Agnipurana 165
English (machine translation) 165
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Contents
165.1
Agni said: / The sovereign Self, situated like a lamp in the heart, is to be meditated upon, / having made the mind, intellect, memory, and sense faculties free of any other object.
165.2
In an ancestral rite, what should be given to a meditator is produce of cows: curd, clarified butter, and milk; / priyaṅgu and lentils [may be given], but definitely not eggplants or kodo millet.
165.3
When the son of Siṃhikā eclipses the sun at the conjunctions of the lunar phases, / that is known as the shadow of the elephant, yielding imperishable fruit in ancestral rites, gifts, and the like.
165.3.p1
[Footnote]
165.3.p2
1. kha and cha read 'sadā duḥsthaḥ'.
165.3.p3
2. ṅa reads 'manuṣyāṇām'.
165.3.p4
3. ṅa reads 'vyāpine deyam'.
165.4
When the moon is in the asterism of the ancestors and the sun is situated in Hasta, / on the lunar day called Vaivasvata—that indeed is the shadow of an elephant.
165.5
One should not give the remnant of the offering into the fire during the Vaiśvadeva rite; / but in the absence of the fire, he should place it in the right hand of a brāhmaṇa.
165.6
A woman is not defiled by an adulterer, nor a brāhmaṇa by Vedic rites; / if she was enjoyed by force, or even fallen into the hands of an enemy,
165.7
one should not abandon the defiled woman; she becomes purified at the time of her period. / One who sees no second reality here apart from the Self—
165.8
he alone becomes one with Brahman in this world, an unblemished yogi delighting in the Self. / Some indeed say that yoga is the union of the sense organs with their objects;
165.9
unrighteousness was grasped by those foolish people with the notion that it is righteousness. / Others likewise [say it is] the union of the mind and the Self.
165.10
Having rendered the mind free of mental modifications, unifying the knower of the field / with the Supreme Self, one is liberated from bondage; this is the supreme yoga.
165.11
Restraint is [practised] with five family members; the sixth among them is the greatest. / It cannot be conquered even by gods, demons, or men.
165.12
Having turned all outward-facing senses toward the inside, / one should unite the collection of senses in the mind, and the mind in the Self.
165.13
One should place the knower of the field, freed from all states of being, into Brahman. / This is knowledge and meditation; the rest is merely the expansion of texts.
165.13.p1
[Footnote]
165.13.p2
1. kha, gha, and ña read 'caurahastagatāpi vā'.
165.13.p3
2 "he sees no second" in manuscripts gha and ṭa
165.13.p4
3 "and he cannot be conquered" in manuscripts ga and ṅa
165.13.p5
4 "the remaining text-expansions" in manuscript ṅa
165.14
What does not exist for the whole world is contradicted by [saying] "it exists"; / likewise, being spoken, it does not remain in the heart of another.
165.15
For that Brahman is incomprehensible, just as the face of a woman is to a virgin maiden; / a non-yogin never knows it, just as a man blind from birth does not know a jar.
165.16
Seeing a twice-born man terrified of birth and death, the sun departs from its station: / "This man, piercing through my disc, attains the supreme Brahman."
165.17
The votive observance of fasting, bathing at a sacred ford, ascetic austerity as fruit, / and making gifts to twice-born men—that fruit belongs to him fully accomplished.
165.18
The single syllable is the supreme Brahman; breath control is the highest ascetic austerity; / but there is nothing higher than the Sāvitrī: it is remembered as the supreme purifier.
165.19
Formerly women were enjoyed by the gods: by Soma, the Gandharvas, and Agni; / men enjoy them afterwards; they are not defiled by anything.
165.20
When a fetus is deposited in the womb of women by a man of different caste, / the woman remains impure as long as she has not released that dart.
165.21
Once that dart has come forth, she is purified by her menstrual flux thereafter. / There is no purification for sinful actions equal to meditation:
165.22
Even one eating among dog-cookers is purified by meditation. / The self is the meditator, the mind is meditation, Viṣṇu is the object of meditation, and Hari is the fruit.
165.23
An ascetic at an ancestral rite secures imperishable [benefit]; he purifies even those who purify the row. / But whichever twice-born man, having mounted the life-long stage, falls away [from it]—
165.23.p1
[Apparatus note]
165.23.p2
1 "that Brahman is self-known" in manuscripts ga and ṅa; "that Brahman is easily known" in manuscripts ja and ṭa; "that Brahman is self-to-be-known" in manuscripts gha and ña
165.24
I see no expiation by which that slayer of the self might be purified. / And those [ascetics] who have had intercourse with a wife, and whatever seed-lineage is theirs,
165.25
are born as Caṇḍālas named viduras; there is no doubt about this. / He dies as a vulture of a hundred years, and likewise as a dog of twelve years;
165.26
a bird of prey for twenty years, and a pig for ten; / he is born as a flowerless, fruitless tree covered in thorns.
165.27
Then, burnt by a forest fire, he becomes a stump along with his shoots; / then he remains senseless for two hundred and eight years.
165.28
When a thousand years are completed, he is born as a Brahmarākṣasa; / he obtains release by a raft, or by the destruction of his family.
165.29
One should devote oneself only to yoga, and to no other mantra, for removing sin.
165.29.p1
Thus in the great Purāṇa of Agni, the one hundred and sixty-fifth chapter, entitled "Various Dharmas."
165.29.p3
Now, the one hundred and sixty-sixth chapter.
165.29.p4
The statement on the duties of the castes and stages of life
Other recensions (1)
- Agnipurāṇa (Nag Publishers edition, Delhi) — Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Agnipurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit