Bhagavatapurana 4.5
English (machine translation) 4.5
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4.5.1
Maitreya said:
Bhava, learning from Nārada of the death of Bhavānī, who had been dishonored by the Prajāpati,
and that his army of attendants had been routed by the Ṛbhus of that sacrifice, gave way to boundless anger.
4.5.2
Furious, with his lips tightly bitten, he, Dhūrjaṭi, tearing out a matted lock of hair
that blazed fiercely like lightning and fire, Rudra suddenly rose up, laughing with a deep roar, and dashed it upon the earth.
4.5.3
Then [arose] a colossal figure touching the sky with his body, with a thousand arms, shining like a dark cloud, with three eyes like suns,
with frightful fangs, hair like blazing fire, wearing a garland of skulls, and with various weapons raised.
4.5.4
To him, who stood with folded hands asking, 'What shall I do?', the Lord, the master of spirits, said:
'Slay Dakṣa along with his sacrifice! You are the leader of my soldiers, O Rudra, an expansion of my warrior force.'
4.5.5
Commanded thus by the wrathful [Śiva], who was anger itself, he circumambulated the all-pervading god of gods; / he considered himself capable of bearing, with irresistible speed, the strength of the greatest beings, dear one.
4.5.6
Followed by the attendants of Rudra, who were roaring loudly, he roared most terribly; / raising a trident capable of ending the ender of the world, he ran forward, his feet adorned with ringing bells.
4.5.7
Then, observing dust in the northern direction, the sacrificial priests, the patron of the sacrifice, the assembly members, / the brahmins, and the brahmins’ wives thought: “What is this darkness? Whence has this dust arisen?”
4.5.8
“Winds do not blow, nor are there robbers, for Prācīnabarhis of stern punishment is still alive; / cows are not being herded. Whence is this dust? Can the world now be fit for dissolution?”
4.5.9
The women, along with Prasūti, their minds agitated, said: “This is indeed the ripening of that evil deed, / when the lord of creatures, while his daughters were watching, showed contempt toward his sinless daughter, Satī.
4.5.10
He who, at the time of cosmic dissolution, his matted locks scattered, impales the great elephants of the directions on the points of his trident, / and dances with his weapons raised like banner-arms spread wide, splitting the quarters with his loud roaring laughter—
4.5.11
having provoked him of unbearable brilliance, who is steeped in wrath, terrible to look upon with his knitting brows, / who scatters the constellations with his frightening fangs—how could there be well-being for him who angers the creator?”
4.5.12
While Dakṣa's people, their vision agitated, were repeatedly saying many such things, / terrible omens by the thousands, causing great fear, arose on all sides in the sky and on the earth.
4.5.13
Just then, Vidura, the great sacrifice was surrounded by Rudra's followers who rushed around, / short of stature, with uplifted weapons of diverse kinds, tawny, reddish-brown, with bellies and mouths like aquatic monsters.
4.5.14
Some smashed the eastern hall, and others the hall of the patron’s wife, / the assembly pavilion, the hall of the Āgnīdhra priest, the residence, and the kitchen.
4.5.15
They broke the sacrificial vessels, and some extinguished the fires; / some urinated in the fire-altars, and they tore down the boundaries of the sacrificial altar.
4.5.16
Others tormented the sages, and some threatened the wives; / others seized the gods who were nearby and fleeing.
4.5.17
Maṇimān bound Bhṛgu, Vīrabhadra seized Prajāpati [Dakṣa], / Caṇḍeśa seized the god Pūṣan, and Nandīśvara grabbed Bhaga.
4.5.18
Seeing this, all the priests, the assembly members, and the heaven-dwellers, / severely battered by them with stones, fled in different directions.
4.5.19
While Bhṛgu was offering oblations with ladle in hand, the glorious Bhava / tore out his beard in the assembly—he who had laughed, showing his beard.
4.5.20
Tearing him down in rage to the ground, the glorious one plucked out the eyes of Bhaga, / who, sitting in the assembly, had made an eye-gesture while [Dakṣa] was cursing.
4.5.21
He knocked out the teeth of Pūṣan, as Bala knocked out those of the king of Kaliṅga— / of him who had laughed, displaying his teeth, while the great one was being cursed.
4.5.22
Kneeling on Dakṣa’s chest and hacking at it with a sharp-edged weapon, / the three-eyed lord was unable even then to sever his head.
4.5.23
When his skin was not pierced in this way by weapons endowed with spells, / Hara, the lord of animals, attained supreme astonishment and pondered for a long time.
4.5.24
Seeing the method of suffocating the sacrificial animals in the sacrifice, that master / severed the head from the body of that sacrificial animal—the patron Dakṣa.
4.5.25
At that time, there were shouts of praise from the spirits, ghosts, and fiends who saw that deed of his, / while the opposite arose from the others.
4.5.26
In anger, he offered that head into the southern sacrificial fire, / and having set fire to that sacrificial arena of the gods, he departed for the abode of the Guhyakas.
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit