Bhagavatapurana 8.24
English (machine translation) 8.24
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Contents
8.24.1
The King said: / O Lord, I wish to hear the primeval story of the incarnation of Hari, / of wondrous deeds, his illusory appearance as a fish—
8.24.2
for what purpose the Lord assumed the form of a fish, censured by the world, / difficult to endure due to its nature of darkness, as though subject to karma.
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All this, O venerable one, you should tell us truthfully: / the life of Him of highest renown, which brings happiness to all the worlds.
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Śrī Sūta said: / Thus addressed by Viṣṇurāta, the venerable son of Bādarāyaṇa / related the deed performed by Viṣṇu in the form of a fish.
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Śrī Śuka said: / Desiring the protection of cows, brahmins, gods, virtuous devotees, and the Vedic hymns, / and of dharma and prosperity, the Lord indeed assumes bodily forms.
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Moving among high and low beings like the wind, the Lord / does not partake of highness or lowness, being devoid of the material qualities of the intellect.
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At the end of the past kalpa, there occurred the occasional dissolution belonging to Brahmā; / then, O King, the worlds, beginning with the earth, were flooded by the ocean.
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When the Creator, overwhelmed by sleep through the power of Time, wished to rest, the mighty / Hayagrīva stole the Vedas from his presence as they issued from his mouth.
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Knowing that deed of Hayagrīva, the lord of the Dānavas, / the Lord Hari, the supreme master, assumed the form of a small fish.
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There, a certain great royal seer named Satyavrata, / wholly devoted to Nārāyaṇa, was performing austerities, subsisting only on water.
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He it is who, in this great kalpa, is the son of Vivasvat / known as Śrāddhadeva, appointed to the office of Manu by Hari.
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Once, as he was making a water offering in the Kṛtamālā river, / a tiny fish came into the water of his cupped hands.
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Satyavrata, the king of the Draviḍa country, O descendant of Bharata, / threw the tiny fish in his hands back into the water of the river along with the water.
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She said very plaintively to that most compassionate king: / "O lover of the wretched, how can you cast me, distressed and frightened, / into this river water to aquatic monsters that kill their kin, O King?"
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Not knowing that it was the Lord who out of love had assumed the body of a fish to bestow grace on him, / he set his mind on protecting the tiny fish.
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Hearing her extremely pitiful words, that compassionate lord of the earth / placed her in the water of his waterpot and brought her to his hermitage.
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Growing within a single night in that waterpot, / and finding no space for herself, she spoke thus to the lord of the earth:
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"I can no longer endure to live in distress in this waterpot; / prepare a very spacious dwelling where I may dwell in comfort."
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He took her from there and placed her in the water of a large cistern; / thrown in there, within an hour she grew to three cubits.
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"This cistern is not sufficient for me to live comfortably, O King; / give me a spacious place, since I have taken refuge in you."
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Taken from there by the king, O King, she was thrown into a lake; / pervading it with its body, that great fish grew further still.
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"This water is not suitable for my well-being as a dweller in the waters, O King; / place me, with a means of protection, in a lake that never dries up."
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Thus addressed, he took the fish to various lakes that never dried up; / finding that fish not fitting anywhere, he cast it into the ocean.
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As it was being thrown in, it said to him: "Here, all-powerful sea monsters and the like / will devour me, O hero; you should not cast me into this place!"
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Thus bewildered by the fish who spoke sweet words, / he asked it: "Who are you, who are bewildering us in the form of a fish?
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No aquatic creature of such power has ever been seen or even heard of by us, / such that you have pervaded a lake of a hundred leagues in a single day!
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Surely you are the Lord himself, the imperishable Hari, Nārāyaṇa, / who have assumed the form of an aquatic creature to shower grace upon living beings.
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Obeisance to you, supreme among persons, master of preservation, creation, and destruction! / For you, all-pervading Lord, are the foremost refuge and destination of us, your surrendered devotees.
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All your incarnations of divine play are meant for the prosperity of living beings; / I wish to know for what purpose this form has been assumed by you.
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O lotus-eyed one, approaching your feet can never be in vain, for you are the beloved self and friend of all, / unlike approaching others who see themselves as separate from the virtuous, for you have revealed this wondrous form to us."
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Śrī Śuka said:
To the king Satyavrata who spoke thus at the close of the yuga, the Lord of the universe, / wishing to sport in the ocean of dissolution in the form of a fish, and desiring to do what was dear to him who loves the single-minded devotees, spoke:
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The Lord said:
Truly on the seventh day from today, O tamer of enemies, / these three worlds, beginning with Bhūr and Bhuvas, will submerge in the ocean of dissolution.
