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Notes on religious merit (punya)
139
The Mahabharata, the Brahmanical Smộtis and the Purānas describe in detail means of producing merits and promise rewards to be derived from them. Going on pilgrimage to holy places (tirthas), bathing in sacred rivers (snāna), and keeping various vows (vratas) and fasts (upavāsas) are not the only ways of earning merit. Great emphasis is laid on the cultivation of moral qualities. According to these texts one obtains full reward of pilgrimage and ablution only whe one is compassionate towards all beings and is pure and keeps his senses in control. T uthfulness, austerity, charity, celebacy, contentment, forbearance, sweet speech, and straightforwadness are the real tirthas that purify a being and beget merits. 14 It may be noted in passing that the Bhagavadgitā insists that one should perform one's assigned duty (svadharma) in order to obtain the excellent rewards. Among other things, death in the battle is declared to be meritorious and resulting in birth in a heaven. An enlightened sage (sthitaprajña), however, is described as being untouched by good (śubha) and evil (aśubha) things. 16
The belief that merits travel with a person's life wherever it is reborn, is common to all the religions of Indian origin. The spiritual inerit (dharma) is the only companion of a being in the next world (paraloku). Therefore, one should accumulate merits16 by practicing dharma.
In the middle of the seveoth century the pious Chinese Buddhist pilgrim-scholar, Hsüan-tsang, found in India "numerous punyaśālās or free. rest-houses for the relief of the needy and distressed; at these houses medicine and food were distributed and so travellers having their bodily wants supp. lied, did not experience inconvenience." The same authority describes the belief of some Indians of his time in the merit derived from bathing into the Garigã at Hardwar in the following words : "Accumulated sins are effaced by a bath in the water of the river; those who drown themselves in it are reborn in heaven with happiness.". 17
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