Narada had heard Shri Narayana describe the rudraksha, a berry that the great hold worthy of worship, and he wanted the reason for it. Shri Narayana answered him with an older conversation. Long ago Skanda, the six-faced son of Shiva, had put the same question to Rudra where he rests upon the mountain, and what Shiva told his son that day is what Shri Narayana now told Narada.
Shiva began with a daitya. His name was Tripura, and no one could conquer him. He had beaten every god, Brahma and Vishnu among them, and when the gods came to Shiva with the whole account of him, Shiva began to conceive a weapon. He called it Aghora. It was a thing past thinking: made of the power of all the gods at once, divine, blazing, terrible in its form and lovely to look upon, and it would clear every obstacle from its path. Shiva told his son what the making of it had cost him. “For the slaying of Tripura and the deliverance of the gods I held that Aghora weapon in my mind, and for a thousand divine years my eyes stayed open. Then from my eyes, greatly troubled, drops of water fell.”
Where the tears fell, great rudraksha trees rose out of the earth. By Shiva’s command, for the good of every living being, they bore rudrakshas of thirty-eight kinds. From his right eye, which is the sun, came the tawny beads, twelve kinds of them; from his left eye, which is the moon, came the white, sixteen kinds; and from the third eye, which is fire, came the black, ten kinds.
The color and the faces of the rudraksha
By its color a rudraksha has a jati of its own: the white bead is a Brahmin, the red a Kshatriya, the mixed a Vaishya, the black a Shudra. By its faces it has a god, and Shiva went through them one by one. The one-faced bead is Shiva himself, and it wipes out even the killing of a Brahmin. The two-faced is Devi and Deva together, and it quells two kinds of sin. The three-faced is Agni, and in a moment it burns away the killing of a woman; the four-faced is Brahma, and it takes away the killing of a man. The five-faced is the Rudra named Kalagni, and whoever wears it is freed of every sin of eating what is forbidden and of lying with a forbidden woman. The six-faced is Kartikeya’s own form, worn on the right hand, and it too frees from the killing of a Brahmin. The seven-faced is the greatly fortunate Kamadeva, whom the gods call Ananga, and it undoes the theft of gold. The eight-faced is Vinayaka. Food, cloth and gold come in abundance to the one who wears it; the sin of union with a woman of a corrupt house, or with the guru’s wife, is destroyed, every obstacle on that man’s road falls away, and at the end he reaches the highest state. The nine-faced is Bhairava, worn on the left arm; it gives enjoyment and release, its wearer grows as strong as Shiva, and thousands of killings of the unborn and hundreds of killings of Brahmins perish in a moment. The ten-faced is Janardana, lord of the gods, and it calms every trouble that planets, pishachas, vetalas, brahmarakshasas and serpents can raise. The eleven-faced is the eleven Rudras; worn in the shikha at the crown, it yields at once the fruit of thousands of horse sacrifices and vajapeyas and of lakhs of cows duly given. The twelve-faced is worn in the ear, where the twelve Adityas sit on its twelve faces and are pleased; its wearer gains an ashvamedha by the wearing alone, fears no horned beast, no tiger, no armed enemy and no pain of body or mind, knows no disease, lives happy and prosperous, and is freed of the killing of elephants and horses, deer and cats, snakes, rats, frogs, donkeys, dogs, jackals and many creatures besides. The thirteen-faced, if it can be had, is to be known as Kartikeya himself; it gives every desire, wealth and every siddhi, rasa and rasayana succeed in its wearer’s hands, every enjoyment comes to him, and one who has killed his mother, his father or his brother is freed by it of every sin. And the fourteen-faced, worn always on the head, makes the body of its wearer equal to Shiva. Here Shri Narayana added a word of his own for Narada: the gods themselves worship such a man without pause, and at the end he reaches the highest goal. Then Shiva gave the counts. A good dvija wears one rudraksha on the head with devotion; a mala of twenty-six goes on the head, fifty on the heart, sixteen as a band on the arm, twelve at the wrist. A mala of 108, or of fifty, or of twenty-seven, whether worn or told in japa, gives fruit without end. And the one who wears a mala of 108 gains the fruit of a horse sacrifice in every moment, lifts twenty-one generations of his line, and at the end is established in Shivaloka.
Then Shiva told him the marks of the japa-mala. Every bead carries the three gods: its mouth is Brahma, the bindu at its top is Rudra, its tail at the lower end is Vishnu, and so it hands a man both his enjoyment and his release. The mala is strung from twenty-five five-faced beads, white or red or mixed, pierced, unbroken and still carrying their thorns, joined mouth to mouth and tail to tail until the whole curves like a cow’s tail, with the mouth of the Sumeru bead facing upward and the knot above it. A mala so strung gives mantra-siddhi, and it is made ready in order: washed with scented water, then with the five products of the cow, then bathed in the water that has poured over Shiva in his abhisheka; then the mantras are placed on it in nyasa, it is touched with the Shiva-astra mantra and veiled with the kavacha mantra, hum, the guru and the others do their nyasa, it is sprinkled 108 times with the Sadyojata and the other mantras, and at last, set on clean ground, it receives Samba Sadashiva himself, the supreme cause of the world. Such a mala grants every desire, and one worships it with the mantra of whichever deity one means to perfect. It is worn on the head, the neck or the ear, and japa is done on a rudraksha mala and on no other, with the mind held in; with the highest faith it is worn every day at the throat, the head, the heart, the sides, the ears and both arms. Wearing the rudraksha every day is best of all, and at bathing, at giving, at japa and homa, at the bali and vaishvadeva offerings, at the worship of the gods, at prayashchitta, at shraddha for the dead and at diksha it must be worn; the Brahmin who out of delusion performs any Vedic rite without it falls into hell. Set in gold or in gems it goes on the head, the throat, the sacred thread or the hand; a bead another man has worn does one no good; it is never worn in an impure state, and always in purity, with devotion. Even the grass that grows where the wind has blown across a rudraksha tree goes to the holy worlds and does not come back here. Whoever has sinned and then takes up the rudraksha is loosed of every sin; so the Jabala Upanishad says. By wearing it even animals attain the state of Rudra, and what then of men who wear the mala. Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha wear it with devotion, and all the gods, and the rishis who founded the gotras, and the root ancestor of all with his descendants, and the pure followers of the shruti. If faith in it does not rise at first, then after many births, by Shiva’s grace, the wish rises of itself; all the sages of the Jabala branch recite its glory with reverence, and Shiva said that he had read it too. To see a rudraksha fruit is great merit; to touch it, a crore times more; to wear it, a hundred crore times more; to tell japa on the mala every day, thousands of lakh-crores of times more. The one who wears it on hand and chest, throat, both ears and head is Rudra himself. No creature can slay him, he walks the earth fearless as Rudra walks it, and gods, danavas and men salute him as they salute Shiva. Even one to be shunned like leftover food, given to forbidden acts and full of every sin, is freed of all of it by wearing the bead. Even a dog with a rudraksha tied at its neck gains mukti when it dies, and what then of a man. Without japa, without dhyana, the wearer alone is freed of every sin and reaches the highest goal, and the one who wears even a single rudraksha with care lifts twenty-one generations and is established in Rudraloka.
The glory of a single rudraksha
Shiva set the rudraksha against every other mala. Malas of kusha knots, of putrajiva seeds and of other things are not worth a sixteenth part of it. “As Vishnu is best among purushas, the sun among planets, Ganga among rivers, Kashyapa among munis, Uchchaihshravas among horses, Maheshvara among gods and Gauri among goddesses, so the rudraksha is best. There is no stotra greater than it, and no vrata. Among all the gifts that never perish, the gift of a rudraksha has a glory of its own, and when a man gives a fine rudraksha to a Shiva-bhakta of peaceful nature, I cannot describe the limit of his merit.” Whoever feeds a man wearing a rudraksha at his throat lifts twenty-one families and goes to Rudraloka. The Brahmin who puts no bhasma on his forehead, wears no rudraksha on his body and does no worship in a Shiva temple is the lowest even among Chandalas; and the eater of meat, the drinker of liquor, the man who lives among the antyajas is freed of those sins by wearing a rudraksha on his head. The fruit of every yajna, tapas, gift and reading of the Veda comes quickly by the wearing alone, and so does the merit of the four Vedas, the Puranas, the tirthas and every science. Whoever dies wearing it at the hour of departure attains the state of Rudra and is not born again; whoever dies with it at the throat or on both arms carries twenty-one generations across and lives in Rudraloka. Whoever wears bhasma and rudraksha reaches the world of Mahadeva Shiva, Brahmin or Chandala, with virtues or without, pure or impure, even an eater of forbidden food; mleccha or Chandala or a man laden with every sin, by the wearing alone he becomes Rudra’s own form. Where the bead rests decides what it carries. On the head it is a crore-fold; in both ears, ten crore; at the throat, a hundred crore; on the crown, a thousand crore; on the sacred thread, ten thousand times more again; on both arms, a lakh crore; and at the wrist it becomes the supreme means of moksha. Whatever Vedic rite a Brahmin performs with devotion while wearing it bears great fruit, and even a man without faith, a man always at his sins, is freed of every bond if it hangs at his throat. The one who holds in his mind the wish to wear it and cannot is still Maheshvara’s form, worthy of salutation in this world like a Shivalinga.
Learned or unlearned, Shiva said, a being reaches Shivaloka by the wearing alone, as a donkey once went to Shivaloka in the country called Kikata. Skanda stopped him there. “Why did that donkey wear rudrakshas in Kikata, and who gave them to it? Tell me the whole account.” Shiva told him. On the Vindhya mountain a donkey used to carry loads of rudraksha. One day a traveler piled on more than it could bear and drove it forward; worn out under the weight, it fell to the ground and gave up its life, and in that moment, by Shiva’s grace, it came to him three-eyed and trident in hand, in the form of Maheshvara. For as many thousand yugas as the number of a bead’s faces, Shiva went on, the wearer is established in Shivaloka. This glory is told only to one’s own disciple, never to another, and never before the faithless and the foolish. Devoted or without devotion, low or lower than the low, whoever wears the rudraksha is freed of every sin, and with what could the merit of wearing it be compared? The munis who see the truth of things call the wearing of the rudraksha a mahavrata. The man who has made it his rule to wear a thousand is bowed to by all the gods; as Rudra is, so is he. The man who lacks a thousand and wears sixteen on each arm, one in his shikha, twelve on each hand, thirty-two at the throat, forty on the head, six in each ear and 108 on the chest is worshiped like Rudra. Set with pearl or coral, crystal or silver, vaidurya or gold, the rudraksha makes its wearer Shiva’s own form. And of the one who, out of nothing more than idleness, only wears his rudrakshas, Shiva said, “Sins do not touch him, as darkness cannot touch the sun.” A mantra told on a rudraksha mala gives endless fruit. A body with not one meritorious rudraksha on it has been born in vain, as the life of a man without the tripundra is lived in vain; a head bathed with a rudraksha on it has bathed in the Ganga. The one-faced, the five-faced, the eleven-faced, the fourteen-faced and some others are worshiped in the world, and this rudraksha, the very self of Shankara, worshiped every day with devotion, makes even a poor man a king on the earth.
Gunanidhi gone astray
Then Shiva told one more old tale. In the country of Kosala there lived a Brahmin named Girinatha, very wealthy, a dharmatma, master of the Veda and its limbs, given to sacrifice and consecrated for it. He had a son famed by the name Gunanidhi, young, charming of form, as handsome as Kamadeva. Drunk on his own beauty and on his youth, the young man enticed Muktavali, the wife of his guru Sudhishana.
For some days he kept with Muktavali. Then, in fear of the guru, he gave him poison, and with the guru dead he lived with her and feared no one. When his mother and father learned something of what he had done, he killed them too, in that same moment and with poison. When every coin of the house had gone on his pleasures, the wretch began to steal from the houses of Brahmins. Always drunk on liquor, he was cast out of his jati, and all the people drove him from the village, and he wandered in the forest. He took Muktavali with him into a dense jungle, posted himself on the road, and out of greed for wealth killed many of the Brahmins who came and went along it.
The messengers of Yama and the messengers of Shiva
A long time passed that way, and at last the base creature died. Thousands of Yamadutas came to take him. In that same hour Shiva’s ganas came down from Shivaloka, and between the two companies a dispute broke out over him. The Yamadutas asked, “Tell us what merit this man has, that you servants of Shambhu want to take him to Shivaloka.”
Shiva’s messengers answered, “Ten hands beneath the ground where he died, a rudraksha lies. By the power of that rudraksha we shall take him to Shiva.” And the Brahmin Gunanidhi took a divine form, mounted a vimana, and went with the Shivadutas to Shivaloka.
Shiva closed the account for his son. “I have told you this glory of the rudraksha. Told even this briefly, it destroys every sin and grants great merit.” This, Shri Narayana said, was how Shiva, who rests upon the mountain, told Skanda of the rudraksha, and knowing its glory, Skanda too was fulfilled.
Source: the Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)