Bhagavatapurana 3.11
English (machine translation) 3.11
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Contents
3.11.1
Maitreya said: / The ultimate indivisible unit of existing particulars, manifold and ever uncombined, / is to be known as the paramāṇu, from which arises men's illusion of unity.
3.11.2
The absolute state of substance existing in its own intrinsic nature / is the supreme great, undivided and continuous.
3.11.3
In this way Time also is inferred in subtlety and grossness, O best of men, / by its measuring of positions; the unmanifest Lord experiences the manifest, being all-pervading.
3.11.4
That time which passes through the measure of a paramāṇu is called a paramāṇu; / while that which traverses the undivided whole of existence is supreme, great time.
3.11.5
Two paramāṇus make an aṇu, and three [aṇus] are known as a trasareṇu; / it is perceived in rays of sunlight through a lattice, floating up into the sky.
3.11.6
The time that passes through three trasareṇus is known as a truṭi; / a hundredth part of that is a vedha, and three of those are remembered as a lava.
3.11.7
A nimeṣa should be known as three lavas, and three of these are traditionally called a kṣaṇa; / five kṣaṇas they know as a kāṣṭhā, and fifteen of them make a laghu.
3.11.8
Fifteen laghus indeed are declared to be a nāḍikā; / two of these make a muhūrta, and six or seven [nāḍikās] make a prahara, or yāma, for men.
3.11.9
A vessel of six palas’ weight, pierced by a gold tube of four finger-breadths / weighing four māṣas, which sinks when filled by a prastha of water [measures a nāḍikā].
3.11.10
Four yāmas each make the day and night of mortals; / fifteen days make a fortnight, both light and dark, O respectful one.
3.11.11
The combination of these two is a month, which is a day and night for the ancestors; / two of those make a season, and six [months] an ayana in the sky, southern and northern.
3.11.12
The two ayanas are said to be a day and a night [of the gods]; twelve [months] are known as a year; / one hundred years is determined to be the maximum lifespan of men.
3.11.13
Abiding in the wheel of planets, lunar mansions, and stars, the sleepless, all-pervading [Lord] / traverses the universe by measures beginning with the paramāṇu and ending with the year.
3.11.14
It is spoken of thus, O Vidura: the saṃvatsara, the parivatsara, / the iḍāvatsara, the anuvatsara, and the vatsara.
3.11.14.p1
He who, animating the creative power manifoldly by his own power, traverses the sky to remove the confusion of men, / distributing the elements,
3.11.15
expanding the world of guṇas by sacrifices under the name of Time— / to that five-year cycle offer your oblations.
3.11.15.p1
[…]
3.11.16
Vidura said: / This maximum lifespan of ancestors, gods, and men has been remembered; / tell of the course of those beyond, the knowers who exist outside the kalpa.
3.11.17
You, lord, surely know the movement of the Lord's time; / the wise perceive the universe through the eye accomplished in yoga.
3.11.18
Maitreya said: / The four ages are Kṛta, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali; / together with their twilights, they are calculated as twelve thousand celestial years.
3.11.19
Four, three, two, and one thousand [divine years], respectively, / are counted for Kṛta and the subsequent [ages], along with twice that number of hundreds [for their twilights].
3.11.20
The period between dawn and twilight, numbering in the hundreds [of years],
that alone those who know of it call an age, wherein dharma is ordained.
3.11.21
Four-footed dharma attends upon human beings in the Kṛta age;
that very [dharma] departs by a foot in each subsequent [age] due to increasing adharma.
3.11.22
Beyond the three worlds, a thousand cycles of four ages constitutes a day of Brahmā;
just as long is his night, dear one, when the creator of the universe closes his eyes.
3.11.23
Begun at the end of the night, the cosmic cycle of the world continues
for the duration of the day of the Lord, encompassing fourteen Manus.
3.11.24
Each Manu enjoys his own span of time for a little more than seventy-one [cycles];
in each manvantara, the Manus, their descendants, the sages, and the gods
come into being simultaneously, along with the rulers of the gods and their followers.
3.11.25
This is the daily creation of Brahmā, which maintains the three worlds,
wherein the birth of animals, humans, ancestors, and gods occurs according to their past deeds.
3.11.26
In the manvantaras, the Lord, assuming purity through his own forms
such as the Manus, protects this universe, manifesting his prowess.
3.11.27
Assuming only the quality of darkness, his active power withdrawn,
he remains silent at the close of the day, having gathered in all things through Time.
3.11.28
Following him, the three worlds beginning with the earth are also concealed
when the night sets in, stripped of the moon and the sun.
3.11.29
When the three worlds are scorched by the fire from Saṅkarṣaṇa's potency,
Bhṛgu and the other sages, distressed by the heat, depart from Maharloka to Janaloka.
3.11.30
Then all at once the oceans, swollen at the end of the kalpa,
inundate the three worlds with waves driven by fierce winds of violent fury.
3.11.31
Within those waters Hari rests upon the serpent Ananta,
his eyes closed in the sleep of yoga, while being praised by the inhabitants of Janaloka.
3.11.32
By such days and nights, marked by the passage of Time,
even his maximum lifespan of one hundred years is reckoned as waning.
3.11.33
Half of his life is termed a parārdha;
the first parārdha has indeed passed away, and the second is now underway.
3.11.34
At the beginning of the first parārdha occurred the great kalpa called Brāhma,
in which Brahmā appeared, whom they know as the Vedas.
3.11.35
And at the end of that very [first parārdha] occurred the kalpa they call Pādma,
in which the world-lotus arose from the lake of Hari's navel.
3.11.36
This kalpa of the second [parārdha] is related, O descendant of Bharata,
as renowned by the name Vārāha, wherein Hari became a boar.
3.11.37
This duration of time called two parārdhas is considered merely a blinking of the eye
of the unmanifest, endless, and beginningless Self of the universe.
3.11.38
This Time, which begins with the atomic unit and ends with two parārdhas, though a master,
is not capable of ruling over the Supreme Lord, though it rules those proud of their bodies.
3.11.39
Together with its transformations and joined with the gross elements and their sources,
this cosmic egg is enveloped on the outside, spanning five hundred million [yojanas].
3.11.40
Surrounded by envelopes ten times larger successively, wherein [this universe],
entered like an atom, is perceived, and within which are myriads of other universes.
3.11.41
That they call the imperishable Brahman, the cause of all causes,
the supreme abode of Viṣṇu, who is directly the Supreme Person of great self.
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit