोकों में अध्याय इसका उल्टा दो बार दिखाता है। भैरव आज्ञा मिलने तक कुछ नहीं करते (8.2-8.3), और कार्य के मध्य में रोक दिए जाते हैं: विष्णु की प्रार्थना पर “देवगणों के समक्ष प्रसन्न हुए ईश्वर ने तब भैरव को ब्रह्मा को दण्डित करने से रोक दिया” (8.8)। वे न अपनी पहल पर आरंभ करते हैं, न रोके जाने पर आगे बढ़ते हैं। संग्रह अपना कार्यसिद्ध नियम ठीक इसी पर खड़ा करता है — कि गंभीर भैरव उपासना के साथ शिव की सेवा चलती रहनी चाहिए, क्योंकि उस साधना से बनी ऊर्जा को संभालने का सामर्थ्य उन्हीं से आता है।
-
The Vidyeshwar Samhita gives the month and asterism of Shiva's first pillar-form appearance as the origin the speaker is pointing to for the Jyotirlinga.
The text confirms the month Mārgaśīrṣa but names the asterism Ārdrā nakṣatra, not a Kṛṣṇa Pakṣa Tṛtīyā tithi — a nakshatra and a tithi are different reckonings, and the text nowhere gives Tritiya.
-
The place where the jyotirliṅga first appeared and where Sadāśiva later gave his first mantra-upadeśa to Brahmā and Viṣṇu is named, in the Purāṇa itself, "Arunachal Pradesh."
The text names the place Aruṇācala — the celebrated Śiva tīrtha at Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu — not the present-day Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which the name only superficially resembles.
-
महाशिवरात्रि वह रात्रि है जब ज्योतिर्लिंग प्रथम बार प्रकट हुआ।
शिवरात्रि का नामकरण करने के सात श्लोक बाद शिव स्वयं स्तंभ की तिथि बताते हैं: “वह समय, हे पुत्रो, मार्गशीर्ष मास में, आर्द्रा नक्षत्र में था” (9.15) — फाल्गुन कृष्ण चतुर्दशी से भिन्न मास और भिन्न नक्षत्र। फिर वे मार्गशीर्ष की आर्द्रा को उसका अपना अलग फल देते हैं (9.16-9.17), और 10.33-10.35 आर्द्रा चतुर्दशी को — शिवरात्रि को नहीं — वह दिन ठहराता है जब एक जप कोटि के समान होता है। संहिता इन दोनों अवसरों को जान-बूझकर अलग रखती है।
-
Mahāśivarātri is the night on which the jyotirliṅga first appeared.
Seven verses after naming Śivarātri, Śiva dates the pillar himself: "that time, children, was in the month of Mārgaśīrṣa, at the Ārdrā constellation" (9.15) — a different month and a different nakṣatra from Phālguna Kṛṣṇa Caturdaśī. He then gives Ārdrā in Mārgaśīrṣa its own separate fruit (9.16-9.17), and 10.33-10.35 fixes Ārdrā caturdaśī, not Śivarātri, as the day on which a recitation is worth ten million. The Saṃhitā keeps the two occasions apart deliberately.
-
The Shiv Mahapuran assigns specific worldly fruits to worshipping Shiva on Thursday (marriage/money/debt/jaundice), Friday (children/marriage for men), and Tuesday (overcoming an enemy).
The actual scheme is: Monday-Lakshmi/prosperity, Tuesday-Kali/disease-pacification, Wednesday-Vishnu/family, Thursday-the gods/long life, Friday-the gods/enjoyment, Saturday-Rudra/averting untimely death. It never names Tuesday for enemies, Thursday for marriage/debt, or Friday for children, and no deity but Saturday's is a form of Shiva.
-
The Shiv Mahapuran assigns Sunday and Monday, as days of the week, to Shiva in particular.
Vidyeshwar Samhita 14:28-29 assigns Sunday to the Sun and Monday to Lakshmi and her retinue, not to Shiva. The only weekday this chapter assigns to a form of Shiva is Saturday, to Rudra (14:34).
-
The meeting of a river with the ocean is the Śiva Purāṇa's highest place of practice.
The discourse names the river-mouth as the summit of the Purāṇa's own ranking. This chapter, which is that ranking, puts the sea-shore one rung BELOW a mountain-peak (15.5: "tato'bdhitīre daśa ca parvatāgre tato daśa"), and above both puts the place where the mind delights (15.6). The sea-shore is genuinely on the ladder and very near the top of it; the chapter names no confluence as such, and does not call the shore the highest.
-
नदी का समुद्र से मिलन शिव पुराण का सर्वोच्च साधना-स्थान है।
प्रवचन नदी-मुख को पुराण की अपनी क्रम-सूची का शिखर बताता है। जो अध्याय वह क्रम-सूची है, वह समुद्र-तट को पर्वत-शिखर से एक सोपान नीचे रखता है (15.5 — "ततोऽब्धितीरे दश च पर्वताग्रे ततो दश"), और दोनों से ऊपर उस स्थान को रखता है जहाँ मन को रुचि हो (15.6)। समुद्र-तट वास्तव में क्रम में है और शिखर के अत्यन्त निकट है; किन्तु अध्याय संगम को अलग श्रेणी के रूप में नाम ही नहीं देता, और तट को सर्वोच्च नहीं कहता।
-
Bhairava is a bhūta, and worshipping him brings ghosts into a house.
The Saṃhitā prescribes Bhairava as the remedy for exactly what this claim accuses him of being: bhairavasya mahāpūjāṃ kuryād bhūtādiśāntaye — "one should perform the great worship of Bhairava for the pacifying of ghosts and the like" (18.127). It sits inside the ordinary śānti-yajña procedure of a conduct chapter, between the gift of a golden image and the mahābhiṣeka of Śiva, not in any esoteric context. The claim inverts the text exactly, and the corpus dates its spread to living memory — households stopped keeping a Bhairava seat because they were told this.
-
भैरव भूत हैं, और उनका पूजन करने से घर में भूत-प्रेत आते हैं।
संहिता भैरव को ठीक उसी का उपाय बताती है जिसका यह कथन उन्हें दोषी ठहराता है: भैरवस्य महापूजां कुर्याद्भूतादिशान्तये — “भूत आदि की शान्ति के लिए भैरव की महापूजा करे” (18.127)। यह किसी गूढ़ प्रसंग में नहीं, बल्कि एक आचार-अध्याय की सामान्य शांति-यज्ञ प्रक्रिया के भीतर, स्वर्ण प्रतिमा के दान और शिव के महाभिषेक के बीच आता है। यह कथन ग्रंथ को ठीक उलट देता है, और संग्रह इस भ्रम के फैलने का काल हमारी ही स्मृति में बताता है — घरों ने भैरव का स्थान इसीलिए छोड़ा क्योंकि उनसे यही कहा गया।
-
A bilva tree growing in the house or compound brings poverty.
The chapter says the reverse across ten consecutive verses: the bilva is of the very nature of Mahādeva, every holy ford in the worlds dwells at its root, worshipping there gives Śivaloka and increases offspring and happiness, and one who feeds a devotee of Śiva at that root "does not become poor" (22.31). The poverty claim comes from a modern popular-astrology convention, not from the received text, and acting on it means felling a healthy tree — which carries a grave fault of its own.
-
घर या आँगन में उगा बिल्व वृक्ष दरिद्रता लाता है।
अध्याय लगातार दस श्लोकों में इसका उलटा कहता है: बिल्व साक्षात् महादेव स्वरूप है, संसार के समस्त तीर्थ उसके मूल में निवास करते हैं, वहाँ पूजन शिवलोक देता है तथा संतान और सुख की वृद्धि करता है, और जो वहाँ शिवभक्त को भोजन कराता है वह “दरिद्र नहीं होता” (22.31)। दरिद्रता वाला दावा आधुनिक लोकप्रिय ज्योतिष की परिपाटी से आता है, प्राप्त ग्रंथ से नहीं — और उस पर चलने का अर्थ है हरे वृक्ष का छेदन, जो अपने आप में गंभीर दोष है।
-
The tripuṇḍra, the triple line of sacred ash, is a brahmin's privilege.
The verse prescribes it "for [all] varṇas and āśramas, with mantra or even without mantra". 24.12 names brahmins, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, śūdras, mixed castes and the degraded as having worn it; 24.40-24.41 sweeps in women, widows, children and even followers of heterodox paths; 24.62 says a wearer of rudrākṣa and the triple line, "even if a caṇḍāla, is worthy of worship, the very best among all varṇas". What varies by varṇa and āśrama is only the consecrating mantra (24.33-24.37), not the entitlement.
-
भस्म की तीन रेखाओं वाला त्रिपुंड ब्राह्मण का विशेषाधिकार है।
यह श्लोक उसे “समस्त वर्णों और आश्रमों के लिए, मंत्र से अथवा बिना मंत्र के भी” विहित करता है। 24.12 ब्राह्मण, क्षत्रिय, वैश्य, शूद्र, वर्णसंकर और पतितों को धारण करने वालों में गिनाता है; 24.40-24.41 स्त्रियों, विधवाओं, बालकों और पाखंडी मत वालों तक को समेट लेता है; 24.62 कहता है कि रुद्राक्ष और त्रिपुंड धारण करने वाला “चांडाल भी हो तो पूजनीय है, समस्त वर्णों में श्रेष्ठ।” वर्ण और आश्रम से केवल अभिमंत्रण का मंत्र बदलता है (24.33-24.37), अधिकार नहीं।
-
Wearing the tripuṇḍra and rudrākṣa cancels sin committed deliberately while wearing them.
The verse puts the relation the other way round: those who do not practise the smearing and the triple line "have no good conduct endowed with varṇa and āśrama" — the mark accompanies conduct rather than replacing it. 25.48 applies the purification to what was done by day or by night, which the discourse tradition reads as covering what is incurred unknowingly; and 25.49-25.51 excludes wearers from Yama's world in the same breath as Yama's standing order, not as an indulgence for deliberate wrongdoing.
-
त्रिपुंड और रुद्राक्ष धारण कर लेने से वह पाप भी नष्ट हो जाता है जो उन्हें धारण करके जान-बूझकर किया गया हो।
श्लोक संबंध उलटा रखता है: जो लेपन और त्रिपुंड श्रद्धा से नहीं करते उनका “वर्ण और आश्रम से युक्त सदाचार है ही नहीं” — अर्थात् चिह्न आचरण के साथ चलता है, उसका स्थान नहीं लेता। 25.48 उस शुद्धि को दिन में या रात्रि में किए पर लगाता है, जिसे प्रवचन-परंपरा अनजाने में लगे दोष के अर्थ में पढ़ती है; और 25.49-25.51 धारण करने वालों को यमलोक से उसी साँस में बाहर रखता है जिसमें यमराज का स्थायी आदेश आता है, जान-बूझकर किए गए अपराध की छूट के रूप में नहीं।
-
It was Dharma who invoked/praised Shiva at that moment, prompting his appearance to rebuke Brahma.
The verse's speaker tag names the deity Dharma (dharma uvāca), not "Dharmaraj" — a title normally denoting Yama. The speaker conflates the two.
-
Dakṣa's curse against Rudra bars him from a share in the sacrifice and reviles him as outside the four social orders — it says nothing about barring his worship from any house.
Dakṣa's curse denies Rudra a share of the yajña and reviles him as low-born; "śmaśānavāsī" (cremation-ground dweller) is flung at him as an existing insult, not imposed as a new restriction on domestic worship. No such restriction appears anywhere in this chapter or its surrounding narrative (chs. 26-27).
-
The chunk states later tantric texts expanded the Shakti Pitha count to 51, matching the Sanskrit alphabet's 51 letters.
The 51-Pitha framework this chunk builds on rests on a dismemberment event this scripture doesn't narrate.
-
The chunk states Shakti Pithas formed when Vishnu dismembered Sati's dead body to console Shiva's grief, with parts falling at specific locations.
This text's account of Sati's death (self-immolation by yogic fire, ch. 30) contains no dismemberment or Pitha-formation episode.
-
The chunk states Vishnu severed Sati's corpse into 51 pieces with his Sudarshana Chakra to form the Shakti Pithas.
In Shree Shiv Mahapuran's own account (Rudra Samhita, Sati-khanda, ch. 30, "Sati's Self-Immolation"), Sati reduces her own body to ashes through yogic fire at Daksha's sacrifice — there is no corpse for Vishnu to cut, no Sudarshana Chakra episode, and no Shakti-Pitha-formation narrative anywhere in this scripture's 43-chapter Sati-khanda (confirmed by chapter-by-chapter theme review and full-text grep).
-
Dakṣa was reciting Bhagavān Śiva's Pañcākṣarī mantra at the very moment Vīrabhadra tore off his head.
The chapter has Dakṣa hiding out of fear inside the altar, dragged out forcibly by Vīrabhadra, his head struck at with a sword (unpierceable through yogic power) and then torn off by hand — nothing has him reciting any mantra.
-
The examples Viṣṇu actually gives are: the sage Durvāsas breaking off Indra's union with Rambhā (Indra himself suffers the separation); Bṛhaspati checking the Moon's dalliance with Ghṛtācī; the sage Gautama checking the Moon's union with Mohinī; and Hariścandra, whose stopping of a ploughman with a low-born woman cost him his own wife, son and kingdom and brought Viśvāmitra's torment upon him.
The chunk's list of names does not match who does what in the text: it names Durvāsas as one who "suffered separation" (he causes Indra's, not his own); it names Kāmadeva alongside Bṛhaspati (Kāmadeva never appears in this passage — it is Bṛhaspati alone); and it names Hariścandra and Viśvāmitra as if both suffered together, when Viśvāmitra is the one who torments Hariścandra.
-
A curse of Kashyap Rishi over Shiva's killing of the Rakshasas Mali and Sumali's champion is the reason Shiva beheads his own son.
Grepped the entire seeded scripture for Kashyap/Mali/Sumali — the only hit is an unrelated episode elsewhere in this khanda. Chapters 13-17, which narrate the beheading in full, give a different explicit reason: Narada tells Shiva this whole battle was staged as a Lila to break the pride of the gods and the Ganas (15:69-70), which Shiva accepts before beheading Ganesha. The curse story is not present in this seeded text.
-
Ganesha's Chaturthi vow prescribed here is a once-a-month observance repeated on every fourth tithi across a full year, not a daily recitation practice confined to the month of Bhadrapada.
