Bhagavatapurana 2.7

English (machine translation) 2.7

Language: English

2.7.1

Brahmā said: / When, preparing to lift the Earth, the Infinite assumed / the boar-body embodying all sacrifices, / He tore apart with His tusk the primal Daitya who confronted Him inside the great ocean, as the wielder of the thunderbolt cleaves a mountain.

2.7.2

Born of Ruci, Suyajña, the son of Ākūti, begot the Suyamas and the gods upon Dakṣiṇā; / because he dispelled the great affliction of the three worlds, he was proclaimed Hari by the Svāyambhuva Manu.

2.7.3

And born in the house of Kardama, O twice-born, upon Devahūti along with nine sisters, He explained the path to the Self to His mother, / by which, washing away the dirt of the self, the mire of attachment to the qualities, she attained the state of Kapila in this very life.

2.7.4

Pleased with Atri, who desired offspring, the Lord said, 'I give Myself to you,' and so He was called Datta; / from the dust of whose lotus feet their bodies were purified, and Yadu, Haihaya, and others attained twofold yogic perfection.

2.7.5

Austerity was practiced by me in the beginning out of a desire to create diverse worlds; from my own austerity He became the four Sanas; / He expounded fully the truth of the Self, which had been lost in the cosmic deluge of the previous kalpa, which the sages then perceived directly in themselves.

2.7.6

In the daughter of Dakṣa, Mūrti, wife of Dharma, He was born as Nārāyaṇa and Nara, the power of His own austerity; / seeing their own Lord's vow unbroken, the women belonging to the army of the Bodiless One were unable to shake Him.

2.7.7

Virtuous men indeed burn desire with a glance of wrath, yet they do not burn the intolerable wrath that burns them; / but how could desire take shelter in His mind, into the interior of which that very desire is afraid to enter?

2.7.8

Pierced by the word-arrows of his stepmother in the presence of the king, though still a boy, he retreated to the forests for austerity; / pleased with his praise, He granted him the Dhruva realm, which the celestial sages above and below extol.

2.7.9

When Vena strayed into evil ways, his valor and splendor burned by the thunderbolt of the brāhmaṇas' words, and he was falling into hell, / [the Lord] saved him and, being implored, took the position of his son in this world, by whom the earth was milked of all its treasures.

2.7.10

From Nābhi he was born as Ṛṣabha, son of Sudevī, / who, seeing all with an equal eye, practiced the conduct of inert yoga, / which the sages declare to be the state of the supreme ascetic, / resting in himself, his senses entirely subdued, utterly free from attachment.

2.7.11

Then, in my sacrificial session, the Lord appeared with a horse's head, / the Sacrifice Person Himself, possessing the color of molten gold, / composed of Vedic meters and rituals, the self of all gods; / from his nostrils, as he breathed, came the melodious words [of the Veda].

2.7.12

At the close of an era, perceived by Manu as the Fish, / made of the earth, an abode for the gathering of all living beings, / he took up the paths of the Veda that had fallen from my mouth / into the waters of immense dread, and sported therein.

2.7.13

When the leaders of the immortal and Dānava hosts / churned the milk ocean to obtain nectar, the primeval deity / bore the mountain on his back in the form of a tortoise, / feeling an itching relieved by the scraping of the turning mountain, taking his rest.

2.7.14

To banish the immense fear of the gods, he assumed the form of Nṛsiṃha, / his face dreadful with rolling brows and sharp fangs; / he hurled down upon his thigh the king of the Daityas who rushed close with a mace, / and with his claws tore him as he writhed.

2.7.15

Held by the foot within a lake with immense strength by an alligator, / the leader of the herd, lotus in trunk, in his agony / said this: 'O primeval Person! O Lord of all worlds! / O Thou of holy renown! O Thou whose name brings auspiciousness to the hearing!'

2.7.16

Hearing him, the immeasurable Hari, whose weapon is the discus, / seeking refuge as he was, mounted upon the shoulders of the king of birds; / tearing open the mouth of the crocodile with his discus, / the Lord out of compassion took him by the trunk and lifted him out.

2.7.17

Though the youngest of the sons of Aditi, he was the greatest in virtues; / when as the Sacrifice Incarnate he stepped across these worlds, / he took the earth as a dwarf under the pretext of three strides; / for one walking on the rightful path without begging cannot be turned away by the powerful.

