Brahma Vaivarta Purana Chapter 17:71-80

Brahma Vaivarta Purana

Çri Våndävana-nagara-varnana

Description of Çri Våndävana

Chapter 17: Verse 71-80

ENGLISH TRANSLATION 71.O Brahmä, service to the husband is the best of all religious principles. A woman that will not serve her husband is thwarted at every step. 72.Following vows, giving charity, performing austerities, worshiping the demigods, chanting mantras, performing yajïas, bathing in allholy rivers, circumambulating the arth, . . . 73. . . . being initiated into the performance all yajïas, giving very great charity, studying all the Vedas, performing all austerities, . . . 74. . . . feeding many brähmanas learned in the Vedas, and serving the demigods, are not equal to even a sixteenth part of a chaste woman's service to her husband. 75.A woman that will not serve her husband and then speaks harshly to him burns in hell for as long as the sun and moon shine in the sky. 76.Worms big as snakes bite them day and night. Again and again they scream. 77.Again and again they eat stool, urine, and phlegm. Again and again the servants of Yamaräja push flaming torches into their mouths. 78.After suffering in hell they take birth as worms. For a hundred births they eat stool and flesh. 79. I am only a weak woman that has heard a little of the Vedas teachings from the mouths of the wise. You are powerful Brahmä, the father of the Vedas. 80.You are the guru of the gurus, the guru of the yogis and philosophers. You know everything. How can I teach you, O faultless one?