The text's own vow is a monthly observance for a full year, with no daily component and no mention of the Sankat Nashan Stotra — looks like the modern Ganeshotsav (daily Bhadrapada worship) folded into this text's different, older vrata schedule.
-
The image for the Chaturthi vrat may be made from the root of a white Arka (Madar) plant at least forty years old, timed to Guru Pushya or Ravi Pushya Nakshatra.
Verse 42 lists the white arka-plant as only one of four equally valid materials (metal, coral, white arka, or clay), with no mention of the plant's age, its root specifically, or any Pushya-Nakshatra timing.
-
On the Chaturthi, the installed image is worshipped with 101 or 21 durva blades of the specified kind while reciting the Sankat Nashan Ganapati Stotram twenty-one times.
Verses 44-45 specify the durva count and form exactly as described, but say nothing about the Sankat Nashan Ganapati Stotram — a separate, later devotional composition folded into the practice.
-
On completion of the year-long vow, twelve Brahmins are fed, a kalash is set up beside the worshipped image, and a homa is performed on an eight-petalled altar-figure by Vedic rule.
Verses 49-51 give exactly this much but say nothing about Navagraha or Matrika mandalas, or homa specifically with the Ganesh Gayatri and Sahasranama — later elaborations not in the text's own udyapan description.
-
Nārada was the very first person the deluding mendicant (Arihan) initiated in Tripura.
Arihan first creates four disciples of his own; only afterward, when his māyā fails against Tripura's Śiva-worship, does Viṣṇu additionally send Nārada in as reinforcement, given a sham initiation purely as cover for espionage.
-
Brahma tells Shiva "Hari is your yuvraj (crown prince), I Brahma am your purohit (priest)," ranking Shiva as sovereign over Vishnu and Brahma.
The verse itself is real and says exactly this (Yuddha-khand 6.47) — but the speaker misattributes it to "the prasang of Shankhachuda." It actually occurs in the Tripura-vadha narrative (chapter 6), where Brahma is urging Shiva to destroy the demons of Tripura — Shankhachuda's own story is told much later in this khanda (chapters ~27-40) as an unrelated episode. The doctrinal content is correct; the named source-episode is wrong.
-
At the climax of the Bāṇāsura episode, Mahādev does not protect his devotee when called on at the last moment — the fruit of devotion there is only paralaukik (otherworldly), not laukik (worldly).
Kṛṣṇa, about to sever the unconscious Bāṇa's head with the Sudarśana, is stopped by Śiva himself, who reveals he had already granted Bāṇa a boon of protection (55:38) — Bāṇa is saved by protection arranged in advance, not left unanswered. The passage shows the opposite of the chunk's moral.
Customary — the text does not say this
23A real, widely-kept practice or telling that this passage does not itself prescribe or narrate.
-
The śivaliṅga is worshipped as a phallic emblem.
The Saṃhitā gives its own derivation and it is theological, not anatomical: Śiva is Brahman, therefore formless, therefore a formless mark (liṅga, the ordinary Sanskrit word for a sign) belongs to him, while the shaped image belongs to his embodied side. Chapters 5-10 nowhere derive the liṅga from a body part; 9.39-9.43 restates the same niṣkala/sakala reasoning and says the liṅga and the one it marks are not different, and 16.87-16.91 gives a second, independent reading as bindu and nāda. The phallic reading is real and widespread; it is simply not this text's.
-
शिवलिंग किसी लैंगिक प्रतीक के रूप में पूजा जाता है।
संहिता अपनी व्युत्पत्ति स्वयं देती है और वह सैद्धांतिक है, शारीरिक नहीं: शिव ब्रह्म हैं, अतः निष्कल, अतः निराकार चिह्न (लिंग — संकेत के लिए सामान्य संस्कृत शब्द) उन्हीं का है, और आकारयुक्त मूर्ति उनके सकल पक्ष की। पाँचवें से दसवें अध्याय तक कहीं भी लिंग को किसी शारीरिक अंग से नहीं निकाला गया; 9.39-9.43 वही निष्कल/सकल तर्क दोहराता है और कहता है कि लिंग और लिंगी में भेद नहीं, तथा 16.87-16.91 बिंदु और नाद के रूप में एक स्वतंत्र दूसरा पाठ देता है। लैंगिक व्याख्या वास्तविक और व्यापक है; वह केवल इस ग्रंथ की नहीं है।
-
महाशिवरात्रि शिव और पार्वती के विवाह की स्मृति है।
नवाँ अध्याय स्वयं तिथि का नामकरण करता है, और किसी और कारण से करता है: स्तंभ-प्रसंग के पश्चात ब्रह्मा और विष्णु के किए पूजन से प्रसन्न होकर शिव कहते हैं “शिवरात्रि नाम की यह तिथि मुझे प्रिय होगी” (9.9-9.10), फिर उसका उपवास और जागरण बताते हैं (9.12) तथा उसका फल (9.13)। विद्येश्वर संहिता के इस पूरे वर्णन में विवाह कहीं नहीं आता। विवाह की कथाएँ रुद्र संहिता की हैं और अन्य तिथियों पर रखी गई हैं; व्यापक रूप से प्रचलित शिवरात्रि-गठबंधन वैद्यनाथ से जुड़ा पुनर्मिलन-विधान है, पुराण की अपनी विवाह-तिथि नहीं।
-
Mahāśivarātri commemorates the wedding of Śiva and Pārvatī.
Chapter 9 names the tithi itself, and names it for something else: Śiva, pleased by the worship Brahmā and Viṣṇu offered him after the pillar episode, says "this tithi, known as Śivarātri, shall be dear to me" (9.9-9.10), then prescribes its fast and vigil (9.12) and its fruit (9.13). No marriage appears anywhere in the Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā's account of the night. The wedding narratives belong to the Rudra Saṃhitā and are placed on other tithis; the widespread Śivarātri gaṭhbandhan is a Vaidyanātha reunion observance rather than the Purāṇa's dating of the wedding.
-
श्मशान तांत्रिक साधना का स्वाभाविक आसन है, और गंभीर साधक को वहीं बैठना चाहिए।
उसी अध्याय से मिलाकर देखा गया जो बताता है कि पुण्यक्षेत्र क्या है और वहाँ क्या किया जाता है। 12.3-4 क्षेत्र की उत्पत्ति के चार प्रकार देता है — ऋषि-परिग्रह, देव-परिग्रह, स्वयम्भू, अन्यथा उत्पन्न — और इनमें श्मशान कहीं नहीं है; 12.5 क्षेत्र के उचित कर्म स्नान, दान और जप बताता है। इस संहिता में श्मशान, पंचमुंडी आसन अथवा शव-आसन का कोई उल्लेख ही नहीं है। श्मशान साधना वास्तविक, प्राचीन और परम्परा-सिद्ध है; वह केवल इस ग्रंथ का विषय नहीं है — और प्रवचन भी उतनी ही स्पष्टता से कहता है कि गृहस्थ का वहाँ कोई काम नहीं।
-
The cremation ground is the natural seat of tāntrika practice, and a serious sādhaka should sit there.
Checked against the chapter that says what a holy field is and what one does in it. 12.3-4 gives four ways a field comes to be — ṛṣi-held, deva-held, self-manifest, otherwise arisen — and no cremation ground is among them; 12.5 names the acts proper to a field as bathing, giving and recitation. No śmaśāna, no pañcamuṇḍī āsana and no corpse-seat appears in this Saṃhitā at all. Śmaśāna sādhanā is real, old and lineage-held; it is simply not what this text is describing, and the teaching is equally plain that a householder has no business at one.
-
The Śakti Pīṭhas are the places where the parts of Satī's body fell.
True to the tradition and absent from this Saṃhitā. The Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā's own account of how a holy field comes to be is the fourfold one at 12.3-4, and Satī's story is not told here at all — it belongs to the Rudra Saṃhitā's Satī Khaṇḍa and to the Devī literature, where the counts themselves differ (51, 52, 108) between texts. Nothing on this page turns on which count is right; what the Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā does supply is a definition of holy ground that does not depend on the story at all.
-
शक्तिपीठ वे स्थान हैं जहाँ भगवती सती के अंग गिरे थे।
परम्परा में सत्य, और इस संहिता में अनुपस्थित। विद्येश्वर संहिता का अपना विवरण 12.3-4 का चतुर्विध विवरण है, और सती की कथा यहाँ कही ही नहीं गई — वह रुद्र संहिता के सती खण्ड और देवी-साहित्य का विषय है, जहाँ संख्याएँ स्वयं ग्रंथ-भेद से भिन्न हैं (51, 52, 108)। इस पृष्ठ का कोई कथन इस पर निर्भर नहीं है; विद्येश्वर संहिता जो देती है वह पवित्र भूमि की ऐसी परिभाषा है जिसे उस कथा की आवश्यकता ही नहीं।
-
शक्तिपीठ की बलि-वेदी के पास बैठकर जप करने से बड़े से बड़ा श्राप भी भस्म होता है और मंत्र अन्यत्र से शीघ्र सिद्ध होता है।
स्थान के विषय में इन प्रवचनों का सबसे प्रभावशाली निर्देश यही है, और जिस अध्याय में स्थानों का तारतम्य दिया गया है उसमें इसका कोई आधार नहीं है। वह सूची है — घर, गोशाला, जलतीर, वृक्षमूल, देवालय, तीर्थतट, नदी, तीर्थनदी, सप्तगंगा, समुद्रतट, पर्वतशिखर, और फिर जहाँ मन रुचे। बलि-पीठ, शक्तिपीठ अथवा श्मशान उसमें कहीं नहीं हैं। यह विधान शाक्त तथा कौल परम्परा का है, जिसका अपना स्वतंत्र आधार है — प्रवचन स्वयं इसके साथ स्पष्ट चेतावनी और पात्रता की कसौटी जोड़ता है — और यह संहिता न इसका विधान करती है, न निषेध।
-
Sitting to recite beside a Śakti Pīṭha's bali-vedī burns off even a curse and ripens a mantra faster than anywhere else.
This is the single most striking instruction about place in the teaching this guide draws on, and it has no footing in the chapter that grades places. That list runs house, cow-pen, water's bank, tree-root, temple, ford, river, holy river, the seven Gaṅgās, sea-shore, mountain-peak, and then wherever the mind delights. No bali-pīṭha, no Śakti Pīṭha and no śmaśāna appears on it anywhere. The practice is Śākta and Kaula paramparā with real standing of its own — the discourse itself attaches a plain warning and a fitness test to it — and this Saṃhitā neither prescribes it nor forbids it.
-
The dashāṃśa rule — havan a tenth of the japa done, tarpaṇa a tenth of that, mārjana a tenth again — is what closes a Navratri anushthan.
Universally kept, and not stated here. The one chapter in the seeded text that lays out a mantra-anushthan end to end gives fixed oblation counts instead (17.46–47). The dashāṃśa proportion belongs to the tantra and paddhati literature this guide's sources work from, not to this Purāṇa.
-
दशांश का नियम — जितना जप उसका दशांश हवन, उसका दशांश तर्पण, उसका दशांश मार्जन — वही नवरात्र अनुष्ठान को पूर्ण करता है।
सर्वत्र माना जाता है, और यहाँ कहा नहीं गया है। सीड किए गए पाठ का जो एक अध्याय मंत्र-अनुष्ठान को आरंभ से अंत तक रखता है, वह इसके बदले नियत आहुति-संख्याएँ देता है (17.46–47)। दशांश का अनुपात उस तंत्र व पद्धति साहित्य का है जिससे इस पृष्ठ के स्रोत चलते हैं, इस पुराण का नहीं।
-
भैरव को मदिरा चढ़ाना अनिवार्य है, और जो नहीं पीता उससे वे अप्रसन्न होते हैं।
विद्येश्वर संहिता इस प्रसंग में भैरव का पूजन दो बार विहित करती है — भूत-शांति के लिए महापूजा (18.127) और महापाप हो जाने पर पूजन (18.130) — और दोनों स्थानों पर कोई द्रव्य नामित नहीं करती; 18.131 साधनों के अभाव में दीपदान को आश्रय बताता है, और 2.35 प्रतिमा के पास पाठ विहित करता है, वहाँ भी कोई अर्पण नामित नहीं। इस संहिता में भैरव का उल्लेख इतने ही स्थानों पर है। जिन मंदिरों में परंपरा से कारण चढ़ता है वह प्रथा वास्तविक और पुरानी है, और संग्रह उसकी पूरी विधि भी देता है; परंतु वही संग्रह दो बार, बिना पूछे, यह भी कहता है कि न पीने वाले से भैरव के अप्रसन्न होने का कोई नियम कहीं नहीं है, कि खप्पर-प्रसाद के लिए किसी पर दबाव वैध नहीं, और कि मधु सीधा विकल्प है।
-
Bhairava must be offered madya, and a worshipper who does not drink displeases him.
The Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā prescribes Bhairava's worship twice in this passage — his mahāpūjā for bhūta-śānti (18.127) and his pūjana on the incurring of a great sin (18.130) — and names no substance at either point; 18.131 names dīpadāna as the fallback when means are lacking, and 2.35 prescribes recitation before his image with no offering named at all. Those are every place this Saṃhitā mentions Bhairava. The kāraṇa offering at temples where it is traditional is real and old, and the corpus gives its procedure in full; what it also states, twice and unprompted, is that no rule anywhere makes Bhairava displeased with someone who does not drink, that no one may be pressured into khappar-prasāda, and that honey is a straightforward substitute.
-
प्रत्येक गृहस्थ को घर में बटुक भैरव का विग्रह स्थापित करके उनकी नित्य सेवा करनी ही चाहिए।
यह पंक्ति इसलिए अंकित है कि यह हमारी ही दिशा में चलती है। यह निर्देश संग्रह में लगभग अनिवार्यता की तरह कहा गया है, और उसका कारण — कि बटुक देवी के अपने पुत्र हैं और उनसे पहले वे नैवेद्य नहीं लेतीं — तांत्रिक तथा कुल परंपरा से आता है। विद्येश्वर संहिता कहीं बटुक का नाम नहीं लेती। जो वह देती है वह उसी निर्देश का सामान्य रूप है: भूत-शांति के लिए भैरव की महापूजा (18.127), महापाप पर भैरव-पूजन (18.130), भैरव की प्रतिमा के पास पाठ (2.35), और सब साधनों के अभाव में दरिद्र का दीपदान (18.131)। अर्थात् प्रथा का ग्रंथीय आधार है; विशिष्ट रूप और विशिष्ट आग्रह परंपरा से आते हैं — और इसका अर्थ यह भी है कि जो घर केवल दीपक रख पा रहा है, वह ग्रंथ के विरुद्ध कुछ नहीं कर रहा।
-
Every householder must install and daily serve a Baṭuka Bhairava murti.
