Virupaksha

Virupaksha of Suvarnapuri performed severe penance and pleased Lord Shiva. When Shiva appeared, Virupaksha wished to know the record of his future karma.

Shiva looked at his forehead and said: "In your fate is written the terrible sin of lying with your own birth-mother." Hearing this, Virupaksha was terrified, and to escape that great sin he at once abandoned his home and went away to a distant land.

Meanwhile, his mother, driven distraught by the loss of her son, also left home and began to wander as a pilgrim in the guise of a yogini. After twelve years, at a great fair on the bank of the Kantimati River, Virupaksha and his mother met unknowingly.

Not recognizing one another, they stayed in the same hut, and by the mockery of fate they came to lie together. Later, when the secret was revealed, both burned in the fire of remorse. The mother performed penance for a thousand years and gave up her body, and that river became famous as 'Karmanasha'.

Virupaksha sought refuge with Lord Shiva to atone for his sin. Shiva said: "Only by melting copper equal to your own body and drinking it will you be freed from this great sin." But fearing death from drinking molten copper, he went to a certain accomplished tantric.

The tantric taught him a remedy: "From that copper, install a Tameshwar Mahadev and chant ceaselessly." Virupaksha chanted for thousands of years, yet his sin was not atoned.

One day he saw a small sparrow at the edge of a pond trying to dry up the whole pond by carrying water in its beak. Moved by the little bird's unshakable patience, Virupaksha once again devoted himself to penance with faith.

At last Lord Shiva, pleased, appeared and said: "You shall dwell in the pond at Aryaghat. When I come in the form of a deer, if you can touch me, your sin will be atoned."

But the deer ran at great speed and Virupaksha could not touch it, and he leapt into the pond after the deer. At the bottom of the pond he became a stone, half his body buried beneath the ground.

The idol of Virupaksha at Pashupati Aryaghat is slowly rising out of the ground with the end of the Kali Yuga. It is a religious belief that when that idol comes fully out of the ground, the Kali Yuga will end and the Satya Yuga will begin.