GITA - Glorification of Chapter Nine

Then Lord  

Shiva 

related to 

Parvati 

the glories of the ninth chapter of the 

Bhagavad-gita.

  Once in a town called Mahishmati there lived a brahmana named Madhava. He strictly followed all the Vedic injunctions, and he was so learned that he always received much charity, with which he performed great sacrifices. Once, however, when he was about to offer a goat in sacrifice the goat laughed and said, “O brahmana, what benefit is there in performing these sacrifices, which simply keep one in the cycle of repeated birth and death? Just see my position after performing so many fire sacrifices.”

Madhava asked the goat what activities it had performed in previous lives to become a goat. Everyone at the sacrifice gathered around to hear the goat’s words. The goat told them that he had been a ritualistic brahmana. Because his wife had wanted her child cured of some disease, she had once asked him to offer a goat to 

Durga,

  the wife of Lord Shiva.

As the brahmana offered the goat, it cursed him: “You sinner! Lowest of all! You wish to make my children fatherless? You will also have to take birth as a goat.” So at the time of his death the brahmana had attained grace of 

Govinda 

he remembered his previous birth. The goat continued: Once in 

Kurukshetra

  there lived a king named Candrasarma, who belonged to the sun dynasty. At the time of a solar eclipse, the king decided to give a 

shudra,

 a worker, to a brahmana. After he offered this worker to the brahmana with much devotion, two of dog-eaters, appeared from the worker’s body. Both of them closely approached the brahmana, and suddenly entered his body. The brahmana, however, remained undisturbed, and while remembering Lord Govinda he began chanting the ninth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita.

The whole event stunned the king. His amazement increased, however, when the Vishnudutas, the devotees of Lord Vishnu, appeared. The Vishnudutas ousted the chandelas from the body and drove them away. Then the king asked the brahmana: “O learned one, who were those two persons, and which mantras did you chant? Which Deity did you remember?”

The brahmana explained that sin personified, accompanied by offense personified, had appeared as two candalas. And he had been chanting the ninth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, which can release one from all fearful situations. He informed the king that by chanting this chapter, anyone can remember the lotus feet of Govinda. Thereafter the king learned from the brahmana to chant the ninth chapter, and he gradually attained the lotus feet of Govinda. When Madhava heard this narration from the goat, he at once set the goat free. Thereafter Madhava recited the ninth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita daily.

source: ISKCON