Recorded because it runs in our own direction. The instruction is stated across the corpus as close to obligatory, and its reasoning — that Baṭuka is the Devī's own son and she accepts no naivedya before him — belongs to the tantric and kula traditions. The Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā names no Baṭuka anywhere. What it gives is the general form of the same instruction: Bhairava's mahāpūjā for bhūta-śānti (18.127), his pūjana on great sin (18.130), recitation before his image (2.35), and dīpadāna as the poorest person's fallback (18.131). So the practice has a textual footing; the specific form and the insistence come from paramparā — which matters, because it means a household keeping only the lamp is not doing something the text disapproves of.
-
श्रावण में प्रतिदिन ग्यारह पार्थिव लिंग, एकादश रुद्रों के लिए एक-एक, विहित न्यूनतम है।
लिंगों की संख्या इक्कीसवाँ अध्याय ही देता है, और कामना के अनुसार देता है — मास अथवा किसी नियत दैनिक संख्या के अनुसार नहीं: विद्या के लिए एक हजार, समस्त कामनाओं के लिए दस हजार, पुत्रहीन के लिए पचपन हजार, मोक्ष के लिए एक करोड़। वही अध्याय आगे शिव की आठ मूर्तियों तथा एकादश रुद्रों के पूजन का विधान अवश्य देता है, और स्पष्टतः यही वह स्थान है जहाँ से प्रथा ने अपनी संख्या ली — पर श्रावण भर प्रतिदिन ग्यारह लिंग वाली गणना अध्याय पर आधारित गृहस्थ-प्रथा है, अध्याय का कहा नियम नहीं।
-
Eleven pārthiva liṅgas, one for each of the eleven Rudras, are the prescribed daily minimum in Śrāvaṇa.
Chapter 21 is the chapter that gives liṅga counts, and it gives them by desire rather than by month or by a fixed daily figure: a thousand for learning, ten thousand for every desire, fifty-five thousand for one without a son, a crore for release. The chapter does set out the worship of Śiva's eight cosmic forms and his retinue of eleven Rudras (21.41-21.52), which is plainly where the custom takes its number from — but the count of eleven liṅgas a day through Śrāvaṇa is a household practice built on the chapter, not a rule the chapter states.
-
Pitrs arose from the sweat of Brahma's shame/fear, numbering 64,000 of one class and 86,000 of a second class.
The counts match exactly, but the text names the second class Barhiṣad, not "Brahmasad" as the speaker says — a near-homophone slip, not what the verse says.
-
When told that killing Brahmā would end creation, Śiva answered that he could simply manifest a lakh of new Brahmās on the spot.
The text has Śiva say only that he will create another maker of creation (19:60) — a single replacement, not a lakh of Brahmās. The gist is right; the number is an embellishment.
-
Brahmā threw wet wood on the fire to raise smoke as cover, and Śiva immediately knew from the smoke itself that something was wrong and picked up his trident to kill him.
The wet-wood/smoke detail matches, but the smoke troubles Śiva's own eyes (19:25) — comic irony rather than a tell. His knowledge of Brahmā's act is by omniscience, not by noticing smoke, and the trident is raised only after Brahmā's desire runs its course, not immediately.
-
Brahmā's desire on seeing Satī's feet was driven by a deliberate revenge against Rudra, who had once rebuked him for a similar act.
The text gives a different cause: Brahmā, in his own voice, says he was deluded by Śiva's māyā as poetic justice for once trying to delude Śambhu himself (19:15-16) — not a grudge over a prior rebuke, which does not appear in this chapter.
-
That Pārvatī, while unmarried, worshipped a śivaliṅga and thereby won Śiva as her husband.
The text's own account (ch. 21: Nārada teaches Pārvatī the pañcākṣara and tells her to meditate on Śiva's form; ch. 22: her multi-thousand-year austerities) never mentions liṅga-pūjā. The claim is the popular/customary telling, not what this text narrates.
Inferred from the text
13Drawn from the passage, though it doesn't say this outright.
-
Reviling or mocking the Shiv Mahapuran katha (or its speaker) carries a severe karmic penalty, which is why the speaker cites blaspheming the Shiv Mahapuran as an example of the destructive act to avoid during a long remedy.
Mahatmya 6.48-50 state severe consequences (hell, then births as a dog or donkey) for reviling the speaker/katha, confirming the general severity. The text does not describe the chunk's specific mechanism — an instant strike erasing accumulated merit to zero — so only the underlying severity is stated, not that exact mechanism.
-
The Purāṇa places Śiva's first appearance as the fire-pillar (Agni Liṅga) in the month of Mārgaśīrṣa, at the Ārdrā nakshatra.
The text gives month and nakshatra but not a specific tithi such as Kṛṣṇa Pakṣa Aṣṭamī, and does not itself name this as Kāla Bhairava's own day of origin — that link is the speaker's inference. The Batuk Bhairav / Ganga Dashahara material in the rest of the chunk has no basis found in this scripture.
-
The Panchakshara mantra is presented in the text as the source from which Gayatri itself later arose, supporting the claim that Panchakshari can substitute for Gayatri.
The chapter establishes the genealogy (Pranav -> Panchakshara -> Gayatri) but does not itself state a rule about who must use which mantra — that adhikāra rule is the speaker's own extrapolation.
-
At a Śakti Pīṭha you need not consult tithi, nakṣatra or vāra at all — any hour of any day is equally fruitful there.
Half supported and half in tension, and the reader deserves both halves. Supporting it: 12.5 says of a ford and a field that bathing, giving and recitation are "sadā kāryam" — always to be done — with no calendar attached. Against it: this same chapter fixes a month-and-rāśi window for ford after ford (Naimiṣa and Badarī in Aries, the Godāvarī in Siṃha, the Yamunā and Śoṇa in Virgo, the Kāverī in Libra, the Narmadā in Scorpio, the Jāhnavī in Capricorn, the Gaṅgā in Māgha), and 15.8-10 grades time as steeply as place. The text nowhere exempts a class of place from time. What the discourse is actually saying is narrower and is sound on 12.5: at such a place you need not WAIT for a date.
-
शक्तिपीठ में तिथि, नक्षत्र या वार देखने की आवश्यकता ही नहीं — वहाँ किसी भी दिन का कोई भी क्षण समान फलदायी है।
आधा समर्थित, आधा विरोध में — और पाठक को दोनों जानने चाहिए। समर्थन में: 12.5 तीर्थ और क्षेत्र के विषय में स्नान, दान और जप को "सदा कार्यम्" कहता है, बिना किसी तिथि के। विरोध में: यही अध्याय तीर्थ-दर-तीर्थ मास और राशि की खिड़की तय करता है (मेष में नैमिष व बदरी, सिंह में गोदावरी, कन्या में यमुना व शोण, तुला में कावेरी, वृश्चिक में नर्मदा, मकर में जाह्नवी, माघ में गंगा), और 15.8-10 काल का तारतम्य स्थान जितना ही तीव्र रखता है। ग्रंथ कहीं भी किसी स्थान-वर्ग को काल से मुक्त नहीं करता। प्रवचन जो वास्तव में कह रहा है वह संकुचित और 12.5 पर ठीक है: ऐसे स्थान पर आपको तिथि की <em>प्रतीक्षा</em> नहीं करनी है।
-
Withholding offerings a sadhaka can genuinely afford is not the higher, inward path — in this age the wealth-borne form of dharma is the one praised, and knowledge is reached through the worship of the image.
The verses rank each age's proper means; they name no Navratri offering and no offence for skimping. What they do carry is the distinction the discourses turn on — that austerity-by-omission is the earlier ages' path and not this one's — which is why the same sources treat a poor sadhaka's mental worship as complete (15.56–58) and an able one's cost-cutting as an aparādha.
-
जो सामग्री साधक वास्तव में जुटा सकता है उसे रोक लेना भीतरी या ऊँचा मार्ग नहीं है — इस युग में धन-रूप धर्म की ही प्रशंसा है, और ज्ञान मूर्ति-पूजन से सिद्ध होता है।
ये श्लोक हर युग के उपयुक्त साधन का क्रम बताते हैं; न किसी नवरात्र अर्पण का नाम लेते हैं, न कमी करने के अपराध का। पर जो भेद ये रखते हैं वही प्रवचनों का आधार है — कि त्याग-द्वारा-कमी पूर्व युगों का मार्ग है, इस युग का नहीं। इसीलिए वही स्रोत निर्धन साधक के मानसिक पूजन को पूर्ण मानते हैं (15.56–58) और सामर्थ्यवान की कंजूसी को अपराध।
-
छूटे हुए नित्य कर्म का प्रायश्चित्त उतना ही बड़ा है जितना वह छूटा — एक दिन के लिए सौ जप, दस दिन से आगे एक लाख, महीना बीत जाने पर पुनः संस्कार — न कि यह निर्णय कि पूरा अनुष्ठान ही व्यर्थ हो गया।
यह संध्या के विषय में कहा गया है, अखंड ज्योत के विषय में नहीं — इन अध्यायों में दीपक की चर्चा ही नहीं है। इसे उस सिद्धांत के लिए उद्धृत किया गया है जो प्रवचन ज्योत बुझने पर लागू करते हैं: पुनः जलाइए, प्रायश्चित्त जप कीजिए, और आगे बढ़िए। यह घबराहट कि नौ दिन अब व्यर्थ हो गए, ग्रंथ जिस तरह किसी व्यवधान को संभालते हैं उसमें उसका कोई आधार नहीं है।
-
A lapsed daily rite has a prescribed remedy scaled to how long it lapsed — a hundred recitations for a day, a lakh past ten, the initiation again past a month — not a verdict that the whole observance is void.
Said of the sandhyā, not of an akhand jyot, which these chapters never mention. It is cited for the principle the discourses apply when the lamp goes out: there is a proportionate prāyaścitta and you continue, and the panic that the nine days are now wasted has no basis in how the texts handle a break.
-
A nine-mukhi rudraksha is the traditionally correct bead for reciting the Devi/Bhagavati mantras generally.
Verse 74 gives the nine-faced rudraksha's presiding deities as Bhairava/Kapila or Durga-as-Maheshvari-of-nine-forms. The text never says "Bhairavi," nor calls it the mala for all Bhagavati mantras — that framing is the speaker's own.
-
The chapter as a whole quantifies many other flower, leaf and grain offerings against the specific fruit each brings.
Confirmed the chapter's general shape and the tulasī line precisely; other individual items (lotus/bilva for wealth, champak/ketakī prohibited, etc.) were not each verified against the Sanskrit.
-
Even after becoming Kubera, he first had to perform fierce tapas and worship at a Śiva-liṅga he set up at Kāśī before Śiva (with Pārvatī present) granted him the full lordship of the treasures, guhyakas, yakṣas, kinnaras and kingship over kings.
The chapter has Kubera worship and do tapas addressed to Śiva specifically; Pārvatī appears alongside Śiva and blesses/names him but is not herself the object of his worship in the text.
-
Brahmā's fall here is presented as a lesson about the pride even a great tapasvin can take in his own self-control, undone by Mahāmāyā.
The chapter frames it as Śiva's māyā deluding Brahmā rather than explicitly as pride in so many words; a reasonable gloss, not the text's own stated moral.
Stated in the text
363The passage says this in so many words.
-
Reading, hearing, or reciting the Śiva Purāṇa frees a person from sin and leads in the end to Śiva's world.
-
A piśāca who could find no gati was freed from his ghost-state by being bound and made to hear the entire Śiva Purāṇa recited to him.
Mahātmya ch. 5 tells this of a piśāca named Bindhuga (a former brahmin), bound with nooses and made to hear the whole Śiva Purāṇa, then freed and carried to Śiva's world.
-
In its original form the Vidyeśa Saṃhitā was ten thousand verses, one of twelve Saṃhitās totalling a hundred thousand.
-
अपने मूल रूप में विद्येश संहिता दस हजार श्लोकों की थी, और एक लाख श्लोकों वाली बारह संहिताओं में से एक थी।
-
Vyāsa abridged the Śiva Purāṇa to twenty-four thousand verses in seven Saṃhitās, of which Vidyeśvara is the first; whoever reads all seven with reverence is called liberated while living.
-
व्यास ने शिव पुराण को चौबीस हजार श्लोकों और सात संहिताओं में संक्षिप्त किया, जिनमें विद्येश्वर प्रथम है; जो आदरपूर्वक सातों पढ़ ले वह जीवन्मुक्त कहा जाता है।
-
Reciting the Rudra Saṃhitā three times daily in silence before an image of Bhairava is said to gain every desire — which presupposes that a Bhairava image is an ordinary thing for a reader of this text to have.
-
जो मौन रहकर भैरव की प्रतिमा के पास प्रतिदिन तीन बार रुद्रसंहिता का पाठ करता है वह समस्त कामनाएँ पा लेता है — जो यह मानकर चलता है कि इस ग्रंथ के पाठक के लिए भैरव की प्रतिमा तक पहुँच सामान्य बात है।
-
The end is the attaining of Śiva's state, the means is serving him, and the seeker is one who by his grace has no craving for the fruits of the daily rites.
-
साध्य है शिवपद की प्राप्ति, साधन है उनकी सेवा, और साधक वह है जिसे कृपा से नित्य कर्मों के फल की भी कामना न हो।
-
Hearing comes first, praising grows firm on it, and reflection is last and best of the three means.
-
तीनों साधनों में श्रवण पहले आता है, उसी पर कीर्तन दृढ़ होता है, और मनन अंतिम तथा श्रेष्ठतम है।
-
शिव ही लिंग और मूर्ति दोनों में इसलिए पूजे जाते हैं क्योंकि वही ब्रह्म हैं, अतः निष्कल भी और सकल भी; शेष देवता जीवभूत होने से केवल मूर्ति में पूजे जाते हैं।
-
Śiva alone is worshipped in both liṅga and image because he alone is Brahman, and so both formless and embodied; the other gods, being embodied souls, take the image alone.
-
लिंग का उद्गम वह निराकार स्तंभ है जिसे शिव ने युद्धरत ब्रह्मा और विष्णु के बीच प्रकट किया, और जिससे फिर उन्होंने अपना लिंग दिखाया।
-
The liṅga's origin is the formless pillar Śiva showed between the warring Brahmā and Viṣṇu, out of which he then showed his own liṅga.
-
After Brahmā had the ketakī flower give false witness in the jyotirliṅga dispute, Śiva cursed Brahmā to have no honour, place or festival anywhere, while giving him mastery over yajñas and rites, and cursed the ketakī flower likewise to be barred from Śiva's own worship.
-
Bhairava is created by Mahādeva himself, from between his own brows, to destroy Brahmā's pride — not summoned, appeased or placated, but made.
-
भैरव को स्वयं महादेव ने अपनी दोनों भौंहों के मध्य से, ब्रह्मा का गर्व नष्ट करने की इच्छा से उत्पन्न किया — आवाहन, प्रसन्न करना या शमन नहीं, सीधा प्राकट्य।
-
Kāla Bhairava originated when Śiva created him from between his own brows and sent him to punish Brahmā's proud false witness during the contest with Viṣṇu over the beginningless fire-pillar Śiva had manifested between them.
The text is more specific: Bhairava is created from Śiva's brow/frown (bhrūkuṭi) expressly to behead Brahmā's lying fifth head, as a distinct act following the pillar's appearance (ch. 7) rather than simultaneous with it.
-
Bhairava is a primary manifestation of Śiva, born to punish Brahmā's pride.
-
Shiva himself curses and permanently bars the ketakī flower from his own worship, which is why it alone is withheld from Shiva puja even though other flowers are offered freely.
-
Śiva creates Bhairava from between his own brows to punish Brahmā's pride; Bhairava seizes and cuts off Brahmā's fifth (lying) head; and, though Viṣṇu's plea spares Brahmā's life, Śiva curses Brahmā to go without worship, shrine or festival anywhere in the world.
The video adds narrative detail this chapter does not itself carry (the swan-and-boar quest, a brahmahatyā dosha on Bhairava) — only the core sequence checked here is directly confirmed.
-
Bhairava's first act on appearing is to bow to Śiva and ask what task he is to do — he waits to be commanded.
-
प्रकट होते ही भैरव का पहला कार्य शिव को प्रणाम करके यह पूछना है कि वे क्या कार्य करें — वे आज्ञा की प्रतीक्षा करते हैं।
-
झूठी गवाही दिलाने के कारण ब्रह्मा शापित होते हैं कि संसार में उनका सम्मान, स्थान और उत्सव कुछ न हो — यही पुराण का अपना उत्तर है कि ब्रह्मा के मंदिर लगभग क्यों नहीं हैं।
-
Brahmā is cursed to have no honour, no place and no festival in the world for bearing false witness — the Purāṇa's own account of why Brahmā temples barely exist.
-
The ketakī flower, for testifying falsely, is barred from Śiva's own worship.
-
झूठी साक्षी देने के कारण केतकी पुष्प शिव के अपने पूजन से वर्जित कर दिया जाता है।
-
Shiva himself declares that by his sameness in all things and his all-pervading nature he is the Self of everyone — the scriptural root of the idea that Shiva/"Bhole Baba" pervades every particle of creation.
-
Beyond being remembered as Śiva and Pārvatī's wedding day, the tithi Śiva himself names Śivarātri in this text is bound up with his first manifestation as the beginningless fire-pillar (jyotirliṅga), which appeared in the month of Mārgaśīrṣa at the Ārdrā nakshatra.
The wedding association is not itself part of this passage. The text gives Mārgaśīrṣa/Ārdrā for the pillar's first appearance, not the alternative 'Kṛṣṇa Pakṣa Tritiya' tithi some tellings float — that tithi was not located in the seeded chapters.
-
The Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā itself places Śiva's first appearance as the pillar of fire in the month of Mārgaśīrṣa under the Ārdrā nakṣatra — not on the night later named Śivarātri (established two verses earlier, at 9:10, as Phālguna Kṛṣṇa Caturdaśī).
-
Śiva's jyotirliṅga first appeared in the form of a pillar in the month of Mārgaśīrṣa under the Ārdrā nakṣatra, and the place where that fiery liṅga rose was to become known as Aruṇācala.
The chapter itself says the place "will come to fame under the name Aruṇācala" (9.21); it does not use the specific epithet "Arunachaleshwar Mahadev" for the resulting mūrti, which is the later, common temple name for the deity there. The Mārgaśīrṣa/Ārdrā dating and the naming of Aruṇācala are both directly stated.
-
Installing a single liṅga is said to give equality with Śiva; installing a second, oneness with him.
-
एक लिंग की प्रतिष्ठा का फल शिव के साथ समता कहा गया है; दूसरे की प्रतिष्ठा का फल उनके साथ एकता।
-
लिंग की प्रतिष्ठा प्रधान रूप में होनी चाहिए और मूर्ति की केवल गौण रूप में; जिस भूमि पर मूर्ति हो पर लिंग न हो, वह किसी भी प्रकार तीर्थ-क्षेत्र नहीं है।
-
The liṅga is to be installed as the chief thing and the image only as secondary; ground with an image but no liṅga is in no way a holy field.
-
लिंग के अभाव में वह भूमि, मूर्ति सहित होने पर भी, सब प्रकार से क्षेत्र नहीं है।
-
Without a liṅga, ground is in every way no true holy field, even with an image standing on it.
-
अरुणाचल को ग्रंथ स्वयं शिव के सभी अन्य क्षेत्रों से महत्तर कहता है — जहाँ केवल स्मरण मात्र से मुक्ति होती है, और निवास तथा मरण दोनों मुक्तिदायक हैं।
-
Aruṇācala is named in the text itself as greater than all Śiva's other fields — a place where release comes by mere remembrance, and where dwelling and dying both liberate.
-
Śiva's Praṇava (Oṃkāra) is the seed from which the five-syllabled Pañcākṣara mantra unfolds, and from the Pañcākṣara's own mother-letters the Gāyatrī and, from that, the Veda itself are said to spring.
The chunk telescopes this into a single moment; the chapter's own sequence is staged (Oṃkāra at 10:22, Pañcākṣara at 10:29, Gāyatrī at 10:31) rather than simultaneous.
-
The order of origination given — Pranav (Om) first from Shiva's five mouths, then the Panchakshara mantra from the Pranav, then the Tripada Gayatri from the four-faced form — is exactly the sequence Shiva's teaching to Brahma and Vishnu follows in this chapter.
-
From the praṇava's five-fold origin arose the pañcākṣara, from which the mother-letters, then the Gāyatrī, then the whole Veda, then crores of mantras issued in turn.
-
Śiva, with Ambikā at his side, veiled Brahmā and Viṣṇu with a screening cloth, placed his hand on each of their heads, and gave them the mantra after having them utter it three times, with the two disciples offering themselves as the guru-dakṣiṇā.
-
The first dīkṣā Sadāśiva ever gave was to Brahmā and Viṣṇu, with Pārvatī present as guru-mātā, after which Brahmā and Viṣṇu offered him a hymn of praise.
-
Rudra and Maheśa, as direct forms of Sadāśiva, never forgot the boons they had won and were never deluded the way Brahmā and Viṣṇu were, which is why they alone were never subject to this punishment.
-
Sadāśiva's first upadeśa to Brahmā and Viṣṇu was the praṇava: a-kāra from the northern face, u-kāra from the western, ma-kāra from the southern, bindu from the eastern and nāda from the middle face, joined into the single syllable Oṃ.
-
Śiva, in the form of guru together with the Goddess as guru-mātā, formally initiates (dīkṣā) Viṣṇu and Brahmā into this very mantra, screened from view, each uttering it three times before the teacher.
-
Oṃ arose from Śiva's five mouths as A, U, M, bindu and nāda fused into one syllable; from it the five-syllabled mantra, from that the mother-letters and the three-footed Gāyatrī, and from Gāyatrī the whole Veda.
-
शिव के पाँच मुखों से अकार, उकार, मकार, बिंदु और नाद निकले जो एक अक्षर ॐ में एकाकार हुए; उससे पंचाक्षर मंत्र, उससे मातृका वर्ण तथा त्रिपदा गायत्री, और गायत्री से समस्त वेद।
-
Recitation on the fourteenth at Ārdrā becomes imperishable, and at the great Ārdrā one recitation is worth ten million; the end of Mṛgaśīrṣa and the start of Punarvasu count equal to it.
-
आर्द्रा नक्षत्र में चतुर्दशी को किया जप अक्षय हो जाता है, और महा-आर्द्रा में एक जप कोटि के समान; मृगशीर्ष का अंतिम तथा पुनर्वसु का प्रथम भाग आर्द्रा के तुल्य गिने गए हैं।
-
For the twice-born, "namaḥ" is placed first in the pañcākṣara; for others (the fourth varṇa) and for women, "namaḥ" is placed at the end instead.
The very next verse (11:43) records a dissenting view for brahmin women specifically — the text's general rule, not its only opinion.
-
Ten thousand pañcākṣara recitations daily, or a thousand at each twilight, grants Śiva's state; brahmins prefix the praṇava, and the mantra is received from a teacher together with initiation.
-
नित्य दस हजार पंचाक्षर जप, अथवा दोनों संध्याओं में एक-एक हजार, शिवपद देता है; ब्राह्मण आगे प्रणव लगाते हैं, और मंत्र गुरु से दीक्षा सहित ग्रहण किया जाता है।
-
The holy field around a liṅga is measured by who made it: a hundred cubits for a man-made one, half a thousand for a sage-made or divine one, a thousand bow-lengths for a self-manifest one.
-
लिंग के चारों ओर का क्षेत्र इससे नापा जाता है कि उसे बनाया किसने: मानव-निर्मित के चारों ओर सौ हाथ, ऋषि-प्रतिष्ठित या दिव्य के चारों ओर पाँच सौ, और स्वयंभू के चारों ओर एक हजार धनुष।
-
A holy field has a measured extent: a hundred cubits around a man-made liṅga, half a thousand around a sage-made or a divine one, and a thousand bow-lengths around a self-manifest one.
-
पुण्यक्षेत्र की माप नियत है: मानुष लिंग के चारों ओर सौ हाथ, ऋषिकृत तथा दैव लिंग के चारों ओर पाँच सौ हाथ, और स्वयम्भू लिंग के चारों ओर एक हजार धनुष।
-
Every step-well, well and pool standing inside a holy field is to be known as Śivagaṅgā — bathing, giving and reciting there, one goes to Śiva.
-
पुण्यक्षेत्र के भीतर स्थित बावड़ी, कुआँ और पुष्कर — इन्हें शिवगंगा जानना चाहिए; वहाँ स्नान, दान और जप करके मनुष्य शिव को प्राप्त होता है।
-
Dwelling in a field of Śiva is itself prescribed, out of devotion and until death, because such a field grants enjoyment and release to animate and inanimate alike.
-
शिवक्षेत्र में भक्तिपूर्वक मृत्युपर्यन्त निवास स्वयं विधान है, क्योंकि ऐसा क्षेत्र जड़ और अजड़ दोनों को भोग और मोक्ष देता है।
-
पुण्यक्षेत्र भूगोल का संयोग नहीं है — शिव वहाँ के निवासियों के मोक्ष के लिए कृपापूर्वक क्षेत्र की रचना करते हैं, और क्षेत्र चार प्रकार से बनते हैं: ऋषि-परिग्रह, देव-परिग्रह, स्वयम्भू, अथवा अन्यथा उत्पन्न।
-
A holy field is not an accident of geography: Śiva ordains one here and there for the release of those who live near it, and they arise in four ways — taken up by sages, taken up by gods, self-manifest, or otherwise arisen.
-
तीर्थ और क्षेत्र में स्नान, दान और जप <em>सदा</em> करने चाहिए — और जाकर इनमें से कुछ न करने का परिणाम ग्रंथ स्वयं रोग, दरिद्रता और मूकता बताता है।
-
At a holy ford or a holy field one should ALWAYS perform bathing, giving and recitation — going and doing none of them is itself named as bringing disease, poverty and the like.
-
Sin done in a holy field becomes fixed all the firmer; one should not commit even an atom of it there — and, by whatever means one can, one should dwell in such a field.
-
पुण्यक्षेत्र में किया गया पाप और भी दृढ़ हो जाता है; वहाँ अणुमात्र भी पाप नहीं करना चाहिए — और जिस किसी भी उपाय से मनुष्य को ऐसे क्षेत्र में निवास करना चाहिए।
-
पुण्यक्षेत्र में किया गया पुण्य अनेक प्रकार से बढ़ता है, और पुण्यक्षेत्र में किया गया थोड़ा-सा भी पाप बड़ा हो जाता है।
-
Merit done in a holy field grows in manifold ways, and sin done in a holy field, even a small one, becomes great.
-
Conduct is the condition of the fruit, not an ornament on it: by good conduct, good livelihood and right feeling the wise dwell there — "not otherwise does he gain that fruit."
-
आचरण फल की शर्त है, उसका आभूषण नहीं: सदाचार, सद्वृत्ति और सद्भावना से ही बुद्धिमान वहाँ निवास करे — "अन्यथा वह फल नहीं मिलता।"
-
Kāśī and the other holy fields stand, in many places, on the banks of the hundred-mouthed Gaṅgā.
-
सौ मुखों वाली गंगा के तट पर काशी आदि अनेक पुण्यक्षेत्र स्थित हैं।
-
प्रत्येक महानदी अपने फल के साथ नामतः दी गई है — नर्मदा वैष्णवपद, गोदावरी रुद्रलोक, कृष्णावेणी विष्णुलोक, तुंगभद्रा ब्रह्मलोक, कावेरी सर्वाभीष्ट।
-
Each great river is named with what its banks grant — the Narmadā Viṣṇu's state, the Godāvarī Rudra's world, the Kṛṣṇā-Veṇī Viṣṇu's world, the Tuṅgabhadrā Brahmā's world, the Kāverī every desire.
-
A śrāddha, a piṇḍa-offering, or even sesame and water given in the Gaṅgā in Māgha, when the sun stands in Aquarius, is known to redeem ten million ancestors of both family lines.
-
माघ मास में कुम्भराशि के सूर्य में गंगा में किया गया श्राद्ध, पिण्डदान अथवा तिलोदक भी दोनों वंशों के करोड़ों पितृ-कुलों का उद्धार करने वाला कहा गया है।
-
Bathing at each ford in its own month grants Indra's state; and for one who takes refuge and dwells on the Gaṅgā or the Kāverī, the sin done up to that time is surely destroyed.
-
उस-उस तीर्थ में उस-उस मास में स्नान इन्द्रपद देता है; और जो गंगा अथवा कावेरी का आश्रय लेकर वहाँ निवास करता है, उसका उस समय तक किया गया पाप निश्चय ही नष्ट होता है।
-
रुद्रलोक देने वाले क्षेत्र अनेक स्थानों में हैं, और वहाँ-वहाँ निवास करने वाला वैसा ही फल पाता है — ग्रंथ पवित्र भूमि को दुर्लभ नहीं मानता।
-
Fields granting nothing less than Rudra's world exist in many places, and one who dwells here and there in them gains fruit of the same kind — the text does not treat sacred ground as scarce.
-
The triple line of ash, with the mantra declared in the Jābāla, belongs to the daily bath itself.
-
जाबाल में कहे गए मंत्र सहित भस्म का त्रिपुंड नित्य स्नान के भीतर ही आता है।
-
अपने धन को तीन भागों — धर्म, वृद्धि, भोग — में बाँटा जाता है, और कृषि का दसवाँ, वृद्धि-व्यापार का छठा, प्रतिग्रह का चौथा तथा अकस्मात् आए धन का आधा अंश दान करना चाहिए।
-
One's wealth is divided threefold — dharma, increase, enjoyment — and a tenth of farm income, a sixth of trade profit, a fourth of gifts received and a half of unexpected wealth are to be given away.
-
दूसरों के दोष प्रकट नहीं करने चाहिए, और न ही द्वेषवश उनके विषय में सुना या देखा हुआ कहना चाहिए।
-
One should not proclaim the faults of others, nor out of hostility repeat what has been heard or seen of them.
-
When bathing at a river or other holy ford one should not afterwards clean the bathing-cloth there — only at a step-well, well or house is it carried out and washed.
-
नदी आदि तीर्थ में स्नान करते समय स्नान-वस्त्र को वहीं नहीं धोना चाहिए; बावड़ी, कुएँ अथवा घर पर ही उसे बाहर ले जाकर धोया जाता है।
-
जप के लिए बताए गए स्थान हैं — तीर्थ के दक्षिण में, उत्तम मठ में, मन्त्रालय में, देवालय में, अपने घर में, अथवा उसके लिए रखे गए किसी नियत स्थान में।
-
The places named for recitation are south of the ford, an excellent monastery, a place of mantra, a temple, one's own house, or any fixed place kept for it.
-
शिव ने, “संसार के वैद्य” रूप में, सृष्टि के आरंभ में सातों वारों की रचना की, प्रत्येक का अपना अधिपति और अपना फल — आरोग्य, धन, आलस्य का नाश, रक्षा, पोषण, आयु, भोग तथा अकाल-मृत्यु का निवारण।
-
Śiva, "the physician of saṃsāra", devised the seven vāras at the beginning of creation, each with its own lord and its own fruit — health, wealth, the overcoming of sloth, protection, nourishment, longevity, enjoyment and the averting of death.
-
The ladder of places begins at home: a pure house gives the base, undiminished fruit in the sacrifice to the gods and the other rites.
-
स्थान का क्रम घर से ही आरम्भ होता है — देवयज्ञ आदि कर्मों में अपना शुद्ध घर पूरा, अघटित फल देने वाला है।
-
A cow-pen is ten times a pure house, a water's bank ten times that, and the root of a bilva, tulasī or aśvattha ten times again — three rungs available in almost any village.
-
गोशाला शुद्ध घर से दस गुनी, जलाशय का तट उससे दस गुना, और बेल-तुलसी-पीपल का मूल उससे भी दस गुना — तीनों सोपान प्रायः हर गाँव में उपलब्ध हैं।
-
Above the tree-root come a temple, then the bank of a holy ford, then a river's ford, then a holy river's ford — each ten times the one before it.
-
वृक्षमूल से ऊपर देवालय, फिर तीर्थ का तट, फिर नदी का तीर्थ, फिर तीर्थ-नदी का तीर्थ — प्रत्येक पिछले से दस गुना।
-
The seven Gaṅgās — Gaṅgā, Godāvarī, Kāverī, Tāmraparṇī, Sindhu, Sarayū and Revā — are ten times a holy river; the sea-shore ten times that; and a mountain-peak ten times the sea-shore.
-
सप्तगंगा — गंगा, गोदावरी, कावेरी, ताम्रपर्णी, सिन्धु, सरयू और रेवा — तीर्थ-नदी से दस गुनी; उससे समुद्र का तट दस गुना; और उससे पर्वत का शिखर दस गुना।
-
सभी मापे गए स्थानों से ऊपर वह स्थान है जहाँ मन को रुचि हो — सर्वस्मादधिकं ज्ञेयं यत्र वा रोचते मनः।
-
Above every graded place stands the place where the mind itself delights — sarvasmād adhikaṃ jñeyaṃ yatra vā rocate manaḥ.
-
कलियुग में कर्म सत्ययुग के फल का चौथाई देता है, और कलि का आधा बीत जाने पर उससे भी पादोन।
-
When means are lacking, a poor man should sacrifice by speech or by act; done with the thought of an offering to the deity, little or much serves.
-
In the Kali age an act bears a quarter of its Kṛta-age fruit, and less than a quarter once Kali's own first half has passed.
-
साधन न हों तो निर्धन व्यक्ति वाणी से या क्रिया से यज्ञ करे; देवता को अर्पण के भाव से किया गया थोड़ा या बहुत, दोनों ही काम आते हैं।
-
काल का तारतम्य स्थान जितना ही तीव्र है — शुद्ध दिन, फिर संक्रमण दस गुना, फिर विषुव, अयन, मकर संक्रान्ति, चन्द्रग्रहण, और सबसे ऊपर सूर्यग्रहण, जहाँ फल पूर्ण कहा गया है।
-
Time is graded as steeply as place: an ordinary pure day, then the sun's transit at ten times, then the equinox, the solstice, the entry into Makara, a lunar eclipse, and at the top a solar eclipse, where the fruit is called full.
-
The same act bears a multiplied fruit according to the time it is done in, and the end of a vow is ranked among those charged times.
-
वही कर्म जिस काल में किया जाए उसके अनुसार गुणित फल देता है, और व्रत का अंत उन्हीं विशेष कालों में गिना गया है।
-
The same act bears less fruit as the ages descend — a quarter in Kali, and less again past its half.
-
युग उतरने के साथ वही कर्म कम फल देता है — कलि में चौथाई, और उसके आधे के बाद उससे भी कम।
-
पवित्र काल विषुव से अयन, मकर-संक्रांति और चंद्रग्रहण तक दस-दस गुना बढ़ते हैं, और सूर्यग्रहण इन सबसे श्रेष्ठ है — ठीक इसीलिए कि वह रोगकारक है।
-
Holy times multiply tenfold from equinox to solstice to the Makara transit to a lunar eclipse, and a solar eclipse is the most excellent of all — precisely because it is disease-bringing.
-
पात्र की परिभाषा उसके कार्य से दी गई है — “क्योंकि वह पतन से बचाता है” — और अन्न के लिए पात्र केवल भूखा है, “चाहे वह स्त्री-स्वरूप हो या पुरुष-स्वरूप।”
-
A pātra is defined by its function — "because it saves from falling" — and for food the recipient is simply the hungry, "whether of the nature of woman or of man".
-
यज्ञ वाचिक (मंत्र, स्तोत्र, जप) अथवा कायिक (तीर्थ, व्रत) भी हो सकता है, इसलिए कोई इतना निर्धन नहीं कि यज्ञ न कर सके।
-
Sacrifice may be verbal (mantra, hymn, recitation) or bodily (pilgrimage, vows), so no one is too poor to perform it.
-
Bindu is Śakti and nāda is Śiva; their union is the liṅga, called the cause of the world, the Goddess its mother and Śiva its father.
-
बिंदु शक्ति हैं और नाद शिव; उनका संयोग ही लिंग है, जिसे जगत का कारण कहा गया है — देवी उसकी माता और शिव पिता।
-
Six liṅgas — the praṇava, the self-manifest, the yantra, the installed, the portable, and the guru's own body — worshipped daily, give liberation while living.
-
छह लिंग — प्रणव, स्वयंभू, यंत्र, प्रतिष्ठित, चर, तथा गुरु का अपना शरीर — इनका नित्य पूजन जीवन्मुक्ति देता है।
-
The Shiv Pañcākṣarī (namaḥ śivāya) mantra, its praṇava forms, japa counts and full puraścaraṇa rite are taught in the Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā of the Śiv Mahāpurāṇa, not invented by the speaker.
-
The full puraścaraṇa vidhi of the pañcākṣara mantra is laid out in the Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā: worship of the five-faced (Pañcānana) forms of Śiva — Īśāna, Puruṣa, Aghora, Vāma and Sadyojāta, represented by five Śiva-devotee brāhmaṇas — followed by a homa offered with ghee from a tawny cow, dakṣiṇā to the guru, a bali-offering and feeding, after which the practitioner becomes a mantra-siddha.
The chunk names the source "Dvaishva Samhita," which does not match any of the seven Saṃhitās of the Śiva Purāṇa (Vidyeśvara, Rudra, Śatarudra, Koṭirudra, Umā, Kailāsa, Vāyavīya) — apparently a mishearing. The substance of the claim is genuine: this is exactly the puraścaraṇa rite of the pañcākṣara mantra, and it is in the Vidyeśvara Saṃhitā, not a "Dvaishva" one. The chapter's ghee-homa does not specify mishrī or a Lakṣmī-specific fruit as the chunk does; those details are not verified against this passage.
-
जप-अनुष्ठान का अपना विधान ही एक बार, मित मात्रा में भोजन, मौन और इंद्रिय-संयम बताता है — व्रत साधना का अंग है, उससे अलग कोई पुण्य-कर्म नहीं।
-
The japa-observance itself prescribes eating once, in moderation, in silence and with the senses restrained — the fast is part of the practice, not a separate piety bolted onto it.
-
The text instructs the twice-born (those for whom the sacred-thread rite has been performed) to prefix the Śiva-pañcākṣara with the praṇava (Oṃ) when reciting it.
-
The Vidyeshwar Samhita names Māgha and Bhādrapada as the two most excellent months for undertaking the Panchakshari mantra's purashcharan.
Verse reads "māghaṃ bhādraṃ viśiṣṭaṃ tu sarvakālottamottamam" inside chapter 17, whose subject is exactly the japa/purashcharan of the Panchakshari.
-
The chapter sets out pañcākṣara-japa counts in turn for brahmins, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras, with śūdras (v.127) and, per the guru's judgment, women (v.129) reciting the mantra in its "namaḥ"-ending form.
-
A mantra-anushthan is begun in the bright fortnight and carried until the dark one has come.
Cited only for the bright-fortnight rule, which Navratri's Pratipadā start satisfies. The months this verse singles out as best are Māgha and Bhādrapada — neither Āśvina nor Caitra, the two months the public Navratris actually fall in.
-
मंत्र-अनुष्ठान शुक्ल पक्ष में आरंभ होकर कृष्ण पक्ष आने तक चलता है।
यहाँ केवल शुक्ल पक्ष वाला नियम उद्धृत है, जिसे नवरात्र का प्रतिपदा-आरंभ पूरा करता है। यह श्लोक जिन महीनों को सर्वश्रेष्ठ कहता है वे माघ और भाद्रपद हैं — आश्विन या चैत्र नहीं, जिनमें प्रकट नवरात्र वास्तव में पड़ते हैं।
-
न्यास — ऋषि, छंद और देवता का शरीर पर न्यास — जप से पहले होता है।
-
Nyāsa — assigning the ṛṣi, the chandas and the devatā onto the body — precedes the recitation.
-
पूर्ण हुआ अनुष्ठान हवन से बंद होता है, और आहुति साधक स्वयं देता है।
हवन का होना कहा गया है; संख्या दशांश वाली नहीं है। यह प्रसंग उसे ग्यारह, एक सौ एक, या एक हज़ार एक घृत-आहुति पर नियत करता है — नीचे दशांश वाली `customary` पंक्ति देखिए, जिस नियम से हर नवरात्र अनुष्ठान वास्तव में बंद किया जाता है।
-
A completed anushthan is closed with a fire-oblation offered by the sadhaka himself.
The closing havan is stated; the count is not the dashāṃśa one. This passage fixes it at eleven, a hundred and one, or a thousand and one oblations of ghee — see the `customary` row below on the tenth-of-the-japa rule every Navratri anushthan is actually closed by.
-
प्रणव दो प्रकार का है: सूक्ष्म एकाक्षर ॐ, जिसमें पाँचों ध्वनियाँ अव्यक्त हैं, और स्थूल पंचाक्षर, जिसमें वही ध्वनियाँ व्यक्त हैं।
-
The praṇava is twofold: the subtle one-syllabled Oṃ, with its five sounds unmanifest, and the gross five-syllabled mantra, with those sounds manifest.
-
स्थूल प्रणव वही है जिसमें शिव का नाम चतुर्थी विभक्ति में “नमः” के साथ आता है — शिव-पंचाक्षर — और केवल उसी के जप से मनुष्य समस्त सिद्धियाँ पा लेता है।
-
The gross praṇava is Śiva's name preceded by "namaḥ" in the dative — the Śiva-pañcākṣara — and by its recitation alone a man obtains every accomplishment.
-
The pañcākṣara puraścaraṇa: five hundred thousand recitations, twelve thousand more on the dark fourteenth, five Śaiva brahmins conceived as Īśāna and the other faces with the guru as Sāmba, then the oblation, the fee and a pair of cattle.
-
पंचाक्षर पुरश्चरण: पाँच लाख जप, कृष्ण चतुर्दशी को बारह हजार और, पाँच शैव ब्राह्मण ईशान आदि मुखों के रूप में तथा गुरु साम्ब शिव के रूप में, फिर हवन, दक्षिणा और गुरु को गोयुगल।
-
Five hundred thousand recitations at a time carry the reciter up through the worlds from Atala to Satyaloka, then to proximity to Brahmā and to sārūpya; by a crore he becomes directly equal to Brahmā.
