Govatsa Dwadashi 2174

From the Bhavishya Purana

After the great war, King Yudhishthira's heart was heavy with the sorrow of so many deaths, and he asked Lord Krishna for a holy act that would wash that burden away. Krishna named the Govatsa Dwadashi vow. Yudhishthira asked about this day: what it is and how it began. Govatsa means "the cow and her calf", and this is the story Krishna told.

Long ago, in the Krita age, a great gathering of sages was doing penance on a holy mountain at Jambumarga, in the forest hermitage of the sage Bhrigu. They longed to see Lord Shiva. To test them, Shiva took the form of a very old Brahmin, white haired, bent, trembling and leaning on a stick. Goddess Uma became a beautiful cow with her calf. She took this form remembering the five wish giving cows, Nanda, Subhadra, Surabhi, Sushila and Bahula, who rose from the Ocean of Milk when it was churned for nectar.

Krishna told Yudhishthira how holy the cow is: the gods, the holy rivers and the Vedas all dwell in her body.

The old Brahmin led the cow and calf to Bhrigu, the head of the hermitage, and said, "Keep this cow safe for me for two days, while I go and bathe." The sages promised to protect her. Then the old man vanished, and Shiva came back as a fierce tiger with blazing eyes. He rushed into the hermitage and frightened the cow and her calf. The sages cried out in alarm. The cow leapt and ran, and as she fled, her hoofprints were pressed into a rock. Krishna said those marks can still be seen there, and that the place became a holy tirtha.

The sages then struck a great bell that the gods had given them. Its loud sound rang through the mountain caves, and the tiger let the cow and calf go. The sages named that hill Dhundhagiri (ढुण्ढागिरि).

Then Shiva showed himself in his true form, seated on his bull, with Uma beside him and his whole company around. The sages and their wives bowed to him, and worshipped Uma in her form as a cow with her calf. From that day the vow of Nandini on Kartika Shukla Dwadashi came down to the earth.

Krishna then told how King Uttanapada's household kept the vow. The king had two wives, Ruchi and Shughni. Shughni's son was Dhruva. Shughni gave little Dhruva into Ruchi's care while she served the king. But one day, in a fit of anger and jealousy, Ruchi killed the child and even tried to hide her deed in the king's meal. Yet at mealtime the boy came back to life and was found laughing in his mother's lap.

Astonished, Ruchi begged Shughni to tell her the secret: was it a mantra, a magic herb, a jewel? Shughni told her it was the vow of the cow and calf on Kartika Dwadashi. By its power her son lived again. Ruchi kept the vow herself and was blessed with sons, happiness and wealth. At the end of her life, Brahma placed her with her husband in the realm of Dhruva. Dhruva can still be seen in the sky as the Pole Star, and the Purana says that seeing him frees people from sin.

The Purana promises that one who keeps this vow lives in Goloka, the world of cows, for as many years as there are hairs on a cow's body. Women who worship the cow and her calf on this day live long and happily on earth, with many living children.