Tirtha Kaumudi- A Work on Pilgrimage (An Old and Rare Book)

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Almost all the writers on and about ancient Assam's history and culture, very often refer to or quote the Kalika-purapa and it pas prompted me to edit the Kalika purana in early seventies. The Kalika-purana composed in late nineth century A.D. in Assam, contains four chapters (77-80) which give a vivid description of different places, rivers and hills considered holy. Some other chapters provide information on socio-religious aspects of the State. I have undertaken a study on the Kalika-purāņa in a comprehensive way which, however, is yet to be completed for various reasons. It is almost after twenty years the Kalika-purapa was re-published with an English translation and introduction in English. Meanwhile, I edited and published two more Sanskrit works composed in Assam; the first one is the Yoginf-tantra, which also not only focusses attention on socio-cultural aspects but historical events of medieval Assam; the second one is the Kamakhya-tantra. Following the same trend I now present the Tirtha-kaumudi, which quotes the Kalika-purapa and the Yogint- tantra extensively. In fact this work serves two-fold purpose; it introduces Assam to the rest of India and the (rest of) India to Assam.

The Tirtha-kaumudi was by a sixteenth-seventeenth century Assamese scholar, who was a Court Pandit of Maharaja Naranārāyaņa (1540-1584 A.D.), the Rajarşi king of the Kocha dynasty and his nephew Raghudeva (1584-1603) and his son (see Introduction).

I have taken up editing this manuscript by Pitambara about twelve years back, and collected xerox copies from four different sources. Though xerox copies of the work were collected I could not complete editing it, because of ambitious planning and non- availability of the publications, and manuscripts required for the purpose. The work refers or quotes about eighty works including Smrti-digests. Most of the Smrti-nibandhas are from Mithila and majority of them are still in manuscript form. I made an attempt to trace out the quotations in these manuscripts and the published works.

TIRTHA: A tirtha is a holy place sacred to god or goddess, which is visited by people to wipe off the sin of this and the previous births, and also for acquiring virtues which grant enjoyment in this world and liberation (moksa) after death. A river or a particular place on a river, a lake or a pond, a hill or a mountain peak, a cave or a forest, or a place where the image of god or goddess stands, and a place where a sage or saintly person is born, lives or dies is regarded as a tirtha.

1.2. Though the most popular meaning of the word tirtha is a ghata of a river (jalavatara or ghatța), the Sanskrit lexicons give a plethora of meaning of the word tirtha. For instance, Namalingānuśasana gives three meanings of the word tirtha, Medint ten², Viśvaprakaśa eight; Anekartha- sarigraha (of Hemacandra) thirteen'; Trikanda-śeşa two³; and Abhidhana-ratna-mala twentyfour.

Monier Willims in his A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, in addition to these shades of meanings, given in the Sanskrit kosas, gleans new meanings from the uses of the word tirtha in the Brahmanas, the Upanisads, Srauta-sūtras and classical Sanskrit literature and, thus he puts thirty one meanings to the word tirtha.

1.3. Certain parts of the palm are also called tirtha, they are brahma-tirtha, pitr-tirtha, kaya-tirtha and deva-tirtha While tirthas are located on the earth, this is just a way of conceiving the external world on the human body, and those (parts on the palm) regarded sacred to the gods, ancestors etc. and hence, defined as such. Tirtha also means parts of mouth where from sound (of letters) emerges. This is extended to body also.1

1.4. Though a tirtha primarily means physical existence of something on the earth, it has been conceived as mental aspects also, which implies purity of thought, speech and action. Thus the concept of tirtha has been defined to include three different categories of tirthas.

(1) Jarigama-tirtha, the moving one;

(2) Manasa-tirtha, the mental one; and

(3) Sthavara-tirtha, the immovable or the physical one.