-
पाँच-पाँच लाख जप साधक को अतल से सत्यलोक तक क्रमशः ऊपर ले जाते हैं, फिर ब्रह्मा का सामीप्य और सारूप्य देते हैं; एक करोड़ से वह साक्षात् ब्रह्मा के समान हो जाता है।
-
Recitation is said to carry a reciter across varṇa and gender: a woman by five hundred thousand, a kṣatriya to brahminhood by two such cycles, a vaiśya by four, a śūdra with the namaḥ-final mantra by twenty-five hundred thousand — "whether woman or man, brahmin or of any other class whatsoever".
-
जप को वर्ण और लिंग-भेद से पार ले जाने वाला कहा गया है: स्त्री पाँच लाख से, क्षत्रिय दो चक्रों में ब्राह्मणत्व तक, वैश्य चार चक्रों में, शूद्र नमः-अंत मंत्र से पच्चीस लाख में — “चाहे स्त्री हो, पुरुष हो, ब्राह्मण हो या अन्य कोई भी वर्ण।”
-
एक लाख शिवज्ञानियों से श्रेष्ठ है एक ध्यानयुक्त, और एक करोड़ ध्यानयुक्तों से श्रेष्ठ है एक समाधिस्थ।
-
Better than a hundred thousand knowers of Śiva is one joined with meditation, and better than ten million of those is one established in samādhi.
-
शिवभक्तों के चरणों के धोवन जल से अपने मस्तक का स्नान करने पर छत्तीस करोड़ तीर्थों में स्नान का फल तत्काल प्राप्त होता है।
-
Bathing one's own head with the water that has washed the feet of Śiva's devotees immediately yields the fruit of bathing at thirty-six crore holy fords.
-
महापाप आदि हो जाने पर संहिता स्वयं भैरव-पूजन का विधान देती है — और वह भी उसी अध्याय में जिसमें नित्य आचार और वार्षिक शांति-यज्ञ हैं।
-
On the occurrence of a great sin, the Saṃhitā prescribes the worship of Bhairava — placing it inside the same conduct chapter as the daily discipline and the annual śānti-yajña.
-
सब साधनों के अभाव में दरिद्र व्यक्ति दीपदान करे — पुराण का अपना अंतिम आश्रय, और वही विधान जिसे प्रवचन-परंपरा भैरव का सबसे बड़ा कहती है।
-
When every other means is lacking, a poor person is to perform dīpadāna — the Purāṇa's own fallback, and the same rite the discourse tradition calls the greatest of Bhairava's.
-
Five liṅgas are named in order: the self-manifest, the bindu, the installed, the movable, and the guru.
-
पाँच लिंग क्रम से गिनाए गए हैं: स्वयंभू, बिंदु, प्रतिष्ठित, चर, और गुरु।
-
सधवा स्त्रियों के लिए पार्थिव लिंग विहित है, और प्रवृत्ति-मार्ग की विधवाओं के लिए स्फटिक लिंग।
-
The earthen liṅga is prescribed for married women, and the crystal liṅga for widows on the path of engagement.
-
Ash is threefold — from ordinary fire, from Vedic fire, and from Śiva's fire — and Śivāgni ash is bilva wood (or cow-dung, śamī, aśvattha, palāśa, vaṭa, arka) burned with the Aghora mantra.
-
भस्म तीन प्रकार का है — लौकिक अग्नि से, वैदिक अग्नि से, और शिवाग्नि से — तथा शिवाग्नि भस्म वह है जो अघोर मंत्र से बिल्व की लकड़ी (अथवा गोबर, शमी, अश्वत्थ, पलाश, वट, अर्क) जलाकर बनाया जाए।
-
Ash is applied all over first and then worn as the triple line — mixed with water for worship, dry for purification — and one who worships wearing it gains the complete fruit of Śiva's worship.
-
पहले सर्वांग भस्म लगाकर फिर त्रिपुंड धारण किया जाता है — पूजन के लिए जल-मिश्रित, शुद्धि के लिए सूखा — और जो त्रिपुंड धारण करके पूजन करे उसे शिव-पूजन का पूर्ण फल मिलता है।
-
“गुरु” शब्द की व्युत्पत्ति “जो गुणों का रोध करता है” दी गई है; उनका शरीर ही गुरु-लिंग है, और उनकी सेवा ही उस लिंग का पूजन।
-
The word guru is analysed as "he who restrains the guṇas"; his body is the guru-liṅga, and service to him is that liṅga's worship.
-
अपने गुरु से भी आगे, विशेष ज्ञानवान आचार्य को यत्नपूर्वक गुरु बनाना चाहिए — क्योंकि विशेष ज्ञान वाला ही सच्चा मुक्तिदाता है।
-
One should carefully seek out, even beyond one's own guru, a teacher of special knowledge — because only one of special knowledge is the true liberator.
-
नमस्कार रूपी आत्म-समर्पण का विधान एक हजार, दस हजार, एक लाख अथवा एक करोड़ बार करने को कहा गया है, जिससे समस्त देवता प्रसन्न होते हैं।
-
The self-offering rite of salutation is to be performed a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand or a crore times, by which all the gods become pleased.
-
स्वयं 108 प्रदक्षिणा कीजिए और अधिक दूसरों से करवाइए; प्रदक्षिणा से क्षण भर में समस्त पाप नष्ट होते हैं, और उसका आंतरिक अर्थ यह है कि बाहर जाना जन्म लेने के समान है तथा अंत का नमस्कार आत्म-समर्पण।
-
One performs 108 circumambulations oneself and has more done by another; circumambulation destroys every sin in an instant, and its inner meaning is that going out is like taking birth and the closing salutation is the offering-up of the self.
-
साधक को केवल शुद्ध अन्न खाना चाहिए, मौन रहना चाहिए, और अपनी साधना का रहस्य प्रकट नहीं करना चाहिए।
-
A practitioner should eat only pure food, stay silent, and not disclose the secret of his own practice.
-
The jewel liṅga belongs to the Kṛta age, the golden to the Tretā, the mercury to the Dvāpara — and the earthen liṅga to the Kali age.
-
कृतयुग में मणि लिंग, त्रेता में स्वर्ण, द्वापर में पारद — और कलियुग में पार्थिव लिंग।
-
Worshipping another deity after making an earthen liṅga makes that worship fruitless, and bathing and giving fruitless with it.
-
पार्थिव लिंग बना लेने के बाद अन्य देवता का पूजन करने से वह पूजन निष्फल हो जाता है, और उसके साथ स्नान तथा दान भी।
-
Worship of an earthen liṅga at the three sandhyās with bilva leaves for ten or eleven years is said to make one honoured in Rudra's world in this very body, liberated while living.
-
दस या ग्यारह वर्ष तक त्रिकाल बिल्वपत्रों से पार्थिव लिंग का पूजन करने वाला इसी शरीर से रुद्रलोक में प्रतिष्ठित होता है, जीवन्मुक्त कहा गया है।
-
The rule of the five threads is not observed for an earthen liṅga, and it must be made whole rather than in pieces.
-
पार्थिव लिंग में पंचसूत्र का विधान नहीं लगता, और उसे खंडों में नहीं, अखंड बनाना चाहिए।
-
A movable liṅga is made whole and a fixed liṅga in two parts — the pedestal being the Goddess and the liṅga Maheśvara — and reversing the two forfeits the fruit of worship.
-
चर लिंग अखंड बनता है और अचर लिंग द्विखंड — वेदी देवी है और लिंग महेश्वर — तथा दोनों को उलट देने से पूजन का फल नहीं मिलता।
-
एक ओर समस्त दान, विविध व्रत, तीर्थ, नियम और यज्ञ रखे गए हैं, और दूसरी ओर अकेला लिंगार्चन।
-
All giving, all vows, all pilgrimages, all observances and all sacrifices are set on one pan of the scale, and the worship of the liṅga alone on the other.
-
पार्थिव लिंगों की संख्या कामना दर कामना दी गई है — विद्या के लिए एक हजार, समस्त कामनाओं के लिए दस हजार, पुत्रहीन के लिए पचपन हजार, मोक्ष के लिए एक करोड़; और एक करोड़ बना लेने वाला स्वयं शिव हो जाता है।
-
The number of earthen liṅgas is given desire by desire — a thousand for learning, ten thousand for every desire at once, fifty-five thousand for one without a son, a crore for release, and one crore made makes a man Śiva himself.
-
Women too, and likewise all others, have the right to the worship of the śivaliṅga.
-
स्त्रियों को भी, तथा इसी प्रकार अन्य सबको, शिवलिंग के पूजन का अधिकार है।
-
शिव-पूजन उत्तराभिमुख होकर किया जाता है, और साधक दक्षिण दिशा लेता है — पूर्व नहीं (जो उनके सम्मुख है), उत्तर नहीं (जो शक्ति से युक्त है), पश्चिम नहीं (जो उनकी पीठ है)।
-
Śiva's worship is performed facing north, and the worshipper takes the southern side — not the east (before him), the north (joined with Śakti), or the west (his back).
-
Without ash, a rudrākṣa rosary and bilva leaves one should not worship Śaṅkara at all; where ash cannot be had, the triple line is made with clay.
-
भस्म, रुद्राक्ष की माला और बिल्वपत्र बिना शंकर का पूजन बिल्कुल नहीं करना चाहिए; भस्म न मिले तो त्रिपुंड मिट्टी से ही बनाया जाए।
-
संसार में जितने भी प्रसिद्ध पुण्यतीर्थ हैं वे सब बिल्व के मूल में निवास करते हैं; और जो वहाँ जल से शिव का अभिषेक करता है वह समस्त तीर्थों में स्नात हो जाता है।
-
As many holy fords as are renowned in the worlds, all of them dwell at the root of the bilva; whoever bathes Śiva's head with water there becomes one bathed at every ford.
-
Śiva's food-offering is to be eaten, and the notion that it is forbidden abandoned; delaying it is a fault, and having no wish for it at all is called the gravest fault.
-
शिव का नैवेद्य खाना चाहिए और उसके अग्राह्य होने की भावना त्याग देनी चाहिए; उसमें विलंब करना दोष है, और उसे ग्रहण करने की इच्छा ही न होना सबसे बड़ा दोष कहा गया है।
-
Where Caṇḍa's authority applies the offering is not eaten; it does not apply in the bāṇaliṅga, the iron liṅga, an accomplished liṅga, a self-manifest one, or any image.
-
जहाँ चंड का अधिकार है वहाँ नैवेद्य नहीं खाया जाता; बाणलिंग, लौह लिंग, सिद्ध लिंग, स्वयंभू लिंग तथा किसी भी प्रतिमा में उनका अधिकार है ही नहीं।
-
As many holy fords as are renowned in the worlds, all of them dwell at the root of the bilva.
-
संसार में जितने भी प्रसिद्ध तीर्थ हैं, वे सब बिल्व के मूल में ही निवास करते हैं।
-
जो मुख "श्रीशिवाय नमस्तुभ्यम्" कहता है वही मुख पावन तीर्थ बन जाता है, और जो प्रीतिपूर्वक उस मुख का दर्शन करता है उसे तीर्थजनित फल मिलता है।
-
The mouth that utters "homage to you, glorious Śiva" itself becomes a purifying holy ford, and whoever beholds that mouth with love gains the fruit born of a ford.
-
Śiva's name is the Gaṅgā, ash the Yamunā and the rudrākṣa the Sarasvatī — the three borne together are a Triveṇī that destroys every sin.
-
शिव का नाम गंगा है, भस्म यमुना, और रुद्राक्ष सरस्वती — तीनों एक साथ धारण करने पर वे एक त्रिवेणी बन जाते हैं जो समस्त पापों का नाश करती है।
-
Bathing in ash is called the supreme holy ford, equal to bathing in the Gaṅgā day after day, and yields whatever fruit is in all the fords together.
-
भस्मस्नान को परम तीर्थ कहा गया है, मानो प्रतिदिन गंगास्नान हो, और उससे समस्त तीर्थों का फल पूर्णतः प्राप्त होता है।
-
भूतिशासन से युक्त शिवज्ञानी जिस देश में यदृच्छा से भी चला जाता है, उस देश में समस्त तीर्थ स्वयं आ जाते हैं।
-
To whatever land a knower of Śiva, joined with the discipline of ash, has gone even by chance, to that very land the holy fords have come together.
-
One whose forehead carries the triple line becomes, everywhere, as one bathed in all the holy fords of this world and in the rivers beginning with the Gaṅgā.
-
जिसके ललाट पर त्रिपुण्ड्र है वह सर्वत्र इस लोक के समस्त तीर्थों और गंगा आदि नदियों में स्नात हुए के समान होता है।
-
The mantra that consecrates the ash differs by varṇa and āśrama — mā nastoke for brahmins and kṣatriyas, tryambaka for vaiśyas and students, the pañcākṣara for śūdras and widowed women, Aghora for the forest-dweller, the praṇava for the ascetic.
-
भस्म को अभिमंत्रित करने वाला मंत्र वर्ण और आश्रम से बदलता है — ब्राह्मण-क्षत्रिय के लिए मा नस्तोके, वैश्य तथा ब्रह्मचारी के लिए त्र्यंबक, शूद्र और विधवा स्त्रियों के लिए पंचाक्षर, वानप्रस्थ के लिए अघोर, संन्यासी के लिए प्रणव।
-
Brahmins, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, śūdras, mixed castes, women, widows, children, followers of heterodox paths, students, householders, forest-dwellers and renunciates all become liberated by wearing the triple line of ash.
-
ब्राह्मण, क्षत्रिय, वैश्य, शूद्र, वर्णसंकर, स्त्रियाँ, विधवाएँ, बालक, पाखंडी मत वाले, ब्रह्मचारी, गृहस्थ, वानप्रस्थ और संन्यासी — सब भस्म का त्रिपुंड धारण करने से मुक्त होते हैं।
-
One should eat neither food nor water, even a little, without wearing ash and the rudrākṣa.
-
भस्म और रुद्राक्ष धारण किए बिना अन्न तो दूर, थोड़ा-सा जल भी ग्रहण नहीं करना चाहिए।
-
धिक्कार है उस ललाट को जिस पर भस्म नहीं, उस ग्राम को जिसमें शिवालय नहीं, उस जन्म को जिसमें शिवार्चन नहीं, और उस विद्या को जिसमें शिव की शरण नहीं।
-
Cursed be a forehead without ash, a village without a temple of Śiva, a birth without his worship, and learning without refuge in Śiva.
