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Bhagavatapurana 5.2

English (machine translation) 5.2

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5.2.1

Śrī Śuka said: / When his father had departed in this manner, Āgnīdhra, abiding by his instructions, protected the subjects residing in Jambūdvīpa righteously, as if they were his own begotten children.

5.2.2

Once, desiring the realm of the ancestors, he went to a valley of the pleasure mountain of the celestial women, and there the ascetic worshipped the Lord, the master of the creators of the universe, with gathered offerings of worship and single-minded concentration of the self.

5.2.3

Perceiving this, the Lord, the Primal Person, dispatched the Apsaras named Pūrvacitti, who was singing in the celestial assembly.

5.2.4

She wandered near the garden of his hermitage, which was exceedingly charming—thronged with pairs of land-dwelling birds perched on golden creepers intertwined with dense branches of varied trees, singing their notes; and enlivened with clear ponds filled with lotuses resounding with the calls of water fowl, kāraṇḍava ducks, and geese awakened by them.

5.2.5

Hearing the tinkling of her lovely foot-ornaments jingling at every step of her gracefully charming gait and playfully undulating movements, the royal prince opened slightly the bud-like lotus petals of his eyes, which had been closed in meditative absorption, and beheld her.

5.2.6

Seeing her nearby, smelling flowers like a female bee; opening a path into the hearts of men for the flower-arrowed god of love by her gait, playfulness, modest glances, and sweet melodious speech that brought delight to the minds and eyes of gods and mortals; her hips, mass of hair, and jar-like breasts charmingly trembling under the quickened steps she took because of the swarm of bees blinded by rut-perfume, attracted by the fragrance of the smiling words filled with sweet nectar dripping from her mouth; the prince, brought under the sway of the shark-bannered god of love who found his opportunity in that sight, spoke as if bewildered:

5.2.7

Who are you, best of ascetics, and what do you wish to do on this mountain? Are you some creative power of the Supreme Deity, the Lord? / You carry two stringless bows for your own sake or a friend’s; or are you hunting intoxicated deer in the forest?

5.2.8

These two arrows of your reverence, feathered with lotus petals, are peaceful, lovely without shafts, yet possessing exceedingly sharp tips. / Wandering in the forest, whom do you wish to strike? We do not know. May your power be for our well-being, dull of wit as we are.

5.2.9

These disciples around your reverence recite; they sing the Sāmaveda together with its esoteric secrets incessantly to the Lord. / Shaken down by your locks of hair, they all enjoy the rains of blossoms, just as groups of ṛṣis follow the branches of the Veda.

5.2.10

O brāhmaṇa, we hear only the speech of the partridges in the cage of your feet, sounding loudly without visible forms. / The beauty of the kadamba flower has been obtained on the round resting place of your hips, around which is a circle like a whirling firebrand; and where is your bark garment?

5.2.11

What is stored in your two beautiful horns, O twice-born one, where you, slender in the waist, carry that upon which my eyes rest? / Reddish and fragrant is the paste on your horns, by which, O handsome one, you perfume my hermitage.

5.2.12

Show me your realm, O dearest friend, where people possess such unprecedented parts upon their breasts, / which elevate the mind of one like me; and so much wonder—the nectar of passionate love-dances and the like—in the mouth!

5.2.13

What is your livelihood? Surely an oblation of food is fragrant, my friend! You are an expansion of Viṣṇu, and your two ears have unblinking makara-earrings. / Your face is like a lake, with two restless fish, the splendor of a row of teeth, and swarms of bees nearby!

5.2.14

That ball struck by your lotus hand, wandering in all directions, as it spins makes my eyes restless. / Do you not remember your loosened cluster of curly matted locks? This wretched, lustful wind is stealing your waist-cloth!

5.2.15

O rich in asceticism, by what penance was this beauty acquired by you—a beauty that destroys the asceticism of those practicing penance? / You ought to perform penance together with me, O friend; or will that creator of the world be pleased with me?

5.2.16

I will not leave you, my beloved, given to me by the god of the twice-born, upon whom my mind and eyes, having become fixed, never depart. / You ought to lead me, who am devoted to you, O you of lovely horns; wherever your mind goes, let your auspicious companions follow."

5.2.17

Śrī Śuka said: / Thus, with colloquial cleverness, he who possessed the intellect of an immortal, very skilled in flattering women, honored that celestial wife with this discourse.

5.2.18

And she then, her mind captivated by the intelligence, character, beauty, youth, royal splendor, and generosity of that leader of the assembly of heroes, enjoyed earthly heavenly pleasures with him, the master of Jambūdvīpa, for a duration marked by tens of thousands of years.

5.2.19

In her, Āgnīdhra, that excellent king, indeed begot nine sons named Nābhi, Kimpuruṣa, Harivarṣa, Ilāvṛta, Ramyaka, Hiraṇmaya, Kuru, Bhadrāśva, and Ketumāla.

5.2.20

Having given birth to nine sons, year after year, leaving them right at home, Pūrvacitti once again attended upon the unborn god.

5.2.21

Those sons of Āgnīdhra, endowed by the favor of their mother with inborn bodily firmness and strength, partitioned by their father, enjoyed according to their shares the divisions of Jambūdvīpa that bore their own respective names.

5.2.22

King Āgnīdhra, insatiable in his desires, thinking daily only of the apsaras, attained through the rites of the Vedic scriptures co-residence with her in the world where the ancestors rejoice.

5.2.23

When their father had died, the nine brothers married the nine daughters of Meru named Merudevī, Pratirūpā, Ugradaṃṣṭrī, Latā, Ramyā, Śyāmā, Nārī, Bhadrā, and Devavīti.

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