2.7.18

Sovereignty over the gods was of no consequence to Bali, / who bore upon his crown the water that washed the feet of Urukrama; / indeed, he desired to do nothing else than keep his promise, / and in his mind, my dear, offered up himself to Hari.

2.7.19

And to you, O Nārada, being greatly pleased by your intensely developed / devotional emotion, the Lord fully expounded yoga, / and that Bhāgavata knowledge, a lamp to the reality of the self, / which those taking refuge in Vāsudeva understand with ease.

2.7.20

And in the periods of the Manus, upholding the lineage of Manu, / he bears his own brilliance as an unobstructed discus in the ten directions; / he inflicted punishment upon wicked kings, / spreading his lovely fame to the highest realm through his deeds.

2.7.21

And the Lord Himself was Dhanvantari, fame personified, / who by his very name quickly destroys the ailments of suffering men; / he secures a share in the sacrifice and immortal life, / and descending into the world, he expounds the Veda of longevity.

2.7.22

When the ruling class, destined for destruction by fate, / hater of the Brahmins, strayed from the path and sought the torments of hell, / that great soul of fierce valor, with his sharp-edged battle-axe, / eradicated this thorn of the earth thrice seven times.

2.7.23

Favorably disposed to show us grace, the Lord of all eras / descended with a portion of Himself into the line of Ikṣvāku; / obeying his elder's command, he entered the forest with his beloved and his younger brother; / opposing him, the ten-necked [Rāvaṇa] met his doom.

2.7.24

For him, wishing to burn the enemy's city at once like Hara, / the ocean, trembling with fear rising in all its limbs, gave way, / as from afar its hosts of makaras, serpents, and crocodiles / were scorched by his glance fiery-red with anger aroused by his spouse's grief.

2.7.25

Whose laughter was displayed, mocking the quarters of the sky, / with his tusks broken against the chest of Indra's great elephant— / him, the abductor of his wife, as he roars over his army, / he will instantly deprive of life along with the twangings of his bow.

2.7.26

To relieve the distress of the earth trampled by the armies of the demons, / he, having white and black hair, / will be born by a part of Himself, his path unperceived by men, / and will perform deeds that proclaim his own greatness.

2.7.27

That as an infant he took the life of the she-demon [Pūtanā], / and at three months of age overturned a cart with his foot, / and crawling between the two arjuna trees that touched the sky, uprooted them— / these could not otherwise have been possible.

2.7.28

When, in Vraja, having revived with a shower of His gracious glance
the cattle of Vraja and the cowherds who had drunk poisoned water,
He will, sporting in the river, drive out the serpent
whose tongues flickered with the potency of dreadful poison, in order to purify it;

2.7.29

and that deed like something divine, when, sleeping at night
as the dry forest was being consumed all around by a forest fire,
He, of ungraspable valor, together with Baladeva,
will deliver Vraja from that imminent hour of death, making them close their eyes;

2.7.30

and whatever rope His mother took up to bind her son,
none of it sufficed to measure Him;
and seeing all the worlds within His open mouth as He yawned,
the cowherd woman, her mind filled with wonder, was brought to true awareness;

2.7.31

and He will release Nanda from fear of Varuṇa's noose,
and the cowherds imprisoned in caves by the son of Maya;
and Gokula, busy by day and sleeping at night through excessive exhaustion,
He will lead to the realm of Vaikuṇṭha;

2.7.32

when the sacrifice was stopped by the cowherds, and the god [Indra] poured rain
to devastate Vraja, He, wishing compassionately to protect the cattle,
a seven-year-old boy, held up the mountain playfully on one faultless hand
for seven days, like an umbrella-shaped mushroom;

2.7.33

playing in the forest at night bright with the beams of the moon,
eager for the rāsa dance, He, by means of sweet, prolonged, and melodious notes,
will strike off the head of the attendant of the lord of wealth [Kubera],
who was abducting the wives of the cowherds whose love-longing had been aroused;

2.7.34

and those such as Pralamba, Khara, Dardura, Keśin, Ariṣṭa,
the wrestlers, the elephant, Kaṃsa, and Yavana, the ape [Dvivida], Pauṇḍraka, and others,
and others headed by Śālva, Kuja, Balvala, Dantavakra,
the seven bulls, Śambara, Vidūratha, and Rukmin;

2.7.35

or those skilled in battle with drawn bows in combat,
headed by the Kāmbojas, Matsyas, Kurus, Sṛñjayas, and Kaikayas,
shall fully vanish into His abode
through Hari under the pretext of Baladeva, Arjuna, and Bhīma;

2.7.36

considering that His own scripture is, alas, beyond the reach
of men of short lifespan whose intelligence has been dimmed by time,
He, appearing in each age from Satyavatī,
divided the tree of the Veda branch by branch;

2.7.37

when the enemies of the gods, established in the Vedic path,
with cities built by Maya that moved invisible and swift,
slaughter the worlds, He, assuming an alluring disguise,
will cause bewilderment of their minds and teach many pseudo-dharmas;

2.7.38

at the end of the age, when not even in the homes of the virtuous devotees are there narrations of Hari,
when twice-born men have become heretics, and low-born men have become rulers of men,
where the words svāhā, svadhā, and vaṣaṭ are no longer heard,
the Lord will appear as the chastiser of Kali;

2.7.39

at the creation: penance, myself, the nine sages who are the lords of creatures;
then in preservation: dharma, sacrifice, the Manus, the gods, and the earthly rulers;
and at the dissolution: adharma, Hara, the asuras and others dominated by wrath;
these are the manifestations of the creative power belonging to the One endowed with manifold energies;

2.7.40

who indeed here can measure the mighty deeds of Viṣṇu?
Even the sage who has counted the dust particles of the earth,
who by His unhindered power propped up the threefold heavens
when the universe was violently shaking from the abode of the balanced triads [the guṇas];

2.7.41

I know not the limit of the Person whose creative power is boundless,
nor do these sages who are your elder brothers; whence then could those who are inferior know it?
Even now the primordial deity Śeṣa, with a thousand mouths,
singing His virtues, does not attain His end;

2.7.42

those to whom this Lord, the Infinite, grants His compassion
if they have taken refuge at His feet sincerely with all their being—
they cross beyond this divine creative power, so hard to traverse;
no longer do they hold the notion of 'I' and 'mine' toward this body that is food for dogs and jackals;

2.7.43

I know, my dear, the yoga-māyā of the Supreme;
so do you all, and Lord Bhava, and the best of the daityas [Prahlāda],
the wife of Manu, and Manu himself, and his children,
and Prācīnabarhis, Ṛbhu, Aṅga, and also Dhruva;

2.7.44

Ikṣvāku, Aila, Mucukunda, the king of Videha [Janaka], Gādhi,
Raghu, Ambarīṣa, Sagara, Gaya, Nāhuṣa, and others,
Māndhātṛ, Alarka, Śatadhanvan, Anuraṇtideva,
Devavrata [Bhīṣma], Bali, Amūrttarayas, Dilīpa;

2.7.45

Saubhari, Utaṅka, Śibi, Devala, Pippalāda,
Sārasvata, Uddhava, Parāśara, Bhūriṣeṇa,
and those others such as Vibhīṣaṇa, Hanūmat, Upendradatta,
Arjuna, Ārṣṭiṣeṇa, Vidura, and the best, Śrutadeva;

2.7.46

Even women, Śūdras, Hūṇas, and Śabaras—beings of sinful origin— / and even creatures of animal birth certainly comprehend and cross beyond the Lord's creative power, / if they adopt the conduct taught by those dedicated to Him of wondrous deeds; / how much more then those who hold fast to Vedic revelation!

2.7.47

Eternally tranquil, fearless, pure consciousness alone, / stainless, uniform, beyond existence and non-existence, is the truth of the Supreme Self, / where words denoting multiple grammatical factors for actions do not apply, / and creative power, feeling ashamed, departs in His presence.

2.7.48

That indeed is the abode of the Lord, the supreme Person, / which they know as Brahman, unending bliss and free from sorrow; / having properly curbed [the mind], ascetics abandon the weapon of 'I' and 'mine', / just as Indra, sovereign in himself, abandons a spade used for digging a well.

2.7.49

He is the Lord, the master even of all blessings, from whom proceeds / the reality of this manifested world, established by the nature of its being; / when the body dissolves upon the departure of its elements, / like space therein, the person is not at all destroyed.

Translations (1)

The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English

Linked texts (1)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit