Grishneshwar

In the south is the mountain called Devagiri. Near it lived a brahmana named Sudharma of the Bharadvaja lineage, supreme among those who know the brahman. His wife Sudeha was devoted to Shiva's dharma and skilled in household tasks. Sudharma worshipped devas and guests, followed the Vedic path, tended the sacrificial fire, performed the sandhya rites three times a day, taught his disciples, and was generous and wealthy. They had no son, and Sudeha's cycles had been fruitless.

Sudharma, understanding the nature of things, did not grieve. Sudeha did, and urged him daily to try for a son. He rebuked her: who is a son, who is a mother, who is a father, who is a relative? Everyone in the three worlds is selfish. Give up this sorrow and do not raise it daily.

One day Sudeha went to a neighbour's house for a friendly conversation. A dispute broke out, and the neighbour, in the way of co-quarrellers, said: "What are you proud of? You have no son. I do. My son will enjoy my wealth. Who will enjoy yours? The king will take it. You are barren." Sudeha went home, miserable, and told her husband. He said, let her say what she likes, what is destined will occur.

She would not be consoled and threatened to give up her body. Sudharma, in distress, remembered Shiva and threw two flowers into the fire in front of him, resolving in his mind that the flower on the right would bring the son. He asked her to pick one. She prayed to Shiva and thought, "Let the flower my husband thought of come to me." By the delusion of Shiva's will, she did not pick the one he had thought of. Sudharma sighed. "This has been ordained by Ishvara. It cannot be otherwise. Cast aside your hopes." He gave up his own and turned to dharma and dhyana on Shankara.

Sudeha did not give up. She bowed and said: take another wife, there is no doubt you will have a son through her. Sudharma said all his miseries and hers were gone, and not to put obstacles in the path of dharma. She brought her mother's younger daughter home anyway, Ghushma, and begged her husband to marry her. He warned that if Ghushma had a son she would become jealous. Sudeha swore she would not be jealous of her own sister, and begged again. He married Ghushma by the rules and told her she should always care for her elder sister, Sudeha. Ghushma served her sister like a servant.

With her sister's permission, Ghushma made one hundred and one parthiva lingams every day. She worshipped them properly with the upachara, then threw them into a nearby pond. She did this every day, again and again, invoking the lingam afresh each time. When a hundred thousand images were complete, all her desired fruits came, and by Shankara's favour she had a son. He was handsome and fortunate, with every good quality. Sudharma was delighted, though, devoted to jnana, not attached. Sudeha, however, grew fiercely jealous. First her heart merely cooled towards Ghushma; then she began to do wicked things.

The son grew and was loved by his parents. When brahmanas offered their daughters, Sudharma and Ghushma arranged his marriage with great joy. The relatives showed respect to Ghushma, which inflamed Sudeha's mind. She grew so miserable she fell to the ground. Ghushma said to her, "These are your son and daughter-in-law, not mine." And indeed the daughter-in-law regarded Sudeha as her mother-in-law and the son regarded her as his mother. The husband also loved the elder wife more than the younger. Nevertheless the elder held this impurity in her mind.

One day, Sudeha, full of misery, thought, "The fire in my heart can only be pacified through Ghushma's tears of grief. Today I will kill the son." The Purana comments that the thoughts of co-wives are generally vile and harsh, and that in failing to distinguish what should and should not be done, they destroy themselves. That night, while the son and his wife slept, Sudeha took a knife and cut off the son's limbs. She carried them to the pond where Ghushma threw the lingams every day, flung them in, returned and slept.

In the morning Ghushma woke and did her daily tasks. Sudharma did his daily rites. Sudeha, too, went about the household gladly, her inner fire quiet. The daughter-in-law woke and found the bed wet with blood and a few pieces of the body. She asked her mother-in-law where her son had gone, and lamented. Sudeha, inwardly glad, put on a show of grief.

Ghushma heard it but did not give up her vow or her daily worship of the parthiva lingam, and there was no anxiety in her mind. Her husband continued his vrata too. When the worship was done at noon, she saw the terrible bed, and even then there was no grief in her. "The one who has given will protect him. He is famous as one who loves devotees. He is Yama's destroyer. He is like a garland maker: he separates those whom he brings together. What can I do by thinking about it now?" She did not grieve and immersed herself in Shiva.

With her mind just as it had been, Ghushma took the parthiva lingam, chanting Shambhu's name, and went to the bank of the pond. She cast it in. As she was returning she saw her son standing on the bank. "Mother, I was dead and have come back to life. This is because of the power of your good deeds and Shankara's favours." The Purana says Ghushma was not delighted at seeing him alive, just as she had not been miserable earlier.

Then Shiva himself appeared in front of her as a mass of light, pleased, and told her to ask for a boon, adding that he would kill the wicked one who had slain the boy with his trident. Ghushma bowed and asked instead that Sudeha be protected, "she is my sister." Shiva said Sudeha had injured her and deserved to be killed. Ghushma answered that sins are reduced to ashes as soon as one sees Shiva, and that doing good to one who has done harm is exactly what Bhagavan himself had said.

Shiva was pleased even more and told her to ask for another boon. She asked that for the protection of the worlds he remain there under her name. He agreed: "I will remain here, under your name. I will be known as Ghushmesha, the one who bestows happiness." The pond would always be a store of lingams and would be known in the three worlds as Shivalaya, and seeing it would grant what is desired. For a hundred and one generations in her family, Shiva said, excellent sons would be born, with good wives, wealth, long lives and learning, and her lineage would prosper. Then he took the form of the Ghushmesha lingam.

Sudharma, Ghushma and Sudeha arrived, and the three circumambulated Shiva a hundred and one times and worshipped Mahesha together, casting off their mental impurities. Seeing the son alive, Sudeha was ashamed. She asked forgiveness and observed a vow to cleanse her sin.

Suta closes by saying he has now described the twelve jyotirlingas, all of which grant what is desired and bestow pleasure and emancipation, and that a person who reads or hears about them is freed from all sins. In the Shiva Purana as translated by Debroy, this closes Volume II, and the next chapter, the story of Vishnu and the Sudarshana chakra, begins Volume III.