Bhagavatapurana 4.18
English (machine translation) 4.18
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4.18.1
Maitreya said:
Having thus praised Pṛthu, whose lower lip was trembling with wrath, / the frightened earth, having steadied herself by herself, spoke again:
4.18.2
Restrain Your anger, O Lord, and listen to what I announce to You! / Just as a bee gathers nectar from all sides, a wise person gathers the essence [from everywhere].
4.18.3
Methods have been seen and applied by sages who perceive the truth / in this world as well as in the next, for the attainment of the welfare of human beings.
4.18.4
A lesser person who, endowed with faith, properly adopts those means shown by the ancients, / easily attains the desired goal.
4.18.5
The ignorant person who undertakes pursuits on his own, disregarding those [methods], / sees his undertakings fail again and again.
4.18.6
The plants and herbs that were formerly created by Brahmā, O ruler of the people, / were seen by me being consumed by the unrighteous, who did not uphold their vows.
4.18.7
Unprotected and neglected by you, the protectors of the world, / when the world had become a den of thieves, I swallowed the plants for the purpose of sacrifice.
4.18.8
Those plants have indeed withered within me after a great passage of time. / Therefore, You ought to extract them by the recognized method.
4.18.9
Designate a calf for me, O hero, through which, affectionate toward my calf, / I shall yield all desired objects in the form of milk, as well as an appropriate milk-pail,
4.18.10
and a milker, O mighty-armed one, O fosterer of living beings, / if the Lord desires nourishing, desired food for the creatures.
4.18.11
And make me level, O King, so that the water poured down by the gods / may remain upon me even out of season; may good fortune be Yours, O Lord!
4.18.12
Accepting these pleasing and beneficial words of the earth, the king / made Manu the calf and milked all the herbs and plants into his hands.
4.18.13
Likewise, other wise beings gathered the essence everywhere; / and then others milked the [earth] made fertile by Pṛthu according to their desires.
4.18.14
The sages milked the goddess into the senses, O best of men, / making Bṛhaspati the calf, and obtaining the pure milk in the form of the Vedic hymns.
4.18.15
The hosts of gods, making Indra the calf, milked Soma, / vigor, vitality, and strength as the milk into a golden vessel.
4.18.16
The Daityas and Dānavas, having made Prahlāda, the foremost among the Asuras, their calf, / milked wine and liquor into an iron vessel.
4.18.17
The Gandharvas and Apsarases milked milk into a lotus vessel, / making Viśvāvasu the calf, obtaining musical art, honey, and charm.
4.18.18
With Aryaman as the calf, the fortunate ancestors, deities of the ancestral rites, / milked with faith the food offering to the ancestors as milk into an unbaked clay vessel.
4.18.19
The Siddhas, having designated Kapila as the calf, milked the yogic perfection consisting of volition, / and those such as Vidyādharas milked magical knowledge in the sky.
4.18.20
Other masters of magic, making Maya their calf, milked the creative illusion / that consists of mental concentration and enables disappearance and wondrous acts.
4.18.21
The Yakṣas, Rakṣases, spirits, and flesh-eating Piśācas, / with the Lord of Ghosts as their calf, milked an intoxicating draft of blood into a skull.
4.18.22
Likewise, the crawling creatures, biting serpents, and Nāgas, having made Takṣaka their calf, / milked poison as milk into a hole as their vessel.
4.18.23
The domestic animals milked grass as milk, making the bull their calf, / into the forest as their vessel; and the beasts of prey with fangs did so with the lion [as calf].
4.18.24
Carnivorous creatures milked raw meat into their own bodies; / birds, with Suparṇa as their calf, milked moving and non-moving creatures.
4.18.25
Large trees, with the banyan tree as their calf, milked their distinct sap-like milk; / the mountains, with the Himavat as their calf, milked various minerals upon their slopes.
4.18.26
All beings, with the foremost of their kind as the calf, into their respective vessels / milked distinct milk from the earth who yields all desires, made fertile by Pṛthu.
4.18.27
Thus, O bearer of the Kuru line, Pṛthu and the other eaters of food extracted their own food from the earth, / with differences of milk according to the differences of milk-pails and calves.
4.18.28
Then King Pṛthu, pleased with her who yields all desires, / accepted her out of love as his daughter, fond of his daughter.
4.18.29
Crushing the mountain peaks with the tip of his bow, the king of kings, / the son of Vena, the all-powerful, made this terrestrial globe almost level.
4.18.30
athāsmin bhagavān vainyaḥ prajānāṃ vṛttidaḥ pitā
nivāsān kalpayāṃ cakre tatra tatra yathārhataḥ
4.18.31
grāmān puraḥ pattanāni durgāṇi vividhāni ca
ghoṣān vrajān sa-śibirān ākarān kheṭa-kharvaṭān
4.18.32
prāk pṛthor iha naivaiṣā pura-grāmādi-kalpanā
yathā-sukhaṃ vasanti sma tatra tatrākutobhayāḥ
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit