Bhagavatapurana 12.6

English (machine translation) 12.6

Language: English

12.6.1

Sūta said: / Hearing this spoken by the sage, the son of Vyāsa, who saw all as the self and was impartial, / Parīkṣit, Viṣṇurāta, approached the base of his feet with his head bowed, / and with joined palms spoke this to him:

12.6.2

// / The king said: / I am perfected, I am favored by you, whose nature is compassionate, / in that Hari, who has no beginning or end, was directly made known to me by hearing.

12.6.3

I do not think it very wonderful that exalted devotees, whose self is Acyuta, / bestow grace upon ignorant beings afflicted with torments.

12.6.4

We have heard from you this collection of Purāṇas, / in which indeed the Lord, He of highest renown, is continuously praised.

12.6.5

O venerable one, I do not fear Takṣaka or other deaths; / I have entered Brahman, absolute peace, fearless, which was shown by you.

12.6.6

Give me permission, O brahmin; I will fix my speech on Adhokṣaja; / having entered the mind freed from desires [into him], I will cast off my vital breaths.

12.6.7

And my ignorance has been dispelled through steadfastness in knowledge and realized knowledge; / you have shown the supreme auspicious state of the Lord.

12.6.8

Sūta said: / Thus spoken to, the venerable son of Bādarāyaṇa, having taken leave of him, / departed along with the mendicants, worshiped by the king.

12.6.9

King Parīkṣit also, having concentrated the self upon the Supreme Self by means of the self, / meditated upon the Supreme, his vital breaths motionless like a tree.

12.6.10

Sitting on sacrificial grass with its tips pointing east, on the bank of the Ganges, facing north, / he was merged in Brahman, a great yogin, free from attachment, with doubts severed.

12.6.11

Takṣaka, dispatched by the angry brahmin's son, O brahmins, / desiring to slay the king, as he went saw Kaśyapa on the way.

12.6.12

Having gratified him with wealth and turned away the remover of poison, / disguised in the form of a brahmin, assuming forms at will, he bit the king.

12.6.13

The body of the royal sage, who had become one with Brahman, by the fire of the serpent's poison, / instantly turned to ashes while all embodied beings were watching.

12.6.14

A great cry of 'alas, alas' arose on earth, in the sky, and in all the directions; / indeed, all the gods, asuras, humans, and others were astonished.

12.6.15

Divine kettledrums resounded, Gandharvas and Apsarases sang, / and the gods, shouting 'Well done!', showered rains of flowers.

12.6.16

Hearing that his father had been devoured by Takṣaka, Janamejaya, / greatly enraged, along with brahmins offered oblations of the serpents in a sacrificial session.

12.6.17

Seeing the great serpents burning in the blazing fire of the serpent sacrifice, / Takṣaka, agitated with fear, went to Indra for refuge.

12.6.18

Not seeing Takṣaka there, the king, the son of Parīkṣit, said to the brahmins: / 'Why is Takṣaka, the lowest of serpents, not burning?'

12.6.19

[The brahmins said:] 'Śakra is protecting him, O best of kings, who has come for refuge; / held fast by him, the serpent therefore does not fall into the fire.'

12.6.20

Hearing this, the son of Parīkṣit, of noble intellect, said to the sacrificial priests: / 'O brahmins, why is Takṣaka along with Indra not made to fall into the fire?'

12.6.21

Hearing that, the brahmins poured oblations of Takṣaka along with Indra in the sacrifice: / 'O Takṣaka, fall here quickly along with Indra and the Maruts!'

12.6.22

Thus displaced from his position by the summons uttered by the brahmins, / Indra became bewildered in mind, along with his aerial chariot and Takṣaka.

12.6.23

Seeing him falling from the sky in his celestial chariot together with Takṣaka, / Bṛhaspati, descendant of Aṅgiras, addressed that king:

12.6.24

“This king of serpents does not deserve death at your hands, O ruler of men; / he has drunk nectar, and hence is free from old age and death.

12.6.25

The life and death of a living being, and its destination, come solely from its own karma, / O king; there is no other giver of pleasure and pain to it.

12.6.26

From serpents, thieves, fire, and lightning, or by hunger, thirst, disease, and the like, O king, / a creature meets its death; it experiences that karma which has already begun.

12.6.27

Therefore, O king, let this sacrificial session intended for destruction come to an end; / innocent serpents have been burned, for people only experience their destiny.”

12.6.28

Sūta said: / Thus addressed, he said, “So be it,” honouring the great sage's word; / desisting from the serpent sacrifice, he worshipped the master of speech.

12.6.29

Such is this great creative power of Viṣṇu, indefinable because it is sublated, / by which beings, though part of Himself, are bewildered among creatures through the workings of the qualities.

12.6.30

Where there is no pride, made radiant and fearless in the discourse on the Self repeatedly by knowers of the Self; / where there is no diverse disputation founded upon it, nor the mind whose function is volition and doubt;

12.6.31

Where there is neither that which is created nor that which creates between the two, nor the highest good, nor the individual soul endowed with the three [qualities], nor the ego: / refuting this [world of] the sublated and the sublater, and restraining the [six] waves [of existence], the sage should come to rest.

12.6.32

They declare that to be the supreme abode of Viṣṇu, which those desiring to abandon what is not That [realise] as 'Not this, not this,' / having cast away malice, embracing it with their hearts through exclusive affection, and settled [in it] with concentrated minds.

12.6.33

They attain this, which is the supreme abode of Viṣṇu: / those who have no wickedness born of the body and home, consisting of 'I' and 'mine'.

12.6.34

One should endure harsh words; one should not disrespect anyone; / and relying on this body, one should not bear enmity toward anyone.

12.6.35

Obeisance to that Lord Kṛṣṇa of unfailing intelligence, / through meditation on whose lotus feet I have studied this collection.

12.6.36

Śrī Śaunaka said: / By Paila and other disciples of Vyāsa, great-souled teachers of the Veda, / the Vedas were spoken of as divided; explain this to us, O gentle one.

12.6.37

Sūta said: / O brāhmaṇa, in the heart's space of the supreme Brahmā, whose mind was concentrated, / there arose the unstruck sound, perceived by the cessation of mental operations.

12.6.38

By meditating upon which, O brāhmaṇa, yogins wash away the impurity of the self / known as substance, action, and agent, and attain non-recurrence [in rebirth].

12.6.39

From that arose the threefold syllable Oṃ, which has the unmanifest as its source and is self-luminous, / which is the direct symbol of the Lord, Brahman, the Supreme Self.

12.6.40

He hears this primal sound, whose sight is void [of outer objects] while the ear is asleep, / by which speech is made manifest, and whose manifestation occurs in the space of the self.

12.6.41

It is the direct signifier of the Supreme Self, Brahman, possessing its own splendour; / it is the essence of all mantras and Upaniṣads, the eternal seed of the Veda.

12.6.42

For it possessed three phonetic elements beginning with the letter 'a', O best of the Bhṛgus, / by which are sustained the three states, the qualities, names, objects, and functions.

12.6.43

From that, the unborn Lord created the alphabet, / characterised by semivowels, sibilants, vowels, plosives, and short and long sounds.

12.6.44

By means of that, the all-powerful Lord [Brahmā] [produced] the four Vedas from his four faces, / along with the sacred utterances and the Oṃkāra, desiring to explain the functions of the four sacrificial priests.

12.6.45

He taught them to his sons, the brāhmaṇa sages skilled in the Veda; / and they, the teachers of dharma, instructed their own sons.

12.6.46

Received in disciplic succession by their various disciples steadfast in their vows, / they were then divided by great sages in the four ages at the beginning of the Dvāpara age.

12.6.47

Seeing that people’s lifespans were diminished, their strength weakened, and their intellect impaired by time, / the brāhmaṇa sages divided the Vedas, prompted by Acyuta residing in their hearts.

12.6.48

In this [era] as well, O brāhmaṇa, the Lord, the Creator of the world, / petitioned by the guardians of the world headed by Brahmā and Śiva to protect dharma,

12.6.49

Descended through a portion of a part from Parāśara by Satyavatī, O fortunate one, / and as the all-powerful Lord divided the Veda into four.

