Bhagavatapurana 10.87
English (machine translation) 10.87
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Contents
10.87.1
Śrī Parīkṣit said:
O brāhmaṇa, in Brahman, which is undefinable, devoid of qualities, and beyond cause and effect,
how do the Vedic scriptures, whose operations deal with qualities, function directly?
10.87.2
Śrī Śuka said:
The Lord created the intellect, senses, mind, and vital breaths of living beings
for experiencing sense objects, for rebirth, and for the self's attainment of liberation.
10.87.3
Indeed, this is that sacred secret taught by the ancients to their predecessors;
whoever maintains it with faith, possessing nothing, attains supreme peace.
10.87.4
Here I shall narrate to you an ancient narrative connected with Nārāyaṇa,
and the conversation between Nārada and the sage Nārāyaṇa.
10.87.5
Once, Nārada, dear to the Lord, wandering through the worlds,
went to Nārāyaṇa's hermitage to see the eternal sage,
10.87.6
who indeed in this realm of Bhārata, for the welfare and good fortune of humanity,
endures austerity endowed with dharma, knowledge, and inner calm until the end of the cosmic age.
10.87.7
Having bowed, he asked this very question, O best of the Kurus,
to him who sat there surrounded by the sages residing in Kalāpa village.
10.87.8
To him, while the sages listened, the Lord spoke this,
which was a discourse on Brahman among the ancients residing in Janaloka.
10.87.9
The Lord said:
O son of the Self-born, formerly in Janaloka there was a sacrifice of Vedic study
among the mind-born sages residing there, who observed lifelong celibacy.
10.87.10
When you had gone to Śvetadvīpa to see its Lord,
a discourse on Brahman arose, where the Vedic scriptures rest [absorbed];
and there this very question arose, which you are asking me.
10.87.11
Though equal in learning, austerity, and character, and viewing friends, foes, and neutrals as equal,
they appointed one to speak while the others desired to listen.
10.87.12
Śrī Sanandana said:
Having drawn in this creation of his own, as he lay asleep along with his powers,
at the end of that [dissolution], the Vedic scriptures awakened the Supreme with his own characteristics,
10.87.13
just as panegyrists, his retainers, approaching a sleeping sovereign at dawn,
awaken him with fine verses celebrating his valorous deeds.
10.87.14
The Vedic scriptures said:
Victory, victory! Slay the unborn [creative power], O Unconquered, whose qualities cause bondage! You are he whose all majestic attributes are inherently realized by your self!
O Awakener of all powers in those residing in immobile and mobile worlds, the Veda describes you when at times you wander with the unborn [power] and your own self!
10.87.15
They understand this experienced world as the vast [Brahman] because it remains as the residue,
from which is the origin and dissolution of transformation, as of clay from unmodified clay;
therefore the sages directed their mind, speech, and action to you—
how can the steps placed by humans on the earth fail to rest upon it?
10.87.16
Thus, O ruler of the three, the wise, plunging into the nectar-ocean of tales that destroy the impurity of all worlds, abandon their austerities;
what need be said of those who, through your abode, have dispelled the qualities of mind and time, O Supreme, and adore your state of continuous experience of bliss?
10.87.17
Living beings breathe like bellows if they do not follow you, by whose grace the cosmic intellect, ego, and the rest created the cosmic egg;
you are the ultimate person-like essence here that follows the food-sheath and the others,
beyond gross and subtle, yet what remains as truth within them.
10.87.18
Those whose vision is coarse worship the belly among the paths of the sages; the Āruṇis worship the center-channel, the subtle heart;
from there, O Infinite One, your supreme realm rose up to the head,
reaching which people do not fall into the mouth of death again in this world.
10.87.19
Entering your own manifold created wombs, as if becoming the cause,
you shine in higher and lower degrees like fire, imitating your own creation;
then, turning away from worldly entanglements, those of pure intellect follow your uniform realm, truly one single essence amidst these unreal things.
10.87.20
In these bodies of your own making, they call the puruṣa your portion, endowed with the concealment that is neither outer nor inner, bearing all powers;
thus discriminating the human condition, the wise, confident on earth, worship your foot, the origin of the Vedas, which brings an end to worldly existence.
10.87.21
To reveal the truth of the self, so hard to fathom, you have assumed a form; / immersing themselves in the great nectar-ocean of your deeds and throwing off their weariness,
some do not crave even liberation, O Lord, / having abandoned their homes in the company of the flock of swans at your lotus feet.
10.87.22
If this body, following your path, acts like a friend, a beloved, and one's very self, / when you are thus inclined toward it, beneficial, dear, and the true self,
yet, alas, killers of the self do not take delight [in you] through worshiping what is unreal; / cherishing desires for that, bearing miserable bodies, they wander in great fear.
10.87.23
That which sages with restrained breath, mind, and senses worship in the heart through firm yoga, / even your enemies attained simply by remembering you,
as did women whose minds were fixed upon your arms like the coils of the serpent king; / and we too, drinking the nectar of your lotus feet, are equal to them, for you look upon all alike.
10.87.24
Who in this world truly knows the primeval one from whom arose the seer [Brahmā], / followed by both classes of gods, when later-born beings are subject to dissolution?
At that time there was neither existence nor nonexistence, nor both together, nor the rush of time, / nor anything at all, when, drawing back the scriptures, he lay asleep.
10.87.25
Those who proclaim the birth of what is nonexistent, the death of what is existent, or difference in the self, / and who recall the world of transaction as real, teach through superimposed concepts;
for this difference—that the person consists of the three guṇas—is produced by ignorance; / it cannot exist in you, beyond that, who are the essence of pure consciousness.
10.87.26
The mind with its three modes, though unreal, appears real in you, down to the human realm; / those who know the self perceive all this as real by virtue of its being the self.
For people do not reject the transformations of gold, recognizing them as gold in essence; / this [universe] has been ascertained to be the self, since you entered what you yourself created.
10.87.27
Those who worship you as the dwelling place of all living beings, / step on the head of death, paying it no heed;
but even the learned, [bound] like beasts with your words, you tie fast, / while those who have formed friendship with you purify them—not those who turn away from you.
10.87.28
Devoid of organs of action, self-ruler, you hold the power of all active agents; / the gods bring you offerings and enjoy their shares together with unborn Nature,
just as governors of provinces bring tribute to the ruler of all the earth; / and terrified of you, the creators of the universe carry out their duties wherever they are appointed.
10.87.29
The classes of moving and unmoving beings arise through their connection with causal factors born of unborn Nature, / if, O unattached one, you cast your glance in play; / for to the highest, who are like space without location, assuming the likeness of the void, / no one can be either distant or intimate.
10.87.30
If embodied souls are infinite, eternal, and all-pervading, / then there can be no rule that they are governed, O changeless one; but it is otherwise;
and that from which a thing is born becomes its controller, never departing from it; / this is not accepted by those who hold that all are equal, due to the flaw in their view.
10.87.31
There is no birth for unoriginated matter and the soul; / yet through the union of both, living beings arise like bubbles upon water;
and then, with their diverse names and attributes, they merge back into you, the supreme, / just as rivers merge into the ocean, or all floral essences merge into honey.
10.87.32
Wise beings, fully understanding this delusion among men produced by your creative power, / place their deep devotion in you, the birthless source of all beings.
How could the fear of worldly existence pursue your followers, when your knitted brow, / three-rimmed [time], repeatedly creates fear in those who take no shelter in you?
10.87.33
Those who strive to rein in the horse of the unsubdued mind, exceedingly fickle, / after subduing their senses and breaths, worn out by spiritual techniques,
are beset by hundreds of calamities when they abandon the feet of the guru; / O unborn one, they are like merchants at sea without a helmsman.
10.87.34
When you exist as the self, the essence of all delight, what purpose is served / for men who resort to relatives, sons, bodies, wives, wealth, home, lands, vital breath, or chariots?
For those who fail to recognize this reality and consort together for sensual pleasure, / what in this world, doomed to its own destruction and bereft of true worth, can bring happiness?
10.87.35
Free from pride, the sages have their abodes at the great holy bathing-places on earth, / carrying your lotus feet in their hearts, their waters cleansing all sin;
those who fix their mind even once upon you, the self of eternal bliss, / never again worship homes that steal away the true worth of a human being.
10.87.36
Since this [world] did not exist in the beginning, nor will it exist hereafter, it is inferred to be unreal in the interval / within you, who are the sole aesthetic flavor; / hence it is compared to the varied transformations of material substances. The unwise consider this vain play of the mind to be real.
10.87.37
When the [individual soul] lies down beside your unborn creative power, embracing her and enjoying the strands [of nature], / he assumes similar forms and then, stripped of his fortune, meets death. / You, on the other hand, cast her off like a serpent its skin; endowed with all fortune, / boundless in majesty, you are glorified in eightfold divine glory.
10.87.38
If ascetics do not pluck out the knots of desire in the heart, / you, who dwell in the heart, are as hard to reach for the unvirtuous as an unremembered jewel around one's neck. / For yogins who merely gratify their vital breaths, O Lord, there is misery on both sides: / from Death, who has not departed, and from you, whose state is unobtained.
10.87.39
One who understands you does not take note of the connections of good and bad qualities arising from you, / nor the words of embodied beings; / for from age to age, day after day, through a continuous tradition of songs endowed with qualities, / you are kept in their hearing, since you are the path to liberation for human beings.
10.87.40
Even the rulers of heaven have not reached your end because of your boundlessness, nor have you yourself; / for within you, surely, massed cosmic eggs along with their coverings / whirl together with time, like dust particles in the sky. Indeed, the Vedas / bear fruit in you, finding their end in you through the negation of what is not that.
10.87.41
The Lord said: / Having heard this instruction about the Self, the sons of Brahmā, / perfected beings, then worshipped Sanandana, having understood their own goal.
10.87.42
Thus the essence of the entire Vedic tradition, the Purāṇas, and the Upaniṣads / was extracted by the exalted devotees born long ago, who wander the skies.
10.87.43
And you, O heir of Brahmā, holding this instruction about the Self with faith, / wander the earth at will; it burns away the desires of men.
10.87.44
Śrī Śuka said: / Receiving thus what was commanded by the sage, the self-controlled, / fulfilled, and attentive-eared sage of steadfast vows said, O king:
10.87.45
Śrī Nārada said: / Homage to that Lord, Kṛṣṇa of spotless renown, / who assumes delightful portions for the non-repetition of rebirth of all beings.
10.87.46
Having bowed thus to the primeval sage and his exalted disciples, / he then went directly to the hermitage of my father, Dvaipāyana.
10.87.47
Welcomed by the Lord, having taken a seat, / he described to him that which was heard from the mouth of Nārāyaṇa.
10.87.48
Thus has been described, O king, the question that was put to us by you / as to how the mind may move in Brahman, though it is indefinable and devoid of qualities.
10.87.49
He who is the witness of this [universe] at its beginning, middle, and end, who is the ruler of the unmanifest and the individual souls, / who created this, entered within, and through the soul made the bodies and rules over them,
10.87.49.p1
attaining whom the sleeping soul, resting alongside, casts off the unborn creative power just as an awakened sleeper leaves his body— / on that fearless Hari, whose absolute liberation dispels rebirth, one should constantly meditate.
10.87.50.p1
The king said: / Among gods, demons, and humans, those who worship inauspicious Śiva / are mostly wealthy and enjoyers of pleasure, but not those who worship Hari, the husband of Lakṣmī.
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Commentaries (1)
- Śrutistutivyākhyā — Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī 1550, Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit