Tapas
“austerity”
idea · 3 works · 9 mentions · 20 anchored passages
tapas · austerity · austerities · penance · ascetic heat · asceticism · vrata
spoken of as
1 expressionPower of austerity“tapas”1 mention
Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa (Sanskrit)
"I possess great austerity acquired through various religious vows;
in the texts
Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa
Ascetic practice through which figures across the window obtain boons and divine favor.
Entrusting the kingdom to Dilīpa, O delight of the Raghu line, he performed extremely severe austerities on a beautiful peak of Himavat.
For thirty-two thousand years that greatly glorious king, dwelling in the austerity-grove and rich in the wealth of penance, won heaven.
As he continued in that fierce austerity for thousands of years, the blessed Brahmā, the lord and master of all creatures, was greatly pleased.
Rigveda
Ascetic heat/austerity treated as a power that grants heaven, generates offspring, and gives rise to cosmic order itself.
From blazing tapas, cosmic order (ṛta) and truth (satya) were born;
I saw you with the mind, wide-awake, born of tapas, manifested through tapas;
Those who by austerity are invincible, those who by austerity have gone to heaven, those who have made great austerity — to them verily may this one go.
Manusmṛti
Ascetic heat or austerity, both a creative power used by the deity and Manu, and the highest form of Dharma in the Krita age.
In the Kṛta age, the highest Dharma is *tapas*;
He created *tapas* (ascetic heat), speech, and pleasure, and also desire and anger;
Then I, desiring to create progeny, performed the most difficult *tapas* and created at the beginning ten great sages, the lords of progeny.