The tapasvi Medhavi of Chaitraratha
In the Chaitraratha vana — the pleasure garden of Kuvera upon the northern slopes of Mandara — sat a young Bhargava rishi named Medhavi, son of the great Chyavana. From boyhood he had heard from his father of the greatness of Neelakanth Shankara, and now in the fullness of his youth he had taken his asana beneath a peepal tree to please that deva by tapas. He fixed his gaze between the brows, subdued the panchapranas, and forgot the seasons as they wheeled above him — the leaves fell and returned, the peepal shed and re-clothed itself, and still Medhavi did not stir.
Indra's fear and the apsara Manjughosha
When Medhavi's tapas grew to that terrible strength which shakes the seats of the devas, the throne of Indra grew hot beneath him. Fearing that this young rishi would one day ask Shankara for the very heavens, Indra summoned the apsara Manjughosha — whose beauty had once dissolved the sadhana of great munis — and commanded her: 'Break the tapas of Medhavi, and the swarga is yours to enjoy.' She descended into Chaitraratha with her veena, and beside a lotus pond near the rishi's asana she began to sing the ragas of Gandhamadana.
The fifty-seven lost years
At first Medhavi did not turn his head. But raga after raga, season after season, the sweetness of her voice entered his ears and the fragrance of her sandal-anointed limbs entered his nostrils. Kamadeva, waiting at his shoulder for that appointed hour, loosed his flower-arrow; Medhavi opened his eyes and looked upon her. From that single glance came a companionship of fifty-seven years, three months and three days — years in which the japa-mala fell from his hand, the shastras dissolved on his tongue, and the fire of his tapas grew cold as the ash of an abandoned havan.
The awakening and the shraap
One morning, as Manjughosha rose to depart for Indraloka, the memory of Shankara struck Medhavi like a lightning-bolt of Indra himself. He saw at last what he had done — decades of tapas scattered on the wind, the vow to his father broken, all austerity dissolved in pleasure. In a grief that turned to wild anger he lifted his hand and cursed her: 'Since you have caused me to forget the deva I loved, become a pishachini upon the earth!' Manjughosha fell weeping at his feet — and Medhavi's own heart broke with hers, for he saw that the papa was equally his and that the curse would rebound upon himself.
Chyavana's counsel and the vrat of Papmochani
Medhavi returned in shame to the ashram of his father Chyavana and confessed everything. Chyavana Rishi spoke gently: 'Beta, do not despair. The Chaitra Krishna Ekadashi that approaches is called Papmochani — that which destroys all papa. Whoever keeps its vrat with fasting, jagran, tulsi placed upon the shalagram at midnight, and daan to Brahmins at Dwadashi parana, is freed from every sin — even the five mahapatakas that shastra names as otherwise unforgivable.' Both Medhavi and Manjughosha kept the vrat together, chanting Vishnu Sahasranama through the whole night; their papa burned away like camphor before a flame. Manjughosha ascended once more to Indraloka as an apsara of increased tejas, and Medhavi returned to Chaitraratha with a tapas ten times fiercer than before.
"Frees the observer from every papa knowingly and unknowingly committed — including the five mahapatakas of brahma-hatya (Brahmin-killing), sura-pana (intoxication), theft of a Brahmin's wealth, adultery with the guru's wife, and consorting with those who commit them. The Padma Purāṇa declares its merit greater than one thousand ashvamedha yajnas, a hundred vajapeyas, or bathing at every tirtha of Bharatavarsha."