-
Something of the sacred ash must always be worn on the forehead; women, brahmins and widows alike wear the triple line up to the fringe of the hair.
-
मस्तक पर कुछ न कुछ भस्म सदा धारण किया ही जाना चाहिए; स्त्रियाँ, ब्राह्मण तथा विधवाएँ सब त्रिपुंड केश-सीमा तक धारण करते हैं।
-
One who wears rudrākṣa on his limbs and the triple line on his forehead, even if a caṇḍāla, is worthy of worship — the very best among all varṇas.
-
जो अपने अंगों पर रुद्राक्ष और ललाट पर त्रिपुंड धारण करता है, वह चांडाल भी हो तो पूजनीय है — समस्त वर्णों में श्रेष्ठ।
-
Bathing, meditation, giving and recitation performed by a brahmin without the triple line are not, the text says, that bathing, that meditation, that giving or that recitation at all.
-
ग्रंथ कहता है कि ब्राह्मण ने त्रिपुंड बिना जो स्नान, ध्यान, दान और जप किया, वह न स्नान है, न ध्यान, न दान, न जप।
-
The triple line runs on the forehead from the middle of the eyebrows to where the eyebrows end — that much in measure and no more.
-
ललाट पर त्रिपुंड भ्रूमध्य से आरंभ होकर वहाँ तक जाता है जहाँ भौंहें समाप्त होती हैं — उतना ही, उससे अधिक नहीं।
-
Wearing large numbers of rudrākṣa is prescribed for various parts of the body — five hundred across the two shoulders (also 550 for a crown), eleven hundred as a complete rule, and a thousand for the fullest effect, at which all the gods bow to the wearer as to Rudra himself.
The chapter gives 500 (shoulders), 550 (crown), 1,100 and 1,000 as its own counts; it does not use the figure "1,008" the speaker names as better than 500, though 108 does appear elsewhere in the same chapter for a separate sacred-thread garland. The general shape of the claim — larger counts prescribed for greater effect, up to a thousand — is what this citation covers.
-
The eight-faced rudrākṣa is vasumūrti and Bhairava-natured; its wearer attains a full lifespan.
-
अष्टमुखी रुद्राक्ष वसुमूर्ति तथा भैरवस्वरूप है; उसे धारण करने वाला पूर्णायु होता है।
-
नौमुखी रुद्राक्ष भैरव तथा कपिल मुनि माना गया है; अथवा नवरूपा महेश्वरी दुर्गा ही उसकी अधिष्ठात्री देवी हैं।
-
The nine-faced rudrākṣa is Bhairava and the sage Kapila, or else has the nine-formed Maheśvarī Durgā as its presiding deity.
-
रुद्राक्ष के वृक्ष शिव के नेत्रों से गिरी बूँदों से उत्पन्न हुए, जो विष्णु के भक्तों तथा चारों वर्णों को भी दिए गए; वे श्वेत, रक्त, पीत और कृष्ण भेदों में उत्पन्न हुए और अपने-अपने वर्ण के अनुसार धारण किए जाते हैं।
-
Rudrākṣa trees arose from drops that fell from Śiva's eyes, given to devotees of Viṣṇu and to all four varṇas, born in kinds — white, red, yellow, black — worn according to one's own varṇa.
-
The smaller the rudrākṣa, the more fruit it gives — each smaller one exceeding the last by a tenth part.
-
रुद्राक्ष जितना छोटा हो उतना ही अधिक फलदायी है — प्रत्येक छोटा दाना पिछले से दशांश अधिक फल देने वाला कहा गया है।
-
Wearing a hundred times the number of the Rudras makes a man of the form of Rudra, and the fruit of wearing eleven hundred cannot be described in a hundred years.
-
रुद्रों की संख्या से सौ गुना धारण करने वाला रुद्र-रूप हो जाता है, और ग्यारह सौ धारण करने का फल सौ वर्षों में भी नहीं कहा जा सकता।
-
Rudrākṣa is worn with the mantra of its place — Aghora seed on the hands, Vāmadeva on the belly with a fifteen-bead strand, the five Brahma-mantras for three, five or seven garlands, or the root mantra alone for all of them.
-
रुद्राक्ष स्थान के अनुसार मंत्र से धारण किया जाता है — हाथों में अघोर बीज, उदर पर वामदेव से पंद्रह दानों की माला, पाँच ब्रह्म-मंत्रों तथा अंग-मंत्रों से तीन, पाँच या सात मालाएँ, अथवा केवल मूल मंत्र से सब।
-
रोगयुक्त, काँटे से बिंधा, कीट-भक्षित अथवा बिना छिद्र वाला दाना कभी धारण नहीं करना चाहिए; सूक्ष्म, छोटा दाना ही सदा श्रेष्ठ है।
-
Diseased, thorn-bitten, worm-gnawed or unpierced beads are never to be worn; the subtle, smaller bead is always the most excellent.
-
शिव की अपनी आज्ञा से रुद्राक्ष समस्त आश्रमों और वर्णों द्वारा, तथा स्त्रियों और शूद्रों द्वारा भी सदा धारण किया जाना चाहिए।
-
By Śiva's own command, rudrākṣa should always be worn by all the āśramas and varṇas, and by women and śūdras.
-
यमराज ने अपने ही दूतों को आदेश दिया कि भस्म और रुद्राक्ष धारण करने वाले को कभी यमलोक न लाएँ, बल्कि उसका पूजन करें।
-
Yama ordered his own servants never to bring a wearer of ash and rudrākṣa to his world, and to worship such a one instead.
-
The fourteen kinds of rudrākṣa by number of faces, each with its own deity — from the one-faced, which is Śiva himself, to the fourteen-faced, the supreme Śiva.
-
मुख-भेद से रुद्राक्ष के चौदह प्रकार, प्रत्येक का अपना देवता — एकमुखी से, जो स्वयं शिव हैं, चतुर्दशमुखी तक, जो परम शिव हैं।
-
Whoever wears rudrākṣa without its mantra goes to a terrible hell for as long as the fourteen Indras reign.
-
जो बिना मंत्र के रुद्राक्ष धारण करता है, वह चौदह इंद्रों के शासनकाल तक घोर नरक में जाता है।
-
The chapter that tells of Nārāyaṇa's origin closes by having the twenty-four Sāṅkhya tattvas emanate from him in order, before he gathers them back into himself.
-
Viṣṇu was created by Śiva together with his Śakti in the Kāśī/Ānandavana field, sent to perform tapas, failed after 12,000 years, and on a second attempt streamed enough water from his own weary limbs to fill the void and fall asleep upon it — hence the name Nārāyaṇa.
-
Brahmā was born from a lotus at the navel of the sleeping Nārāyaṇa, could not trace the stalk to its root, performed tapas, and the dispute this provoked with Viṣṇu was settled only when a fire-liṅga (not yet identified as Bhairava) appeared between them.
-
On seeing Śiva's śabda-brahman form, Brahmā and Viṣṇu received the mṛtyuñjaya, pañcākṣara, cintāmaṇi, dakṣiṇāmūrti and gāyatrī mantras, which Viṣṇu then repeated back in praise.
-
Śiva showed Brahmā and Viṣṇu his own śabda-brahman (sound-embodiment) form, with every letter mapped to a limb of his body, as the source from which sages structured their mantras.
-
Śiva taught the non-difference of Śiva, Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Rudra as one substance under three guṇa-names, and foretold his own future emanation as Rudra from his heart, alongside the future consorts Vāgdevī, Lakṣmī and Kālī.
-
The text sets out the relative day-and-night cycles and lifespans of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Rudra, reckoned in nested scale against Sadāśiva's own breath.
-
Viśvakarmā (at Viṣṇu's instance) fashioned a liṅga suited to each god and class of being from a different material — ruby for Indra, gold for Kubera and Brahmā, sapphire for Viṣṇu, diamond for Agni, pearl for Candra, copper for the Ādityas/Sūrya, crystal for Lakṣmī, coral for the Nāgas, butter for the Goddess, ash for yogis, curd for Yakṣas, clay for brahmins, among others.
-
The daily rite prescribes rising at dawn, purification, bathing by the rule of place and time, and marking the tripuṇḍra with ash before wearing rudrākṣa and sitting for worship.
-
Worshipping Śiva with tulasī leaves yields the fruit of both worldly enjoyment (bhukti) and liberation (mukti).
-
The chapter closes with the merit of abhiṣeka streams of water, milk, ghee, oil and sugarcane juice on the liṅga, each carrying its own named benefit.
-
Brahmā names the sages he created from parts of his own body — Marīci from his eyes, Bhṛgu from his heart, Aṅgiras from his head, Pulaha, Pulastya, Vasiṣṭha and Kratu from his breaths, Atri from his ears, Dakṣa from his life-breath, Nārada from his lap, and Kardama from his shadow — before splitting himself into Svāyambhuva Manu and Śatarūpā.
-
Guṇanidhi, a learned brahmin's son, ruined himself and his family through gambling and theft and was disowned by his father.
-
Guṇanidhi, having died while relighting a guttering lamp before a Śiva-liṅga with a strip torn from his own cloth (originally meaning only to steal the temple's food offering), was released from Yama's messengers by that unwitting merit, went to Śivaloka, was reborn a king (Dama of Kaliṅga), and after that life became Kubera, lord of Alakā.
-
Guṇanidhi did not become Kubera directly after lighting the temple lamp with a strip of his own cloth; he first died and enjoyed Śivaloka, was then reborn as Dama, son of the king of Kaliṅga, decreed that lamps be lit in every Śiva temple across his realm, and became Kubera only after that life ended.
-
Guṇanidhi, driven by hunger to steal a Śiva temple's food offering on Śivarātri night, unwittingly relit the temple lamp and ate Śiva's prasādam just before being killed, and this unintentional merit had Śiva's own attendants turn back Yama's messengers, leading eventually to his rebirth as Kubera.
-
Having created the Prajapatis, Brahma became filled with pride, considering himself most exalted; it was then that the beautiful woman Sandhya arose from his mind, later known in her morning and evening forms.
-
Divākṣāntā is named in the text as Pratah Sandhya's own name (with Japantikā for evening Sandhya).
-
Brahma's manas-putra sons (Marichi, Atri, Pulaha, Pulastya, Angira, Kratu, Vasistha, Narada, Daksha, Bhrigu) were created, and Sandhya arose from his mind at that same time.
-
The sages (not Brahma) name the newly-appeared being Manmatha, explaining the name as meaning "you have churned (pramathase) our very being."
-
Four further pitr classes — Somapa, Ajyapa, Sukalin and Havishman — arose from the rishis Kratu, Vasistha, Pulastya and Angira respectively.
-
At the wedding, Viṣṇu prayed that Śiva, together with Satī, protect the gods and the good, and that whoever should look on Satī with desire be slain.
-
When Śiva raised the trident against Brahmā, the sages headed by Marīci cried out in panic and the gods, along with Viṣṇu, pleaded for his life.
-
Recalling Viṣṇu's own earlier request, Śiva raised his trident at once to slay Brahmā for looking at Satī with desire.
-
During the fire-circumambulation, Satī's feet became visible from beneath her garment, and Brahmā saw them.
-
Brahmā conducted the fire-rite of the Śiva-Satī wedding as officiating priest, and Śiva and Satī circled the sacred fire under his direction.
-
Śiva agreed to Viṣṇu's prayer that he would slay whoever looked on a devoted wife with desire — a vow he later invokes against Brahmā himself.
-
Once pacified, Śiva told Brahmā to touch his own head; the instant Brahmā did, a bull-mounted form of Śiva appeared in that very place.
-
Śiva declared that whoever hears the full account of the "Rudra's Head" episode is swiftly freed from the sin of desiring another man's wife.
-
Brahmā came to be called "Rudra's Head" through a charitra manifested for men liable to the fall of looking at another's wife with desire, hearing which frees a listener from that sin.
-
As penance, Śiva declared that Brahmā, established in this bull-headed form and devoted to Śiva's worship, would become famous everywhere as "Rudra's Head" and would help radiant brahmins accomplish their undertakings.
-
While roaming the world with Śiva, Satī doubted that the grieving man she saw searching for his abducted wife in Daṇḍakāraṇya was truly an avatāra of Viṣṇu, and — at Śiva's own instruction — tested him by assuming the form of Sītā herself.
-
Because Satī disobeyed Śiva and tested Rāma by taking on Sītā's form, Śiva perceived the truth despite her denial, recalled an old vow, and renounced her in his mind alone — this is Satī being renounced, not Pārvatī.
Chapter 25 stresses that Śiva does not break his vow outright or announce a formal separation; the renunciation is qualified and mental only.
-
Whoever contrives to interrupt a couple's union suffers separation from spouse and child birth after birth, is left without true knowledge and ruined in fame and fortune, and in the end goes to the Kālasūtra hell for a hundred thousand years.
Spoken by Viṣṇu to Brahmā and the gods. The verses do not specify the means of interruption ("physically, mentally, or through Tantra-Mantra" is the chunk's own gloss) but the consequence described matches closely.
-
Skanda appeared on the sixth lunar day of the bright fortnight of Mārgaśīrṣa, bringing auspiciousness through the three worlds and trouble to the demons.
-
When the gods' plea reached Śiva during his seclusion with Pārvatī, he let his seed fall to the ground rather than continue, and Agni, taking the form of a dove, devoured it.
The text does not describe Śiva as 'angered' at this point — his reply is troubled and aching-hearted, not wrathful — but the core event matches.
-
Unable to bear the seed, Agni deposited it into six of the Seven Sages' wives as they bathed in the month of Māgha; cast off by their husbands once pregnant, the women released it onto the Himālaya, who passed it to the Gaṅgā, who set it down in a thicket of reeds where it became the child Skanda.
-
Angered that the seed had gone astray instead of entering her own womb, Pārvatī cursed the gods' wives to become barren and cursed Agni to become the all-devouring Sarvabhakṣī, forever burning, for having consumed it.
-
The newborn Skanda asked Viśvāmitra — a kṣatriya, son of Gādhi — to perform his saṃskāra rites and become his family priest; when Viśvāmitra objected that he was no brāhmaṇa, Skanda declared him a brahmarṣi by his own boon, had him perform the rites, and afterward gave him supreme divine knowledge.
-
When the six Kṛttikās each wanted to claim the child as her own son, he made himself six-faced so he could nurse from all six mothers at once — the origin of his six-faced form.
-
After the child, armed with the Śakti Agni gave him, destroyed an attacking army of rākṣasas with a single blow, an alarmed Indra struck him with his thunderbolt on the right side, the left side, and the chest — and from those three strikes came the warriors Śākha, Viśākha, and Naigama.
The further claim that daily remembrance of these names together grants complete protection was not found anywhere in the Kumāra-khaṇḍa.
-
At Kārttikeya's consecration on Kailāsa the gods each gave him their own emblem — Viṣṇu the crown, garland and discus; Śiva the trident, Pināka, axe, Śakti and Pāśupata; Brahmā the sacred thread, Vedas and Brahmā-weapon; Indra the elephant and thunderbolt; Varuṇa the noose, garland and parasol; and so on — after which Viṣṇu formally conferred sovereignty of the universe upon him.
-
When a brāhmaṇa's sacrificial goat for an ajamedha rite broke loose and was found causing havoc in Vaikuṇṭha, Kārttikeya mounted it, let it circle the whole universe in a single moment, and forbade its slaughter, promising the sacrifice's fulfilment through his own grace instead.
-
By difference of kalpa, an earlier account has Ganesha's head fall at Shani's glance and an elephant head joined on, while the story being told here belongs to the Shvet Kalpa where Shiva himself severs it.
-
The Ganapati Akhyan opens as Narada asking Brahma for the story, within Brahma's narration of the Kumara Khand.
-
Angered but staying outside, Shiva sends his Ganas to find out who this boy is and reason with him.
-
Ganesha, not recognizing Shiva, refuses him entry and strikes him twice with the staff after Shiva identifies himself and tries to press in.
-
Shiva rebukes Nandi and walks in on Parvati while she is bathing, reinforcing her resolve to have a doorkeeper of her own.
-
Parvati fashions a flawless figure from the impurity (ubtan) of her own body, gives him life, calls him her son, and appoints him doorkeeper who is to let no one in without her order.
-
Parvati's friends Jaya and Vijaya point out that Shiva's countless Ganas, though nominally hers too, are wholly devoted to Shiva's command, prompting her to want a servant of her own.
-
Ganesha mocks Shiva's Ganas back, calling them "so fine-looking" and telling them to go far away.
-
Parvati's friend argues that once a dispute of words has begun, Shiva's side can only enter the house after defeating her Gana in battle.
-
Ganesha, enraged at the Ganas' renewed threats, seizes his staff and beats them.
-
The Ganas identify themselves as Shiva's own doorkeepers sent to remove him and say they spare him only because he too is a Gana; he does not give up the door.
-
The beaten Ganas tell each other they were only upholding propriety, then report to Shiva at a distance, who calls them cowards and orders them to strike the boy.
-
Parvati sends word that Ganesha did well, that these Ganas are no match for him, and that whoever is once defeated will bear no further enmity.
-
Emboldened, Ganesha tells the Ganas that he and they are equals each bound to his post — they to Shiva's command, he to Parvati's — and that he will not yield the door.
-
Shiva reasons that yielding now would spread the reputation that he is always ruled by a woman, and that his Ganas should not accept disgrace by abandoning the fight.
-
Shiva concludes that a wife's stubbornness before her husband will bring its own consequence and orders his Ganas to fight, whatever is destined.
-
Hearing the Ganas' resolve to kill him, Ganesha is distressed, bound as he is by his mother's order.
-
The Ganas set out from Shiva's presence toward Ganesha to carry out that inquiry.
-
Nandi and Bhringi seize a leg each, Ganesha frees himself and takes up an iron club (parigha), striking down the whole host of Ganas — arms, backs and skulls broken.
-
The Ganas flee like deer before a lion, seeing Ganesha as terrible as Kala at a kalpa's end, and he returns alone to his post.
-
Narada arrives with Vishnu, Indra and the Devas; seeing his wounded Ganas, Shiva laughs and tells Brahma of the mighty boy who defeated them.
-
Brahma himself narrates that, not knowing the truth and deluded by ignorance, he went to Ganesha with the sages and had his beard pulled.
-
Enraged, Shiva commands Indra and the gods, Kartikeya (Shanmukha) and his Ganas, and hosts of bhuts, prets and pishachs to surround and slay the boy.
The chunk's aside that Indra is a form of Shiva per the Rudrashtadhyayi is a claim about a different text, not addressed by this citation.
-
A cry of woe rises through the three worlds as beings wonder how the universe can be ending before Brahma's lifespan has run its course.
-
Enraged, Parvati manifests two Shaktis to help Ganesha — one a fearsome dark-mountain form with a gaping mouth, the other lightning-bright, many-armed, and a punisher of the wicked.
-
The two Shaktis swallow every weapon hurled at Ganesha until only his club is visible on the field, as he alone churns the entire army like Mandara churning the ocean.
-
Apsaras and sages crowd the sky-paths to watch the battle, and the earth shakes and mountains fall as it unfolds.
-
While all the gods and Ganas flee, only Kartikeya (Shanmukha) stands his ground before Ganesha, as the two Shaktis render every weapon useless.
-
Narada tells Shiva that this Lila has humbled the pride of both his Ganas and the gods, and urges him to stop the display and strike the boy down.
-
Ganesha, like Parvati (14:43) and Shiva (14:62) before him, closes his speech by saying that whatever is destined will happen and none can prevent it.
The same "what is destined will be" line recurs from all three figures at 14:43, 14:62 and 15:9 — a real repeated motif in the text.
-
Ganesha tells the Ganas that, being a boy, he has never fought before but will today, and that any shame in the outcome will fall on them, not him.
-
Vishnu says he has seen many gods, danavas, daityas, yakshas, gandharvas and rakshasas but none to equal this Gana-lord in splendour, form and valour.
-
Struck by Ganesha's staff, Vishnu and the whole host of immortals have their strength blunted and turn away from the fight.
-
Ganesha strikes the trident from Shiva's hand, then fells the bow Pinaka too and wounds several of Shiva's hands.
Translation of 16:21 implies Shiva has more than one visible hand in this scene, read as consistent with a "Panchanan" framing though the verse does not use that name explicitly — worth a Sanskrit check.
-
Ganesha strikes Vishnu down again with the staff; as Vishnu rises to fight on, Shiva comes from behind and severs Ganesha's head with the trident.
-
Parvati declares that destruction will stop only if her son lives again and becomes one to be honoured and made overseer of all among the gods.
-
Among the Shaktis, Karali, Kubjika, Khanja and Lambashirsha are named as seizing the gods and putting them into their mouths.
The verse names these four Shaktis but does not itself identify them as belonging to Bhagavati's sixty-four Yoginis — that link is the speaker's own addition.
-
Shiva sends the gods north to bring back the head of the first creature they meet — a one-tusked elephant — join it to the trunk, and revive the body by sprinkling water consecrated with Vedic mantras.
-
Not one being — Devas, Danavas, Dikpalas, Yakshas, Kinnaras, Munis, Vishnu or Brahma — dares to stand before Parvati's blazing wrath.
-
The sages, with Narada at their head, praise Parvati as Jagadamba, Shiva, Chandika and Kalyani, opening with "jagadamba namastubhyam shivayai te namo stu te".
The seeded text gives this as three full shlokas (six padas); "six shlokas" in the retelling likely counts by pada rather than by full verse.
-
Enraged at her son's death, Parvati creates hundreds of thousands of Shaktis in an instant and orders them to devour every god, sage, yaksha and rakshasa without discrimination.
-
Shiva ordains that the Chaturthi vow be kept every month until the same Bhadrapada-Krishna-Chaturthi tithi comes round again a year later.
-
The vow calls for a dawn bath and announcement to Brahmins, worship with durva grass and a fast, then a second bath and worship after the first watch of night, installing an image of metal, coral, white arka-wood or clay.
-
The durva grass for Ganesha's worship should be a span (twelve angul) long, three-jointed, and rootless.
-
After the main worship, the young moon of the first watch is also to be worshipped, Brahmins are fed sweet food, and the vrati himself eats sweet food without salt.
-
Two women and two young boys are worshipped and fed before the image, followed by a night vigil, morning worship, and the image's release for its return the following year.
The verses say only "two young boys" (bāṭuka); the specification that they must be Brahmin and under twelve is an inference, not stated outright.
-
Shiva says whoever worships Ganesha with vermilion, sandal, rice-grains and Ketaki flowers according to his means and with faith will always find success and see his obstacles destroyed.
-
At Ganesha's installation, the gods' kettledrums sound, Apsaras dance, Gandharvas sing and flowers rain down as a great festival breaks out and all sorrow is destroyed.
-
Daily recitation of the whole Akhyan with a held desire is promised to fulfil that desire, including a son for the sonless and a groom quickly found for an unmarried girl.
-
Whoever hears this narrative composedly gains every auspiciousness: a son to the sonless, wealth to the poor, health to the sick, good fortune to the unfortunate, and a lost spouse, son or wealth regained.
-
This worship is enjoined on people of all castes, especially women, and especially kings seeking their own prosperity.
-
The gods anoint the revived Ganesha to the office of lord of the Ganas, and Parvati embraces him, gives him garments, ornaments and siddhis, and kisses his face.
-
Parvati says that since vermilion (sindoor) is now seen on Ganesha's face, he will always be worshipped by people with sindoor.
The verse establishes only the sindoor practice itself; a red-versus-orange distinction and a blood-mixing prohibition are the speaker's own additions.
-
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva jointly decree that Ganesha is to be worshipped by all as they themselves are, that he must be worshipped first, and that worship of other gods without worshipping him first bears no fruit.
-
Ganesha is worshipped first by Shiva, then Vishnu, then Brahma, and Shiva grants boons that his name be foremost among destroyers of obstacles and that he be chief of all Shiva's Ganas.
The text has him "proclaimed lord over all" (18:27) rather than using the specific title "Sarvadhyaksha."
-
Shiva states Ganesha was born on the fourth day of the dark fortnight of Bhadrapada at moonrise.
-
Whoever worships and circumambulates his parents obtains the same fruit as circling the whole earth; one who leaves his parents at home to go to a distant tīrtha incurs a sin equal to killing them, since the parents' own feet are a son's (and a wife's husband's) nearest and truest tīrtha — a teaching Gaṇeśa says is declared throughout the Veda, Smṛti and Śāstras.
-
Pārvatī praises Gaṇeśa's spotless intellect, saying that one whose intellect excels even in crisis has his suffering dispelled as darkness is dispelled by the sun, illustrating this with the saying that a proud, maddened lion was once cast into a well by a mere hare; she and Śiva then accept that Gaṇeśa has fulfilled a child's whole dharma as taught in the Vedas, Śāstras and Purāṇas, and resolve to arrange his marriage.
The hare-and-lion line itself is an allusion to the well-known Pañcatantra story, not an event narrated within the Śiva Mahāpurāṇa — the text cites it only as a proverb, as the source seeder's own note on this verse points out.
-
Śiva and Pārvatī, seeing their two sons quarrel over who would marry first, set the condition that whoever first circled the whole earth and returned would marry first; Kārtikeya set off at once, while Gaṇeśa instead bathed, seated his parents for worship, circled and prostrated to them seven times each, and then claimed he had thereby already circled the earth.
-
When Kārtikeya returned from circling the earth, Nārada told him his parents had used the parikrama as a pretext to marry Gaṇeśa first; Kārtikeya, enraged, bowed to his father and departed for Mount Krauñca despite his parents' pleas, and from that day the name "Kumāra" became permanently fixed on him.
-
Grieving at her son's absence, Pārvatī asked Śiva to go to him; Śiva went to Mount Krauñca through a portion of himself, and there the Mallikārjuna Jyotirliṅga came to be established, where Śiva is still seen together with Pārvatī granting his devotees' wishes.
The chapter itself only tells the origin story. It does not number Mallikārjuna second among the jyotirliṅgas, does not pair it with Ghṛṣṇeśvara, and prescribes no rudrābhiṣeka-saṅkalpa remedy for couples who lose sons — those parts of the speaker's claim are his own addition and are not covered by this citation.
-
Seeing that his parents had come, Kumāra, still estranged, withdrew three yojanas further away; unable to dwell together, Śiva goes to see him on every amāvāsyā and Pārvatī on every pūrṇimā.
-
Hearing, reading or reciting this chapter frees one from all sin and grants every desire — brāhmaṇas gain sacred lustre, kṣatriyas victory, vaiśyas wealth, śūdras excellence, the sick are freed from disease and the fearful from fear, and none is afflicted by evil spirits; it grants long life, heaven, progeny and liberation, delights Śiva and Pārvatī, deepens devotion to Śiva, and bestows non-duality with him.
-
Gaṇeśa married Siddhi and Buddhi, the two daughters of Prajāpati Viśvarūpa, in a great festival performed by Viśvakarmā; from Siddhi he had a son named Kṣema and from Buddhi a son named Lābha.
-
The three sons of Tārakāsura obtained a boon from Brahmā that their three flying cities could be destroyed only if all three came into a single line at once (a conjunction fated to recur only once in a thousand years) and were struck by a single arrow.
-
The Tripura demons' unbroken Vedic rites and worship of Śiva (liṅga-worship) made them invulnerable, so that when Viṣṇu sent thousands of weaponed bhūta-hosts against them, the bhūtas were instantly reduced to ash on entering the fiery radiance of Tripura's lord, and only a few fled back to Viṣṇu in terror.
The core narrative is stated plainly (v.35, "like moths in fire"). The specific ritual vocabulary ("Veda path," "havan," "Rudri path," daily "Rudrabhishek") is the speaker's own gloss; the verses speak more generally of vedadharma, śaṅkarārcanam and śucikṛtyāni (v.47).
-
Before Tripura could be destroyed, Bhagavān Viṣṇu formed from his own body a shaven-headed mendicant (muṇḍin) — a being he calls his own form — to undermine the Tripura demons' dharma with a false, heterodox teaching.
-
Once the three cities of Tripura came into alignment, Śiva strung the Pāśupata weapon on his bow and, with a single arrow, burned the three cities and their inhabitants to ash.
Return to Śrī Śiva Mahāpurāṇa, all scriptures, or the rest of the site.
The Sanskrit text is in the public domain. Our claims, notes and apparatus are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 — see /license.