Adhyaya 141

This chapter extols a succession of sacred sites, beginning with the confluence of the Dharmāvatī and the Gaṅgā near Hiraṇyāsaṅgama. Bathing there is said to grant heaven, and performing śrāddha on that very ground frees one from debt to the ancestors. It then exalts Mathurā as a sin-destroying tīrtha where Hari, the slayer of Madhu, is to be beheld. Kṛṣṇa’s movements after the death of Kaṁsa are recalled, along with the establishment of worship of Madhurāditya and Madhurārka. A karmic origin-legend follows: the sage Māṇḍavya, wrongly punished by impalement, confronts personified Dharma and learns the ordeal is retribution for a childhood cruelty. Māṇḍavya’s curse causes Dharma to be born as Vidura; and when Vidura bathes at the Sābhramatī–Dharmāvatī confluence, he casts off śūdra-status, showing pilgrimage as a purifier of karmic burden and social affliction.