Bhagavatapurana 4.2

English (machine translation) 4.2

Language: English

4.2.1

Vidura said: / Toward Bhava, the foremost among the virtuous, why did Dakṣa, who loved his daughter, / conceive hatred, disregarding his own daughter Satī?

4.2.2

Who hates him, the teacher of the moving and unmoving, free from enmity, the personification of peace, / delighting in the self, the great deity of the universe—and how?

4.2.3

Tell me this, O brāhmaṇa: the hostility between son-in-law and father-in-law, / on account of which Satī cast away her life, which is so hard to give up.

Maitreya said: / Formerly, at a sacrificial session of the creators of the universe, the great sages gathered, / and likewise all the hosts of immortals, the ascetics with their followers, and the fires.

4.2.5

Seeing Dakṣa enter there, shining like the sun with his brilliance, / dispelling the darkness of that great assembly, the sages,

4.2.6

those members of the assembly, along with the fires, stood up from their seats, / except Viriñca and Śarva, their minds dazzled by his radiance.

4.2.7

Properly honored by the leaders of the assembly, the illustrious Dakṣa / bowed to the unborn, the teacher of the world, and sat down at his command.

4.2.8

Seeing Mṛḍa already seated, Dakṣa, disregarded by him, could not bear it; / casting an unfavorable glance at him with both eyes as if burning him, he spoke:

4.2.9

"Listen to me, O brāhmaṇa sages, along with the gods and the fires, / as I speak of the conduct of the virtuous—not out of ignorance, nor out of malice.

4.2.10

This shameless destroyer of the guardians of the world's renown, / by this insolent one the path followed by the virtuous has been defiled.

4.2.11

He has assumed the status of my disciple, since he took my daughter's / hand before the brāhmaṇas and the fire, like Sāvitrī, like a virtuous person.

4.2.12

Having taken the hand of the fawn-eyed girl, he of monkey-eyes / did not even offer proper honor in speech to one deserving standing and greeting.

4.2.13

To him whose rites are abandoned, impure, proud, who has broken the moral boundaries, / though unwilling, I gave my young daughter, as if giving the holy word of the Veda to a śūdra.

4.2.14

Surrounded by ghosts and hordes of spirits in terrifying cremation grounds, / he roams like a madman, naked, with disheveled hair, laughing and weeping.

4.2.15

Bathed in the ashes of funeral pyres, adorned with garlands of corpses and human bones, / auspicious in name only, but truly inauspicious, intoxicated and fond of drunken folk, / the master of the Pramatha hordes, whose very nature is made of mere darkness!

4.2.16

Alas, to that lord of the mad, bereft of purity, evil-hearted, / the virtuous girl was given by me, urged by the Supreme Lord Parameṣṭhin."

4.2.17

Maitreya said: / Having thus reviled Giriśa, who remained without opposition, / Dakṣa then touched water and, enraged, proceeded to pronounce a curse:

4.2.18

"Let this Bhava, the lowest of the divine host, receive no share / along with the gods, Indra, Upendra, and the others, in the worship of the gods!"

4.2.19

Though forbidden by the foremost members of the assembly, Dakṣa, having hurled the curse at Giritra, / walked out from there with his anger blazing, O son of the Kurus, and went to his own abode.

4.2.20

Learning of the curse, Nandīśvara, the leader of Giriśa's attendants, his eyes reddened with fury, / hurled a terrible curse at Dakṣa and at those twice-born who had approved of his unspeakable words:

4.2.21

"Whoever, regarding this mortal body, bears malice toward the Lord / who bears no malice in return—let that ignorant person of dual vision turn away from truth!

4.2.22

Attached to deceitful duties in households through desire for vulgar pleasure, / let him amplify the system of ritual actions, his intellect corrupted by the words of the Veda.

4.2.23

With an intellect contemplating other matters, having forgotten the nature of the self, like a beast, / excessively lustful toward women, let that Dakṣa soon have the face of a goat!

4.2.24

Mistaking ritual action for true wisdom, dull-witted in spiritual ignorance, / let them wander in transmigration here—those who follow this despiser of Śarva!

4.2.25

Agitated by the flowery speech of the Veda and its rich fragrance of honey, / with their minds churned up, let those haters of Hara be utterly bewildered!

4.2.26

Let the twice-born eat anything, maintaining knowledge, asceticism, and vows merely for a livelihood, / finding delight only in wealth, the body, and the senses, roaming here as beggars!"

4.2.27

Hearing him utter such a curse against the race of the twice-born, / Bhṛgu hurled back a counter-curse, the rod of Brahman, difficult to overcome:

4.2.28

"May those who observe the vow of Bhava, and those who follow them, / become heretics, adversaries of the true scriptures.

4.2.29

Bereft of purity, foolish-minded, wearing matted hair, ashes, and bones, / let them enter the initiation of Śiva, in which the deity is wine and liquor.

4.2.30

Because you revile the Veda and the brāhmaṇas, / the barrier upholding mankind, you have taken refuge in heresy.

4.2.31

For this is indeed the auspicious and eternal path of the worlds, / which the ancients followed, and for which Janārdana is the standard of authority.

4.2.32

Having reviled that supreme and pure Veda, the eternal path of the virtuous, / go into heresy, where your deity is the king of spirits!"

4.2.33

Maitreya said: / As Bhṛgu was thus uttering the curse, the Lord Bhava / departed from there with his followers, as if somewhat despondent.

4.2.34

Those creators of the universe also, having conducted the sacrificial session for a thousand years, / O mighty archer, in which the supreme Hari was worshipped,

4.2.35

having taken the concluding bath where the Gaṅgā is joined by the Yamunā, / with purified minds, all went from there to their respective abodes.

Translations (1)

The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English

Linked texts (1)

Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit