Bhagavatapurana 3.6
English (machine translation) 3.6
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3.6.1
The sage said: / Perceiving the helpless condition of these, His own powers, / who were not yet combined and whose cosmic function was asleep, the Lord,
3.6.2
bearing at that time His divine power named time, He of mighty strides / entered simultaneously into the assembly of the twenty-three cosmic principles.
3.6.3
Having entered that assembly in the form of activity, the Lord / united the separated elements, awakening their sleeping karma.
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Their karma awakened and impelled by destiny, the group of twenty-three [principles] / produced, through their own parts, the cosmic Person.
3.6.5
When the Supreme entered into it by His part, that assembly of world-creators / became agitated on meeting one another, within whom were the worlds of moving and unmoving beings.
3.6.6
That golden Person, endowed with the potency of all living beings, / dwelt within the cosmic egg in the causal waters for a thousand divine years.
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He, indeed the embryo of the world-creators, endowed with divine power, the power of action, and the power of the self, / divided Himself by Himself into one, ten, and three forms.
3.6.8
For He is the Self of all living beings, a portion of the Supreme Self, / the first incarnation in whom this assemblage of elements is conceived.
3.6.9
He is threefold as the individual soul, the presiding deity, and the material element; / the universal form has breath tenfold, and He is single by virtue of the heart.
3.6.10
Remembering the supplication of the world-creators, the Lord, Adhokṣaja, / heated the universal form with His own splendor for their manifestation.
3.6.11
Then, as He was heated, how many abodes indeed of the gods / were cleft open—hear these from me as I speak.
3.6.12
His mouth being cleft open, Agni, guardian of the world, entered that abode / with speech, his own portion, by which this Person utters what is to be spoken.
3.6.13
When the palate of Hari was cleft open, Varuṇa, guardian of the world, entered / with the tongue, his portion, by which He perceives taste.
3.6.14
When the two nostrils of Viṣṇu were cleft open, the two Aśvins entered that abode / with the sense of smell, their portion, whence comes the perception of odor.
3.6.15
When the two eyes of the all-pervading Lord were cleft open, Tvaṣṭṛ, guardian of the world, entered / with sight, his portion, whence comes the perception of visible forms.
3.6.16
When His skins were cleft open, Anila, guardian of the world, entered / with the vital breath, his portion, by which He experiences touch.
3.6.17
When His two ears were cleft open, the directions entered their own abode / with the faculty of hearing, their portion, by which He achieves the perception of sound.
3.6.18
When His skin was cleft open, the plants entered that abode / with the bodily hairs, their portion, by which He experiences itching.
3.6.19
When His generative organ was cleft open, Ka entered his own abode / with semen, his portion, by which He experiences pleasure.
3.6.20
When the anus of the Person was cleft open, Mitra, guardian of the world, entered / with the organ of excretion, his portion, by which He discharges waste.
3.6.21
When His two hands were cleft open, Indra, lord of heaven, entered / with the capacity for work, his portion, by which the Person procures livelihood.
3.6.22
When His two feet were cleft open, Viṣṇu, lord of the world, entered / with movement, his own portion, by which the Person reaches that which is to be attained.
3.6.23
And when His intellect was cleft open, Brahmā, lord of speech, entered that abode / with comprehension, his portion, whence comes the perception of what is to be known.
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And when His heart was cleft open, the moon-god entered that abode / with the mind, his portion, by which He experiences emotional transformation.
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And when His ego was cleft open, the principle of egotism entered that abode / with action, its portion, by which He undertakes what ought to be done.
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And when His pure consciousness was cleft open, the Mahat-tattva entered that abode / with the citta, its portion, by which He attains discernment.
3.6.27
From His head arose the sky, from His feet the earth, and from His navel the atmosphere, / wherein the gods and others, the functions of the material qualities, are perceived.
3.6.28
By predominance of purity, the gods attained heaven; / by the nature of passion, human beings and those who follow them attained the earth;
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by the third nature [of darkness], the hosts of attendants of Rudra, / dwelling in the sky between the two, took shelter in the Lord’s navel.
3.6.30
From the mouth of the Puruṣa, O leader of the Kurus, arose the brāhmaṇa, / who, because of being born from the face, became the foremost of the social classes, the spiritual teacher.
3.6.31
From His two arms arose the kṣatriya class, devoted to that duty, / which, born from the Puruṣa, protects the classes from injury by thorns.
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From the thighs of the all-pervading Lord arose the mercantile class, provider of livelihood for the worlds; / the vaiśya, born therefrom, maintains the means of living for humanity.
3.6.33
From the feet of the Lord service was born for the accomplishment of dharma; / born of that in ancient times was the śūdra, by whose service Hari is pleased.
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These social classes, through their own dharma, worship their spiritual teacher, Hari, / with faith, for their own purification, from whom they were born along with their occupations.
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O Vidura, who could presume to describe fully / this manifestation of the power of yogamāyā / belonging to the Lord, whose form comprises destiny, action, and the self?
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Even so, my dear one, according to my intellect and as I have heard, / I glorify the renown of Hari in order to purify my own speech, which had described other, unreal things.
3.6.37
The ultimate gain of speech for men, indeed, they declare to be the recitation of the qualities of the crest-jewel of the renowned, / and the ultimate gain of the ear is its employment in the nectar of His narrations offered by the wise.
3.6.38
His own greatness, my child, was ascertained by the first poet [Brahmā] / at the end of a thousand years, with an intellect fully matured through yoga.
3.6.39
Therefore, the creative power of the Lord deludes even the masters of illusion; / when he who holds the course of the self does not know it himself, what to say of others?
3.6.40
Failing to reach whom, words together with the mind turned back, / as did I and these other gods—to that Lord, reverence!
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit