Bhagavatapurana 10.6
English (machine translation) 10.6
- Language
- English
Contents
- 10.6.4 — 1 part
- 10.6.5 — 3 parts
- 10.6.6 — 1 part
- 10.6.9 — 1 part
- 10.6.10 — 1 part
- 10.6.12 — 1 part
- 10.6.13 — 1 part
- 10.6.21 — 1 part
- 10.6.22 — 3 parts
- 10.6.23 — 1 part
10.6.1
Śrī Śuka said:
Reflecting on the road that Śauri's words were not false, Nanda took refuge in Hari, fearing the arrival of calamities.
10.6.2
Dispatched by Kaṃsa, the terrible Pūtanā, a killer of infants, roamed through cities, villages, and cowherd settlements, slaughtering babies.
10.6.3
For demons cannot enter where people perform their duties accompanied by listening to the glories of the Lord of the Sātvatas and similar practices, which destroy evil spirits.
10.6.4
Moving through the sky, wandering at will, that Pūtanā once flew and entered Nanda's Gokula, having made herself a woman through her creative power.
10.6.4.p1
With jasmine blossoms interwoven in the braid of her hair, slender in waist beneath heavy hips and breasts,
10.6.5
dressed in fine garments, her face adorned with ringlets glistening in the luster of the ornaments in her ears,
10.6.5.p1
[…]
10.6.5.p2
captivating the minds of the cowherd men and women with her glances accompanied by sweet smiles and sidelong looks,
10.6.5.p3
captivating the minds of the cowherd men and women with her glances accompanied by sweet smiles and sidelong looks,
10.6.6
holding a lotus in her hand, the cowherd women thought her to be goddess Śrī herself, embodied and come to behold her husband.
10.6.6.p1
[…]
10.6.7
Searching there for children, that child-seizing demoness by chance saw in Nanda's house the destroyer of the wicked, / the boy whose immense splendor was concealed, lying on a bed like a fire placed beneath ashes.
10.6.8
Recognizing her as a child-killing spirit, he, the Self of all moving and unmoving beings, closed his eyes; / she placed the endless one, the ender [of all], on her lap, just as someone lacking discernment might mistake a sleeping snake for a rope.
10.6.9
Seeing her with her cruel heart and exceedingly perverse intentions, hidden within like a sword inside its scabbard, / and overpowered by the radiance of that noble-looking woman, the two mothers simply stood watching.
10.6.9.p1
Then, taking the child into her dreadful lap, she gave him her breast, filled with fierce and unbearable virulence;
10.6.10
squeezing it firmly with both hands, the Lord, filled with wrath, drank it together with her life-breaths.
10.6.10.p1
[…]
10.6.11
Crying out, “Let go! Let go! Enough!”, as all the vital points of her life were being crushed, / rolling her eyes and flinging about her arms and legs again and again, her body bathed in sweat, she wept aloud.
10.6.12
At her scream of exceedingly deep and violent force, the earth with its mountains trembled, and heaven with its planets; / the subterranean realm and the directions reverberated, and people fell to the ground fearing the fall of a thunderbolt.
10.6.12.p1
Her breasts thus agonized, her life departed, opening wide her mouth and scattering her hair, / stretching out her arms and legs in the cowherd settlement, the night-roaming demoness resumed her true form,
10.6.13
and fell, O king, like Vṛtra struck down by the thunderbolt.
10.6.13.p1
[…]
10.6.14
Even as it fell, her body crushed the trees for an expanse of six miles, / O best of kings; it was truly a great wonder.
10.6.15
Its mouth had terrifying fangs the length of a plow-pole; its nostrils were like mountain caverns; / its breasts were like huge boulders; it was frightful, with disheveled reddish hair;
10.6.16
its eyes were deep as dry wells; its hips were formidable as sandy riverbanks; / its arms, thighs, and feet were like built embankments; its belly was like an empty reservoir of water.
10.6.17
Beholding that carcass, the cowherds and cowherd women were terrified, / their hearts, ears, and heads already shattered by her previous shriek.
10.6.18
And seeing the boy playing fearlessly upon her breast, / the cowherd women rushed over in haste and agitation and took him up.
10.6.19
Together with Yaśodā and Rohiṇī, they thoroughly performed protective rites for the child from all sides / by waving a cow's tail and other means.
10.6.20
Having bathed the child with cow's urine, and then with cow-dust, / they fashioned a protection with cow dung and with [divine] names upon his twelve limbs.