12.6.50

Extracting heaps of Ṛc, Atharvan, Yajus, and Sāman verses by categories, / he formed four collections of mantras, just like heaps of jewels.

12.6.51

Summoning four disciples for them, the highly intelligent and all-powerful master, / O brāhmaṇa, gave one collection to each of them.

12.6.52

To Paila he spoke the first collection called the Bahvṛca [Ṛgveda]; / to the one named Vaiśampāyana he taught the collection of Yajur mantras known as the Nigada.

12.6.53

To Jaimini he imparted the collection of Sāmans known as the Chandoga-saṃhitā, / and the Atharvāṅgirasa collection to his disciple Sumantu.

12.6.54

The sage Paila recited his collection to Indrapramiti / and to Bāṣkala; the latter also taught his own collection to his disciples.

12.6.55

Having divided it into four parts, [he taught it] to Bodhya, to Yājñavalkya, O descendant of Bhṛgu, / to Parāśara, and to Agnimitra; the self-controlled Indrapramiti

12.6.56

Taught his own collection to the sage Māṇḍūkeya the poet; / his disciple Devamitra taught it to Saubhari and others.

12.6.57

His son Śākalya, having divided his own collection into five parts, / imparted them to Vātsya, Mudgala, Śālīya, Gokhalya, and Śiśira.

12.6.58

And the sage Jātūkarṇya, his disciple, gave his own collection together with a glossary / to Balāka, Paila, Jābāla, and Viraja.

12.6.59

Bāṣkali made the collection called Vālakhilya from the subsidiary recensions; / Vālāyani, Bhajya, and Kāśāra preserved it.

12.6.60

These collections of the Bahvṛcas were indeed preserved by these brāhmaṇa sages; / having heard this division of the Vedic metres, one is liberated from all sins.

12.6.61

The disciples of Vaiśampāyana became known as the Caraka priests of the Yajurveda, / because they performed the penance to expiate the sin of killing a brāhmaṇa committed by their teacher.

12.6.62

His disciple Yājñavalkya said: “O master, what is the use / of this practice of weaklings? I alone will perform a penance very difficult to perform.”

12.6.63

Thus addressed, the teacher became angry and said: “Go away! Enough of you, / a disciple who insults brāhmaṇas; give up at once what you have studied from me!”

12.6.64

He, the son of Devarāta, vomited the collection of Yajur mantras / and departed from there; then the sages beheld those collections of Yajur mantras.

12.6.65

Becoming partridges, they eagerly picked up the Yajur mantras; / they became the very delightful recensions of the Yajurveda known as the Taittirīyas.

12.6.66

Thereupon, O brāhmaṇa, Yājñavalkya, seeking Vedic mantras
that were not known to his guru, worshipped the sun, the supreme Lord.

12.6.67

Śrī Yājñavalkya said:
Om, reverence to the Lord, the sun! In the form of the Self and in the form of time for all worlds, within the inner hearts of the fourfold classes of living beings from Brahmā down to a blade of grass and also outside them, unconditioned like the ether by any limiting adjunct, You alone maintain this worldly life through the taking up and letting go of waters by the cycle of years composed of moments, instants, and blinks of the eye.

12.6.68

Indeed, O best of the gods, O Savitṛ, we meditate on that burning orb of Yours, the Lord, which burns [there] and consumes the seeds of all sins and wickedness of those who worship it every day at every sacrifice in accordance with the Vedic injunctions.

12.6.69

You who here within the mobile and immobile beings, which are Your own abodes, Himself the inner controller and Self, impel the unspiritual hosts of mind, senses, and vital breaths;

12.6.70

who alone, seeing this world swallowed by the python-like planet called darkness, possessing a frightful maw, lying unconscious like a corpse, and being supremely compassionate, raise it with Your mere glance out of pity and engage it daily at each dawn in its own well-being, defined as its own dharma, the natural state of the self;

Translations (1)

The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English

Commentaries (2)

Bhāgavatacandrikā — Vīrarāghava, Sanskrit
Padaratnāvalī — Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha, Sanskrit

Linked texts (1)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit