The institutes of Vishnu (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880)

256

VISH2VU.

LXXXV, 1.


LXXXV.
1. A Xraddha offered at the (Tirtha or place of
pilgrimage called) Pushkaras confers eternal bliss
upon the giver;
2. And so does the muttering of prayers, the
offering of burnt-oblations, and the practice of
austerities in that place.
3. Even by merely bathing at Pushkara he is
purified from all his sins.
4. The same effect may be produced at (ffaya-
drsha ;
5. And near Va/a (Akshayava/a);
6. And on the Amarakazz/aka mountain;
7. And on the Varaha mountain;
LXXXV. 1. Pushkara, according to the common acceptation
of the term, is the name of a celebrated place of pilgrimage near
Agmir, the modern Pokur. See Lassen, Indian Antiquities, I,
113. Nand. quotes a Smn'ti passage to the effect that there are
three Pushkaras, and a passage of the Mahabharata, in which it is
stated that one Pushkara is sacred to Brahman, another to Vishmi,
and a third to Rudra.
3. Nand. asserts with regard to the use of the name Pushkara
in the singular number in this Sutra, that it means even a single
bath has the consequence here mentioned.
4. Gayajirsha is the name of a mountain near Gaya in Bihar,
a celebrated place of pilgrimage. Compare Ya^navalkya I, 260.
5. There exists one Akshayava/a in Bihar (Nand.) and another
in Prayaga (Allahabad). The ‘ undecaying banyan-tree ’ (Akshay
Ba/) is an object of worship at Allahabad even now, and was so
already in the times of Hwen Thsang. See Cunningham, Ancient
Geography of India, p. 389 ; St. Julien, Voyages des Pelerins
Bouddhistes, II, 278.
6. Nand. states that both the Tirtha called Amarakazz/aka on
the Mekala mountain in the Vindhya range and the whole moun-
tain of that name are meant.
7. ! This is a certain boar-shaped mountain.’ (Nand.) It seems
very probable that the Tirtha of Baramula, the ancient Varaha-