Vaitarani - AncientVoice

Mbh.1.172.8762	O Gandharva, this sacred Ganga again, flowing through the celestial region is called there the Alakananda, It hath again in the region of the Pitris become the Vaitarani, difficult of being crossed by sinners, and, Krishna-Dwaipayana himself hath said so.
Mbh.2.9.376	And, O king, there are also the four oceans, the river Bhagirathee, the Kalindi, the Vidisa, the Venwa, the Narmada of rapid current; the Vipasa, the Satadu, the Chandrabhaga, the Saraswati; the Iravati, the Vitasta, the Sindhu, the Devanadi; the Godavari, the Krishnavenwa and that queen of rivers the Kaveri; the Kimpuna, the Visalya and the river Vaitarani also; the Tritiya, the Jeshthila, and the great Sone Soane; the Charmanwati and the great river Parnasa; the Sarayu, the Varavatya, and that queen of rivers the Langali, the Karatoya, the Atreyi, the red Mahanada, the Laghanti, the Gomati, the Sandhya, and also the Trisrotasi, these and other rivers which are all sacred and are world-renowned places of pilgrimage, as also other rivers and sacred waters and lakes and wells and springs, and tanks, large or small, in their personified form, O Bharata, wait upon and worship the lord Varuna.
Mbh.3.83.4211	There in that tirtha is the sacred and sin-destroying river called Vaitarani.
Mbh.3.85.4602	One should next proceed to the Vaitarani capable of destroying every sin.
Mbh.3.114.5871	Through it passeth the river Vaitarani, on the banks whereof even the god of virtue performed religious river, having first placed himself under the protection of the celestials.
Mbh.3.114.5883	Vaisampayana said, Then all the sons of Pandu and likewise the daughter of Drupada, all of whom were the favoured of Fate, descended to the river Vaitarani, and made libations to the names of their fathers'
Mbh.5.109.5027	It is here that the river Vaitarani flows, filled with the bodies of persons condemned to hell.
Mbh.6.9.500	Chitraratha, and Manjula, and Vahini; and Mandakini, and Vaitarani, and Kosa, and Mahanadi; and Suktimati, and Ananga, and Pushpaveni, and Utpalavati; and Lohitya, Karatoya, and Vrishasabhya; and Kumari, and Rishikullya and Marisha, and Saraswati; and Mandakini, and Supunya, Sarvasanga, O Bharata, are all mothers of the universe and productive of great merit.
Mbh.6.59.3250	And they that were alive beheld that terrible river of current consisting of fat, marrow, and blood, caused by the arrowy showers of Arjuna, that embodiment of man's cruelty, to look like the great Vaitarani
Mbh.6.104.5570	And as the river Vaitarani beareth all departed spirits towards the domains of the King of the Dead, so that river of bloody current bore away all timid men deprived of their senses in a swoon.
Mbh.7.48.2269	An awful river, difficult to cross, like the Vaitarani itself, was caused there by foremost of warriors.
Mbh.7.143.7307	Dhananjaya then caused a fierce and terrible river full of fearful objects and enhancing the fear of the timid, to flow resembling the Vaitarani itself.
Mbh.7.169.9160	And it resembled, O king, the Vaitarani that flows, O lord, towards the domains of Yama.
Mbh.8.77.4681	Even as the terrible Vaitarani is difficult of being crossed by persons of unrefined souls, that bloody river, terrible and enhancing the fears of the timid, was difficult to cross.
Mbh.8.80.4911	Like the great Vaitarani separating the regions of life from those of the dead, the field of battle, O king, became uneven and impassable and unsightly and terrible, in consequence of steeds and cars and elephants, which struck with Dhananjaya's shafts, were mangled and crushed and cut off in diverse ways.
Mbh.8.94.5994	Covered also with the corpses of men and steeds and elephants as also with crushed cars and other huge elephants with their trunks and limbs cut off, the earth has become awful to look at like the great Vaitarani skirting the domains of Yama.
Mbh.12.301.18878	Knowing that this body, that is endued with six and ten possessions, is the result of the quality of Sattwa, understanding fully the nature of the physical organism and the character of the Chetana that dwells within it, recognising the one existent Being that live in the body viz, the Soul, which stands aloof from every concern of the body and in which no sin can attach, realising the nature of that second object, viz; the acts of persons attached to the objects of the senses, understanding also the character of the senses and the sensual objects which have their refuge in the Soul, appreciating the difficulty of Emancipation and the scriptures that bear upon it knowing fully the nature of the vital breaths called Prana, Apana, Samana, Vyana, and Udana, as also the two other breaths, viz, the one going downward and the other moving upward indeed, knowing those seven breaths ordained to accomplish seven different functions, ascertaining the nature of the Prajapatis and the Rishis and the high paths, many in number, of virtue or righteousness, and the seven Rishis and the innumerable royal Rishis, O scorcher of foes, and the great celestial Rishis and the other regenerate Rishis endued with the effulgence of the Sun, beholding all these falling away from their puissance in course of many long ages, O monarch, hearing of the destruction of even of all the mighty beings in the universe, understanding also the inauspicious end that is attained, O king, by creatures of sinful acts, and the miseries endured by those that fall into the river Vaitarani in the realms of Yama, and the inauspicious wanderings of creatures through diverse wombs, and the character of their residence in the unholy uterus in the midst of blood and water and phlegm and urine and faeces, all of foul smell, and then in bodies that result from the union of blood and the vital seed, of marrow and sinews, abounding with hundreds of nerves and arteries and forming an impure mansion of nine doors, comprehending also what is for his own good what those divers combinations are which are productive of good beholding the abominable conduct of creatures whose natures are characterised by Darkness or Passion or Goodness, O chief of Bharata's race, conduct that is reprehended, in view of its incapacity to acquire Emancipation, by the followers of the Sankhya doctrine who are fully conversant with the Soul, beholding the swallowing up of the Moon and the Sun by Rahu, the falling of stars from their fixed positions and the diversions of constellations from their orbits, knowing the sad separation of all united objects and the diabolical behaviour of creatures in devouring one another, seeing the absence of all intelligence in the infancy of human beings and the deterioration and destruction of the body, marking the little attachment creatures have to the quality of Sattwa in consequence of their being overwhelmed by wrath and stupefaction, beholding also only one among thousands of human beings resolved to struggle after the acquisition of Emancipation, understanding the difficulty of attaining to Emancipation according to what is stated in the scriptures, seeing the marked solicitude that creatures manifest for all unattained objects and their comparative indifference to all objects that have been attained marking the wickedness that results from all objects of the senses O king and the repulsive bodies, O son of Kunti, of persons reft of life, and the residence, always fraught with grief, of human beings, O Bharata, in houses in the midst of spouses and children, knowing the end of those terrible and fallen men who become guilty of slaying Brahmanas, and of those wicked Brahmanas that are addicted to the drinking of alcoholic stimulants, and the equally sad end of those that become criminally attached to the spouses of their preceptors, and of those men, O Yudhishthira, that do not properly reverence their mothers, as also of those that have no reverence and worship to offer to the deities, understanding also, with the help of that knowledge which their philosophy imparts, the end that of all perpetrators of wicked acts, and the diverse ends that overtake those who have taken birth among the intermediate orders, ascertaining the diverse declarations of the Vedas, the courses of seasons, the fading of years, of months, of fortnights, and of days, beholding directly the waxing and the waning of the Moon, seeing the rising and the ebbing of the seas, and the diminution of wealth and its increase once more, and the separation of united objects, the lapse of Yugas, the destruction of mountains, the drying up of rivers, the deterioration of the purity of the several orders and the end also of that deterioration occurring repeatedly, beholding the birth, decrepitude, death, and sorrows of creatures, knowing truly the faults attaching to the body and the sorrows to which human beings are subject, and the vicissitudes to which the bodies of creatures are subject, and understanding all the faults that attach to their own souls, and also all the inauspicious faults that attach to their own bodies the followers of the Sankhya philosophy succeed in attaining to Emancipation.
Mbh.12.321.20425	Such a man is forced to bathe in the broad river called Vaitarani whose waters are scalding, to enter into a forest of trees whose leaves are as sharp as swords, and then to lie down on a bed of battle-axes.
Mbh.16.5.203	That agreeable river now seemed to Arjuna to be the fierce Vaitarani bound up with Times net.
Mbh.18.3.128	The river Vaitarani, the thorny Salmali, the iron jars, and the boulders of rock, so terrible to behold, also vanished from sight.

Jijith Nadumuri Ravi
Research data published for the interest of people researching on Mahabharata.
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Reference:- Mahabharata of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, translated to English by Kisari Mohan Ganguli; Source of Plain Text: www.sacred-texts.com; Wikified at AncientVoice.

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