10.6.21
Touching water, the cowherd women placed [the sacred syllables] separately on their own limbs and hands, / and then performed the placement of seed-syllables upon the child:
10.6.21.p1
“May the Unborn protect your feet, may Maṇimān protect your knees, and then Yajña your thighs; may Acyuta protect your hips, and Hayagrīva your belly;
10.6.22
may Keśava protect your heart, Īśa your chest, Ina your throat, / Viṣṇu your arms, Urukrama your face, and the Sovereign Lord your head.
10.6.22.p1
[…]
10.6.22.p2
May He who holds the discus be in front; may Hari, bearing His club, be behind; / at your sides may the bow, sword, and the Slayer of Madhu and Aja stand;
10.6.22.p3
May He who holds the discus be in front; may Hari, bearing His club, be behind; / at your sides may the bow, sword, and the Slayer of Madhu and Aja stand;
10.6.23
in the corners may Urugāya, bearing the conch, protect you; above, Upendra; / Garuḍa upon the earth; Haladhara, the Supreme Person, on every side.
10.6.23.p1
[…]
10.6.24
May Hṛṣīkeśa protect your sense faculties, and Nārāyaṇa your life-breaths; / may the Lord of Śvetadvīpa protect your intellect, and the Lord of Yoga protect your mind.
10.6.25
May Pṛśnigarbha protect your discernment, and the Supreme Lord your self; / may Govinda protect you while playing, and Mādhava protect you while sleeping.
10.6.26
May Vaikuṇṭha protect you while walking, and the Lord of Śrī while sitting; / may the Enjoyer of sacrifice, who terrifies all evil spirits, protect you while eating.
10.6.27
The ḍākinīs and yātudhānīs, the kuṣmāṇḍas, and whatever spirits seize children; / the bhūtas, pretas, piśācas, yakṣas, rakṣasas, and vināyakas;
10.6.28
Koṭarā, Revatī, Jyeṣṭhā, Pūtanā, the mothers and the rest, / madness, epilepsy, and whatever afflictions harm the body, breath, and senses;
10.6.29
great portents seen in dreams, and whatever evil spirits afflict the aged or children— / may all of them perish, terrified by the recitation of Viṣṇu's name!”
10.6.30
Śrī Śuka said:
Having had protection thus made for him by the cowherd women bound by affection, / his mother gave him her breast to drink and laid her son down to rest.
10.6.31
Meanwhile, Nanda and the other cowherds returned from Mathurā to Vraja; / seeing Pūtanā's body, they were filled with utmost astonishment.
10.6.32
“Surely he must have become a seer, or he was a master of yoga, / for the very portent that Ānakadundubhi foretold has been seen!”
10.6.33
Chopping that corpse with axes, the residents of Vraja / threw the limbs far away and burned them, wrapped in firewood.
10.6.34
From her body as it burned, smoke with the fragrance of agarwood arose, / for her sins had been destroyed instantaneously when she was sucked dry by Kṛṣṇa.
10.6.35
Though she was Pūtanā, a killer of the world's children, a demoness who fed on blood, / she attained the destination of the virtuous merely by offering her breast to Hari, even with murderous intent.
10.6.36
How much more so, then, one who offers with faith and devotion what is dearest to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Self, / just as his affectionate mothers did?
10.6.37
With the very feet that dwell in the hearts of his devotees and are worshipped by those whom all worlds revere, / the Lord climbed upon her body and sucked her breast.
10.6.38
Even as a demoness, she attained heaven, the state of a mother— / how much more so the cows, his foster-mothers, whose breast-milk Kṛṣṇa drank,
10.6.39
whose milk—flowing forth abundantly out of motherly love—he drank, / the Lord, the son of Devakī, who bestows absolute liberation and all other blessings?
10.6.40
For them, who constantly gaze upon Kṛṣṇa as their own son, / the cycle of rebirth born of ignorance can never occur again, O king.
10.6.41
Inhaling the fragrance of the burning pyre's smoke, the residents of Vraja / entered Vraja, wondering, “What is this? From where does it come?”
10.6.42
Hearing there the account told by the cowherds of Pūtanā's arrival and the rest, / of her slaying, and of the child's safety, they were greatly astonished.
10.6.43
Taking up his son returned as if from death, the generous-minded Nanda / smelled his head and attained supreme joy, O leader of the Kurus.
10.6.44
A mortal who hears with faith of this liberation of Pūtanā, this wondrous childhood deed of Kṛṣṇa, / attains loving attachment to Govinda.
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit