Sinful King Saved from Yamaraja (Garga Samhita)

Lord Yamaraja

In Sindhu-desha there was a king named Dirghabahu. He was very cruel and sinful and he was addicted to visiting prostitutes. While he was on the earth this cruel sinner murdered a hundred brahmanas and ten pregnant women.

One day, as he mounted a sindhu horse and went hunting. While he was shooting arrows to hunt, he accidentally killed a brown cow.

One day, his angry minister killed him in the forest, in order to take over his kingdom.

Seeing him fallen to the ground and dead, the Yamadutas came, bound him by their nooses, and, took him to the city of Yamaraja.

Seeing this sinner brought before him, powerful Yamaraja said to his scribe Chitragupta, "What is the proper punishment for him?"

Sri Chitragupta said: O my Lord, he should be thrown into eight million four hundred thousand hells for as long as the sun and the moon shine in the sky. On the earth he did not perform a single pious deed. He killed ten pregnant women. He killed a brown cow. He killed thousands of deer in the forest. He offended the demigods and the brahmanas. He is a great sinner.

Sri Narada said: Then, by
Yamaraja’s order, the Yamadutas took that sinner and threw him into a terrible, eight-thousand mile wide cauldron of bubbling boiling oil in the hell of Kumbhipaka.

The moment that sinner came close to the oil, the boiling oil, which was as hot as the great fires at the time of cosmic devastation, suddenly became cool.

O King of Videha, as Prahlada was unhurt in a similar situation, that sinner was not hurt at all by the boiling oil.

The Yamadutas were shocked and ran to describe this great wonder to noble-hearted Yamaraja.

Yamaraja and Chitragupta carefully reviewed the sinner's case and concluded that while he was on the earth, the sinner had not for a moment performed even a single pious deed.

Just at that moment Sri Vyasadev arrived in that assembly. Bowing down before Him, and carefully worshiping Him, saintly and noble-hearted Yamaraja asked Vyasadeva the following question:

Sri Yamaraja said: When a certain sinner, who had never performed even a single pious deed on earth, was thrown into the pot of terrible boiling oil of Kumbhipaka, the oil suddenly became cool. Because of this my mind is now troubled with doubts.

*Sri Vyasadev said: O great king, the intelligent sages, who have studied all the scriptures, know that the ways of piety, sin, and spiritual progress are very subtle and difficult to understand.*

Somehow or other, by destiny, this sinner did perform a pious deed unknowingly, and by that deed he became purified. O noble-hearted one, please hear what is that pious deed performed by him.

This sinner died in a place where some gopi-candana had accidentally fallen from some devotee's hand. Because of dying while touching gopi-candana, that sinner became purified.

*A person who wears gopi-candana tilaka attains a spiritual form like that of Lord Narayana.*

*Simply by seeing a devotee with gopi chandan one becomes free of the sin of killing a brahmana.*

Sri Narada said: Hearing this, Yamaraja, who understands the glories of gopi-candana, took the sinner, placed him on an airplane that goes anywhere at will, and sent him to Vaikuntha. O King, thus I have described to you the glories of Gopi-candana.

*One who hears this account of Gopi-candana's glories becomes exalted. He goes to the supreme abode of Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.*

(Sri Garga Samhita)