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When the three worlds are dissolving in the waters of cosmic destruction, / a large boat sent by me will approach you.
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Having collected all herbs and seeds of higher and lower kinds, / surrounded by the seven sages, and accompanied by all living beings,
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and having boarded that immense boat, you will wander without anxiety / in the dark ocean of dissolution by the radiance of the sages alone.
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When that boat is tossed about by powerful winds, / tie it to my horn as I draw near, using the great serpent [as a rope].
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Drawing you, along with the sages and the boat, across the ocean, / I shall move about as long as the night of Brahmā lasts, O king.
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And by my grace you will come to know my greatness, called the supreme Brahman, / revealed in your heart through your earnest questions.
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Having thus instructed the king, Hari disappeared; / and he waited for that time which Hṛṣīkeśa had indicated.
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Spreading darbha grass with tips pointing east, the royal sage, facing north-east, / sat down meditating upon the feet of Hari in the form of a fish.
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Then the ocean overflowed its shores, flooding the earth on all sides, / swelling with the pouring rains from great clouds.
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Meditating on the Lord's instruction, he saw the boat arriving; / taking the herbs and plants, he boarded it together with the chief sages.
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The pleased sages said to him: “O king, meditate upon Keśava; / he will indeed protect us from this danger and bring about our welfare.”
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Then, contemplated by the king, there appeared in the great ocean / a golden fish bearing a single horn, a hundred thousand yojanas in size.
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Having tied the boat to its horn with the serpent as a tether, as previously told by Hari, / he was delighted and praised Madhusūdana:
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The king said:
You are our supreme guru who grants liberation, whom people, their self-knowledge impaired by beginningless ignorance / and afflicted by the toil of the cycle of rebirth rooted in it, may attain by good fortune when they approach.
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This ignorant person, bound by his own deeds, performs action that brings suffering out of a desire for happiness; / through service to whom one shakes off that false view—may he, our guru, cut the knot of the heart.
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Through service to whom a person sheds the impurity of his self, [its] darkness, as gold [sheds impurity] in fire, / and attains his own true nature—may he, the imperishable Lord, the supreme guru of gurus, be [our protector].
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Not a ten-thousandth part of a fraction of whose grace can other gods, gurus, and people / together bestow upon a person of their own accord—to you, that Supreme Lord, I go for refuge.
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Just as a blind person is made the guide of the blind, so an ignorant person is the guru of the unknowing; / you, like the sun, see all sights, and you have been chosen as the guru of us who desire to know our own true goal.
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A person directs another person to an untrue course, by which one falls into insurmountable darkness; / you, however, bestow imperishable and unfailing knowledge, by which a person easily attains his true abode.
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You are the friend, the dear Lord, the self, the guru, the knowledge, and the fulfillment of all desire for the whole world; / yet the world, blind of intellect with desires bound within, does not know you who dwell in the heart.
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To you, the foremost of gods, worthy of worship, I surrender, O Lord, for awakening; / cut the knots of the heart with your words that are lamps of truth, O Lord, and reveal your own abode.
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Śrī Śuka said:
To the king who spoke thus, the Lord, the primordial person, / sporting in the form of a fish in the great ocean, declared the truth:
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the divine collection of Purāṇas containing the practices of Sāṅkhya and Yoga, / and the secret of the self in its entirety, to the royal sage Satyavrata.
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Seated in the boat, together with the sages, he heard beyond any doubt the truth of the self, / the eternal Brahman proclaimed by the Lord.
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When the dissolution had ended and the Creator had awakened, / Hari, having slain the demon Hayagrīva, recovered the Vedas [for him].
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And that king Satyavrata, endowed with knowledge and realization, / by the grace of Viṣṇu became Vaivasvata Manu in this kalpa.
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Hearing this dialogue, this great narrative of the royal sage Satyavrata / and the horn-bearing Lord disguised as a fish through his creative power, one is freed from sin.
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The person who daily glorifies this incarnation of Hari / achieves all intentions and attains the supreme destination.
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I bow to him, the cause of all, who assumed the guise of a fish, who recovered the collection of the Vedas taken from the mouths of the Creator while his powers slept in the waters of dissolution, having slain the son of Diti,
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and who proclaimed Brahman to Satyavrata and the others.
8.24.61.p1
[End of chapter 24]
Translations (1)
- The Srimad Bhagavatam — S. Subba Rau 1928, English
Linked texts (1)
- Bhāgavatapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit