MAHATMYAM OF CHAPTER 13 - REDEMPTION OF A WOMAN OF ILL VIRTUE

There was a village called Hariharapura on the banks of river Tungabhadra. A pious brahmin named Hari Deekshita lived there. He was a beacon light for the villagers, well versed in Vedic lore and renowned for his simple living and high thinking.

But unfortunately his wife was just the opposite. She was haughty and cruel and was surrounded by her paramours. Her youthfulness combined with a licentious mind made her a woman of easy virtues. She used to meet her lovers secretly in the woods and enjoy herself in their company. One day smitten by love, she entered the woods hoping to meet at least one of her paramours. She roamed in the woods for a long time but did not find any one. When she was thus wandering with a dejected mind, she saw someone approaching her stealthily. She thought it would be one of her paramours playing trick on her, and so jumped at the form and caught hold of it.

Good Lord! Leopard! Leopard!!" she screamed.

The leopard had an easy prey. As it started tearing her body with its powerful claws, she screamed in agony. But she mustered enough strength and courage to address it "O Leopard it is indeed very wrong on your part to kill me in my secret hideouts".

"Who! I have come here only for the purpose of killing you!" said the leopard.

"Who are you then?" asked the woman.

"I shall tell you. Listen," said the leopard.

"On the banks of river Malaa-paha (literally means that which destroys dirt, i.e. evil tendencies), there is a town called Muniparna (dried up grass used by ascetics for thatching their huts etc.). I was in my previous birth a brahmin born in that town. Though born in a very pious family I led a life of extreme greed. For the sake of money I used to perform worship for those who were not fit for it. I received shamelessly charities from everybody. I used to drive away those who approached me with genuine requests for money. I borrowed money from almost everybody and never returned it. Thus I grew up and spent all my youthful days to aggrandise wealth by right and wrong means."

"When I became old and eyesight failed and all my teeth fell away, I still continued my earlier life, spreading a grass mat in pilgrimage centres and begging for alms. Once while I was thus begging on the banks of a sacred pond where people used to come for a holy dip, a rabid dog bit me and I died. In this birth, I have now become a leopard. I don't attack Sanyasin (ascetics), pious brahmins or women of chastity. But you are a whore and so you are the right food for me."

"O leopard, I am now certain that you will kill and eat me up. But before doing so, I have to ask you some more questions" said the woman, although she was writhing in pain.

"You who were born in a brahmin family and became a leopard now on account of your bad actions, how did you inherit the remembrance of your previous births?"

"O, that was just a streak of luck. After the dog-bite. when I fell sick on the banks of the sacred pond and was fighting for life, I happened to hear a melodious chant. It was a brahmin reciting the thirteenth chapter of Bhagàwad Geeta. On account of the fact that I died on the banks of a sacred pond listening to the thirteenth chapter of the Geeta, I have been able to retain my memory of the previous births. I am now anxious to avoid any further devolution. Not only that, I am just roaming about with the fond expectation that I would be able to hear again the thirteenth chapter of the Geeta somewhere, sometime."

"So then, what remedy is there, in your opinion, for me to get liberated?" asked the woman.

"If you happen to listen to the thirteenth chapter of the Geeta, you will certainly get liberated."

The leopard was in no mood to prolong the discussions with the woman. It tore her apart and ate her up.

After innumerable births, with great difficulty, she was again born as a human being, but in a family of tribals who used to eat dog's meat.

When she grew up, according to her old instincts, she again became a prostitute. She passed her youth leading an immoral life. In her old age, when she had shed all her teeth, when her eyesight dimmed and her body was rendered weak and frail, she wandered about with a begging bowl in her hands.

At that time, without her realising it, fortune smiled on her. In the course of her wandering, she reached the old town of Hariharapura, and started her life of begging in the precincts of the temple of Goddess Jhrimbhika. (the word 'jhrimbhana' or 'Ujjhrimbhana', meaning: to encourage, to develop. Goddess Jhrimbhika only means that the Universal Mother has been installed the temple as a benevolent deity, who quickens or encourages or develops the evolutionary process of those who come within the sweep of Her grace. And on of this particular Sankalpa with which the Deity is installed, She has been as 'Jhrimbhika'. This is just one of the numberless aspects in which the grace of the mother is invoked and installed, yet another example of the mystic style of stories) There, she chanced to listen to the chanting of a hymn which she instinctively liked very much. She did not understand what it was, but she listened to it with all attention. After sometime, she fell down unconscious and died.

She gave up the human body which she had inherited in the family of dog-eaters and rose to the higher worlds.

The chant she heard was the thirteenth chapter of the Geeta. A pious man named Vasudevan was reciting the chapter in the temple hall of Goddess Jhrimbika.