On this page
Near Prayag, in the town of Pratishthanapura, there stood a shrine of Shiva where sadhus and holy men gathered in numbers and a brahmin recited the Shiva Purana aloud each day. Into that shrine, one day, came a brahmin named Devaraj. He hailed from a town of the Kiratas, and he was feeble in learning, wretched by nature, and turned altogether away from Vedic dharma. The evening rites and all such observances he had given up long ago. He sold liquor, and whoever trusted him he cheated. Brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya, shudra, he had fleeced them all by one pretext or another and heaped up a great store of wealth, and not a single cowrie of it had he ever spent in the service of dharma.
No sooner had he taken shelter in the shrine than a fever seized Devaraj. He writhed in pain, yet all the while the Shiva Purana that the brahmin was reciting close by kept falling on his ears, and for a full month he went on listening to it. Then he died. The messengers of Yama came, bound him fast in their nooses, and dragged him by force toward the city of Yama. At that very moment the attendants of Lord Shankara arrived from Shivaloka. Their limbs shone bright as camphor, tridents were in their hands, sacred ash covered their bodies, and strings of rudraksha beads hung at their throats. They drove the messengers of Yama away, freed Devaraj from the nooses, and seated him upon a divine chariot. Dharmaraja himself came out, and recognizing these envoys of Shiva he worshipped them with due ceremony and said nothing. The attendants carried Devaraj to Kailasa and delivered him into the hands of the ever-merciful Samba Shiva.
Suta told Shaunaka that even those who are sinful, given to evil deeds, and forever sunk in lust and rage are cleansed by the mere hearing of this Purana. Listen now to another ancient account on the very same theme.
Vindug of Vashkala Village
Near the sea lay a village called Vashkala, where the brahmins who dwelt there were estranged from the dharma of the Vedas and steeped in the pleasures of the senses; the women there too were wayward and empty of virtue. In that village lived a brahmin named Vindug, a most degraded man, wicked of soul and a great sinner. His wife, Chanchula, was very beautiful and forever devoted to the practice of the highest dharma, yet Vindug forsook her and gave himself to harlots. Many years drained away in this vileness. For a long time Chanchula did not stray from dharma, but in the end, worked upon by her husband’s conduct, she too turned wanton.
So a great span of the lives of both was squandered. Then that man of corrupted mind, Vindug, died when his time came and fell into hell. After suffering the torments of hell for many days, he became a fearsome pishacha (a flesh-eating ghoul) upon the Vindhya mountain. Chanchula, meanwhile, went on living in the house with her sons for a long while after her husband’s death.
Dispassion at Gokarna
One day, on some holy festival, Chanchula journeyed with her kinsfolk to the sacred field of Gokarna. Having bathed in the waters of the tirtha, she wandered here and there, taking in the fair. As she roamed she came upon a temple where a brahmin was reciting the most sacred ancient katha of Lord Shiva. The reciter was saying that women who commit adultery with other men go, after death, to the realm of Yama, where the messengers of Yama bind them fast against pillars of red-hot iron.
At these words Chanchula shook with terror. The katha ended and all the listeners departed, and then the frightened woman spoke to the reciter brahmin in a quiet corner. “Brahmin,” she said, “I never knew my own dharma, and so a great wrong has been worked through me. Hearing today this discourse of yours, brimming with the rasa of dispassion, I am gripped by a great fear; I tremble, and my heart has come loose from this world. Alas, into what grim degradations I must yet fall I cannot say, nor how I shall look upon those terrible messengers of Yama in the hour of death. You alone are my guru, you my mother, you my father. I have come into your refuge; lift up this wretched woman, lift her up.” So saying, she fell upon both the brahmin’s feet.
The Brahmin’s Teaching and the Realm of Shiva
The wise brahmin raised her up with kindness and said, “Woman, it is a blessing that by the grace of Lord Shankara you have heard this katha steeped in dispassion and come to your senses in time. Do not be afraid. Go into the refuge of Shiva; by his grace all sin is destroyed in an instant. Repentance is the greatest penance a sinner can offer; whoever feels true remorse for his misdeed is sure to win the highest state. As a mirror grows spotless once it is cleaned, so the mind is made pure by this katha of the Shiva Purana, and in a pure mind dwells Lord Shiva together with Parvati, the Mother of the worlds. Draw your mind back, then, from the objects of sense, and hear with devotion this most holy katha of Shankara; through it you will attain moksha. Whoever contemplates the feet of Lord Shiva with a spotless mind wins his liberation within a single lifetime.”
Having spoken so, the Shiva-devoted brahmin sank into meditation upon Shiva. Tears of joy shone in Chanchula’s eyes; she fell at his feet and said, “I am fulfilled. Holy one, I have been sinking into the ocean of hell; hearing that beautiful katha, dispassion toward every object of sense has risen in my heart, and now I long with all my faith to hear that Shiva Purana.” Then, in that same field of Gokarna, the brahmin recited to her the entire Shiva Purana, which nourishes devotion, knowledge, and dispassion, and which bestows liberation.
Hearing the katha, Chanchula’s mind was swiftly made pure, and she began to dwell again and again upon the form of Lord Shiva, that being of pure existence, consciousness, and bliss. When her time was complete she laid down her body without the least distress. In that same moment a divine chariot sent by Lord Shiva arrived. Mounting that chariot amid his hosts, Chanchula was borne to Shivapuri; every stain was washed from her, and she took on a radiant, fair-limbed divine form. There she beheld the three-eyed Mahadeva, attended by Ganesha, Bhringi, Nandishwara, Virabhadra, and the rest, with the goddess Gauri seated at his left side. As Chanchula bowed again and again, the goddess Parvati called her near with a gentle look and took her for a companion. Winning an unshakeable place in that eternal abode of perfect bliss, she came to know a joy that never wanes.
The Pishacha of the Vindhya and Tumburu
One day Chanchula went before the goddess Uma, sang her praises, and with folded hands asked, “Daughter of the mountain-king, where is my husband Vindug now, and what fate has befallen him? I do not know. Have mercy, and deliver that husband of mine as well.” Parvati answered, “Your husband Vindug was a great sinner. That fool who consorted with harlots died and fell into hell, and now, to work off the remainder of his sin, he has become a pishacha upon the Vindhya mountain; there he lives on nothing but the wind and endures torments of every kind.” Hearing this, Chanchula was stricken with grief at her husband’s great suffering, and steadying her mind she began once more to pray.
Parvati said, “If your husband should hear the holy katha of the Shiva Purana but once, he may cross beyond all his degradations and become an heir to the highest state.” Then that daughter of the mountain-king, so tender toward her devotees, summoned Tumburu, king of the gandharvas and singer of Shiva’s glory, and said to him with gladness, “Tumburu, your love is set on Lord Shiva, and you know the wish of my heart. Go quickly to the Vindhya mountain with this companion of mine. A most dreadful pishacha lives there who in a former birth was this Chanchula’s own husband, a brahmin named Vindug, and who abandoned the evening rites and all such observances to drown himself in impure ways. Recite there, with all reverence, the divine katha of the Shiva Purana; the hearing of it is the highest of all meritorious deeds. By it his heart will be cleansed and he will let go of the ghost’s form. Then seat him upon the chariot and bring him near to Lord Shiva.”
Given this command, Tumburu was glad in his heart, and taking the chaste and faithful Chanchula with him he mounted the chariot and came to the Vindhya range. There the pishacha, huge of body, now laughed, now wept, now sprang into the air; his shape was hideous to behold. Tumburu bound him fast with nooses and made ready the pavilion for the katha. The instant word spread that by the command of the goddess Parvati, Tumburu had come to recite the katha for the deliverance of a pishacha, many celestial sages gathered there as well. Tumburu took up the vina in his hands and began the katha of Gauri’s lord, reciting the whole of the Shiva Purana, from the Vidyeshwara Samhita to the Vayaviya Samhita, all seven samhitas together with their glories.
The moment the pishacha heard that supremely holy katha, all his sins were washed away and he cast off his pishacha body. His form turned divine. White garments graced his body, ornaments glittered on his limbs, and he shone with a splendor like the three-eyed Chandrashekhara. Divine of body now, the noble Vindug began to sing the praises of Lord Shiva at the side of his beloved Chanchula. All the celestial sages marveled, and having heard that wondrous tale they returned with love to their several abodes. Then Vindug, with his beloved and with Tumburu, came swiftly to the abode of Shiva, where Lord Maheshwara and Parvati received him with great honor and made him one of their own attendants. His wife Chanchula became a companion of Parvati, and the two of them, husband and wife, lived on in perfect happiness in that eternal abode.
Source: Shiva Purana (Gita Press, Sankshipta Shivapurananka), Shiva Purana Mahatmya