Bhagavatapurana 3.31

English (machine translation) 3.31

Language: English

3.31.1

The Lord said: / Guided by fate on account of his karma, the living being, to obtain a body, / enters the womb of a woman by taking shelter in a particle of the man's semen.

3.31.2

In a single night it becomes a mixed mass, and in five nights a bubble; / in ten days it is like a jujube fruit, and after that, an egg or a lump of flesh.

3.31.3

In a month the head appears, in two months the form of the limbs such as arms and feet; / in three months nails, body hair, bones, and skin appear, as do the sex organs and apertures.

3.31.4

In four months the seven bodily elements appear; in five months hunger and thirst arise; / in six months, enclosed in the amnion, it moves about on the mother's right side of the belly.

3.31.5

With its bodily tissues growing from the food and drink swallowed by the mother, / that creature lies in an unwholesome pit of feces and urine, a place where worms breed.

3.31.6

Because of its tenderness, with all its limbs bitten every moment by the hungry worms / bred there, it suffers extreme agony and repeatedly swoons.

3.31.7

Afflicted by the harsh pungent, bitter, hot, salty, / dry, and sour substances eaten by the mother, it feels pain rising throughout all its limbs.

3.31.8

Enclosed within the membrane and surrounded on the outside by the intestines, / it remains with its head tucked against its belly, its back and neck bent.

Powerless to move its limbs, like a bird in a cage, / and there, by divine dispensation, gaining remembrance of its deeds arising from hundreds of births, / remembering them while sighing deeply, what happiness can it possibly find?

3.31.10

Though gaining awareness from the seventh month onward, it is shaken / by the winds of labor and cannot remain in one place, like a worm bred in feces born from the same womb.

3.31.11

Frightened and imploring, the sage bound by the seven ties, with joined palms, / prays with a distressed voice to Him by whom he was placed in the womb.

3.31.12

The creature said: / I take refuge in the lotus feet, moving upon the earth, of Him who has assumed various forms / by His own will to protect the universe, approaching Him who affords me freedom from fear; / for through Him such an appropriate fate has been revealed to me, a wicked soul.

3.31.13

I bow down to Him who, though remaining here like one bound, His self covered by karmas, / having resorted to creative power consisting of elements, senses, and desires, / is pure, changeless, and of unbroken consciousness, abiding in my suffering heart.

3.31.14

I revere that Supreme Person, beyond material nature and the individual soul, / that sage of uncurbed majesty who, though staying in this body fashioned from the five elements, / is untouched by it, whereas I, conscious by nature, am concealed by the senses, the gunas, and sense objects.

3.31.15

Wandering along this path of transmigration bound by vast gunas and actions by His creative power, / with his memory destroyed through exhaustion from that, / by what means could this soul ever choose this world again without the grace of exalted devotees?

3.31.16

Which God is that who bestowed this knowledge extending over the three times, / whose portion is present in moving and unmoving beings? / Following the path of living beings' karmas, let us worship Him to pacify the three kinds of torment.

3.31.17

This embodied soul, fallen into the hollow of another body, a pit of blood, feces, and urine, / with its body severely scorched by the gastric fire, / wishing to emerge from here and counting its months—when, O Lord, will this miserable soul be delivered?

3.31.18

O Lord, by whom, so exceedingly compassionate, this ten-month-old creature / has been brought to such a state—may that Lord of the destitute / be pleased by His own act; for who indeed could do anything in return for Him other than join their palms?

3.31.19

Surely, this one bound by the seven ties, possessing a body of self-restraint, / perceives with his intellect in his own body the Other within the bodily frame; / by whose gifted intellect I exist, that Ancient Person / I behold, recognized outside and in the heart, as the indwelling spirit.

3.31.20

Therefore, O all-pervading Lord, though dwelling in an abode of great misery, / I do not desire to depart from the womb into the blind well outside, / where the Lord's creative power approaches whoever has arrived there, / followed by false understanding, and after that, this cycle of transmigration.

3.31.21

Therefore, freed from agitation, having taken shelter at the feet of Viṣṇu, / I shall swiftly deliver myself from darkness by my own self as friend, / so that this calamity with its many openings / may not befall me again.

Translations (1)

The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English

Linked texts (1)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit