Garudapurana 3.3
English (machine translation) 3.3
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Contents
- 3.3.58 — 1 part
3.3.1
The glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa—3.
The glorious Kṛṣṇa said: / A desire arose in me, the god Viṣṇu, to create those fit to be created, and to liberate those fit for liberation. / Viṣṇu's power of will exists eternally; nonetheless, its declaration is conventional.
3.3.2
Then Hari took up a worldly form, and in that form he drank the darkness. / The ignorant call that form material; indeed, they all enter into blinding darkness.
3.3.3
All incarnations of Mahāviṣṇu are declared to be complete; / and that supreme form is complete; from the complete, complete [forms] have emerged.
3.3.4
Their hierarchy of higher and lower exists solely by the distinction of manifestation; / there is in no way any superiority or inferiority due to space, time, or capacity.
3.3.5
The prior form is complete, and complete is [the form] that has gone into the state of […] ; / taking that form into himself, only the complete remains.
3.3.6
This worldly activity, such as destroying the burden of the earth, / without his gaze there is no other dissolution by Kṛṣṇa and the rest anywhere.
3.3.7
Torment should not be inflicted upon the truth; through that, one experiences sorrows; / from excessive harassment of it, disease comes to him—there is no doubt.
3.3.8
However, concerning what ought to be known, pressure should indeed be applied together with the guru; / they call him an indwelling pupil, and he alone is traditionally regarded as a guru.
3.3.9
Those two who together engage in inquiry into the reality of Hari, / they alone are teacher and pupil, O you who bring joy to Vinatā.
3.3.10
Joking may be done even with a guru, provided it is without malice. / A pupil filled with joy and impatience, [and] a guru possessed of deceit—
3.3.11
both of them go to hell for as long as the moon and stars endure. / The Supreme Person, Hari himself, tawny-eyed, the Great-Souled One, / by his own most auspicious virility, the Lord, full of vigor, deposited his seed into his own māyā composed of the guṇas.
3.3.12
Garuḍa said: / Tell me the nature of that seed, O Vāsudeva; doubt arises in me concerning your seed. / Is the seed identical with the Lord's own nature, or is it distinct? Tell me, for you know well.
3.3.13
The glorious Kṛṣṇa said: / The seed that the Lord Hari himself deposited into that called māyā, O son of Vinatā, / that seed the wise who see determined truth declare to be the very nature of Nṛhari.
3.3.14
They declare it to be distinct, and declare it to be merely material, to be understood like the lotus from his own navel. / Not on that account should it be thought that there is any loss of virility for Viṣṇu, whose form is knowledge.
3.3.15
The Blessed One, Vāsudeva, is the embodiment of seed in all places and at all times; / if he were not possessed of all objects, O King of Birds, then he would not be the Supreme Lord, the Person.
3.3.16
Possessed of inconceivable and conceivable energies, he has two forms: one female form, and the other male. / Both forms possess virile power, O King of Birds; their non-difference should indeed be properly contemplated.
3.3.17
If he did not possess a female form, O King of Birds, how could women be reflections?
3.3.18
Therefore, the female form born of Brahman is to be contemplated as real; this essential form should not be thought of otherwise. / It should not be contemplated like a female form; know that the neuter is indeed generated from it.
3.3.19
The neuter is never his essential nature; therefore it is not to be contemplated in Hari. / In the form of Hari that is the prototype of woman, O King of Birds, one should contemplate that the form of Śrī exists.
3.3.20
Garuḍa said: / The wise declare union of a woman with a woman to be futile; / yet in the prototype that has a female form, female forms exist always.
3.3.21
Tell me the reason for their presence there, O Kṛṣṇa, my Lord!
3.3.22
The glorious Kṛṣṇa said: / If Lakṣmī were not present in the female form that is the prototype of women, O King of Birds, / how could she be the goddess who is never separated from the Supreme Self?
3.3.23
Among the infinite forms of Hari that are female forms, O King of Birds, / she is constantly engaged in service through an infinity of infinite forms.
3.3.24
Therefore, any separation from Lakṣmī is not to be suspected in any way. / Hari named Nārāyaṇa is independent; he is never without Śrī, O Tārkṣya, / who serves the lotus feet of Hari Mukunda with supreme reverence.
3.3.25
Those desiring liberation must understand that even Śrī does not exist in space or time without Hari. / 'That [māyā] in which he continually deposited seed belongs to me and is of the nature of magic'—
3.3.26
so say the asuras, who are fools, and they all enter into blinding darkness. / But the noble declare that māyā is indeed prakṛti, very subtle in form, and not a magician's trick.
3.3.27
Her self-identification is to be known as Śrī; the depositing of seed is their union there. / The noble declare their union to be inclined toward effects; beyond this, the noble do not assert another form of Viṣṇu.
3.3.28
She is beginningless, eternal, and of the nature of truth belonging to Viṣṇu; how could she be of false nature, O King of Birds? / The body of prakṛti is real, deeply concealed; they speak of truth as being for the sake of practical experience.
3.3.29
If the reality of prakṛti were merely empirical, then how could it be beginningless? / If it were not beginningless and eternal, O King of Birds, it could not be the cause in a subtle form.
3.3.30
[Garuḍa said:] / If it is the cause in a subtle form, then tell [me] the cause of the manifold world. / Under the influence of ignorance (avidyā), it is only Viṣṇu that is seen in manifold forms, only Viṣṇu.
3.3.31
Through the knowledge of the scriptures, ignorance is indeed destroyed—there is no doubt—and one attains oneness with Hari. / If you speak thus by way of argument, O King of Birds, I shall tell you the reasoning regarding that; listen to it.
3.3.32
[The Blessed Lord said:] / For how could ignorance ever occur to me, Murāri, to Hari, whose nature is omniscient? / Just as there is no darkness in the sun, so in Nārāyaṇa, in Hari, / there is no ignorance, O King of Birds. Ah, how can you speak of such a principle?
3.3.33
Therefore, if [you argue that] ignorance arises because of connection with an adjunct (upādhi) from beginningless time, [such as:] 'I am not a brāhmaṇa'— / where is that omniscient Viṣṇu, O King of Birds, and where is the individual soul (jīva), of little knowledge and devoid of wisdom?
3.3.34
And how could the Vedas ever declare oneness of these two, which are mutually contradictory? / [He is] always free from suffering in every place and time, the creator of the universe, endowed with full power at all times;
3.3.35
the individual soul always has little agency, filled constantly with the nature of worldly existence (saṃsāra) and of suffering. / And they who hold the illusion doctrine (māyin) declare the oneness of these two contradictory ones through the power of God's illusion (māyā).
3.3.36
Whoever should constantly commit hostility against those Vaiṣṇavas who are devoted to the servants of Vaiṣṇavas, / by him the favor of Hari is never obtained, nor is there an increase of bliss in liberation.
3.3.37
The illusionist (māyin) is always a servant of the illusionist; nevertheless, through the knowledge of difference, [such a one] is blamed and made to suffer. / By that also their suffering shall increase, and [they go to] blinding darkness from which there is no return.
3.3.38
Therefore, O King of Birds, primordial matter (prakṛti) is subtle in form; it is eternal, and it is always real. / In the same way, the ultimate atoms (paramāṇu) of time, wind, and so forth are themselves of real nature.
3.3.39
The characteristic of ultimate atoms must be known by those who desire knowledge, and it must not be understood otherwise. / Of earthly substances, O King of Birds, of distinctions, it is the ultimate distinction;
3.3.40
that indeed is the ultimate atom, O best of the twice-born, which is the final distinction; and it is remembered as a partless part.
3.3.41
Garuḍa said: / O Kṛṣṇa, O Mādhava, O Lord of the Sāttvatas, it is said that the ultimate part of substances is the ultimate atom;
3.3.42
in that regard I have a doubt: that which is the ultimate distinction has no parts, / while that which has parts is not the ultimate distinction; thus this statement seems true to me.
3.3.43
Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: / Whatever humans abide in the world, though endowed with the power to perceive distinctions, / still they are entirely unable to see the distinction that constitutes its having parts.
3.3.44
That alone they call the ultimate part, the distinction; and sages who speak thus, and other thinkers, / those followers of Kaṇāda, Gautama, and others, O King of Birds, speak of the ultimate atom as partless.
3.3.45
Even though it is joined with endless parts, they speak of them through confused vision as devoid of parts. / Therefore the ultimate atom-ness belongs to the ultimate atom, and to its parts, O son born of Vinatā's womb.
3.3.46
In a single part of the ultimate atoms, O King of Birds, there are multitudes of living beings; / and individually there are forms of Hari, and therefore He is subtler than that ultimate atom.
3.3.47
And that form of the supreme Viṣṇu which is subtler than the subtlest, that very one is greater than the greatest. / Between them there is no difference whatsoever; He is to be contemplated in His inconceivable form.
3.3.48
The wise know the absence of temporal limits as temporal infinity; / the wise know the absence of spatial limits as spatial infinity;
3.3.49
the wise know the immeasurability of attributes as the infinity of attributes. / The threefold infinity belongs eternally to Hari, not to anyone else.
3.3.50
In all His forms, infinity has three characteristics; / nevertheless, a spatial limitation also is applicable to Him.
3.3.51
Likewise, limitation is applicable along with omnipresence, even in a single form. / His inconceivable, marvelous sovereignty exists solely for the sake of worldly activity.
3.3.52
There is no limitation whatsoever in terms of attributes or time; / although spatial omnipresence indeed exists in all beings,
3.3.53
and no difference is applicable to Him anywhere, even by an atom's measure, / nevertheless, atomic smallness exists in Him due to the application of His divine sovereignty.
3.3.54
Therefore, know that omnipresence is also spoken of for the purpose of incarnations; / that pervasive form of His, they know as the supreme Nārāyaṇa.
3.3.55
And therefore, between the ultimate atoms belonging to those who assert the infinity of earthly matter, / a mutual difference is to be known, and likewise [a difference] from the great Lord.
3.3.56
Between the insentient and the Lord, among insentient things, and among individual souls mutually, / and likewise between the insentient and the soul, and eternally between the insentient and the Lord—
3.3.57
these five differences are eternal in all states and in every respect. / Into such an illusion (māyā) the potent Lord placed His seed;
3.3.58
from that, the Lord, Hari called Puruṣa, created the three qualities (guṇas).
3.3.58.p1
Thus ends the third chapter in the Brahmakāṇḍa of the third section of the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa, entitled 'The Exposition of the Nature of the Lord's Seed, the Creation of the Three Qualities through Its Placement, the Distinction between Insentient and the Lord, and Other Matters.'
Linked texts (1)
- Garuḍapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit