TILAKA AND TULASĪ BEADS
In the Padma Purāṇa there is a statement describing how a Vaiṣṇava should decorate his body with tilaka and beads:
“Persons who put tulasī beads on the neck, who mark twelve places of their bodies as Viṣṇu temples with Viṣṇu’s symbolic representations [the four items held in the four hands of Lord Viṣṇu – conch, mace, disc and lotus], and who have viṣṇu-tilaka on their foreheads, are to be understood as the devotees of Lord Viṣṇu in this world. Their presence makes the world purified, and anywhere they remain, they make that place as good as Vaikuṇṭha.”
A similar statement is in the Skanda Purāṇa, which says,
“Persons who are decorated with tilaka or gopī-candana [a kind of clay resembling fuller’s earth that is produced in certain quarters of Vṛndāvana], and who mark their bodies all over with the holy names of the Lord, and on whose necks and breasts there are tulasī beads, are never approached by the Yama-dūtas.”
The Yama-dūtas are the constables of King Yama (the lord of death), who punishes all sinful men. Vaiṣṇavas are never called for by such constables of Yamarāja. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, in the narration of Ajāmila’s deliverance, it is said that Yamarāja gave clear instructions to his assistants not to approach the Vaiṣṇavas. Vaiṣṇavas are beyond the jurisdiction of Yamarāja’s activities.
The Padma Purāṇa also mentions,
“A person whose body is decorated with the pulp of sandalwood with paintings of the holy name of the Lord is delivered from all sinful reactions, and after his death he goes directly to Kṛṣṇaloka to live in association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
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