Shloka 21
Brāhmaṇya-प्रश्नः — The Inquiry into Attaining Brāhmaṇya
Mataṅga–Gardabhī Itihāsa
देविकायामुपस्पृश्य तथा सुन्दरिकाहदे । अश्रिन्यां रूपवर्चस्कं प्रेत्य वै लभते नर:
devikāyām upaspṛśya tathā sundarikā-hrade | aśvinyāṁ rūpa-varcaskaṁ pretya vai labhate naraḥ ||
देविकायामुपस्पृश्य तथा सुन्दरिकाहदे । अश्विन्यां रूपवर्चस्कं प्रेत्य वै लभते नरः ॥
अजड्रिय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that disciplined purity-practices—especially bathing at revered tīrthas—are treated as dharmic acts whose karmic fruit is described as auspicious personal qualities (beauty and radiance) in a future birth, reinforcing the ethic of reverence, self-purification, and faith in moral causality.
A speaker named Ajadriya is listing specific sacred bathing places (Devikā, the lake of Sundarikā, and Aśvinī-tīrtha) and stating the promised result of bathing there: after death, the pilgrim is reborn with enhanced beauty and splendor.