Markandeyapurana 11
English (machine translation) 11
- Language
- English
Contents
- 11.32 — 2 parts
11.1
Chapter Eleven.
The son said:
When the human semen is discharged, the seed meets with the women's menses; / just released from hell or heaven, [the soul] enters it.
11.2
Overcome by that [soul], O father, that pair of seeds achieves stability, / the state of an embryo, a bubble, and then a lump of flesh.
11.3
Just as there is a sprout in a tiny seed, so it is said of the embryo; / and so is the emergence of the five limbs in their parts.
11.4
Secondary limbs—fingers, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears— / sprout from the limbs, and similarly nails and the rest from them.
11.5
Body hairs grow on the skin, and after that head hair; / together with that, the membrane enclosing the embryo grows.
11.6
Just as a coconut fruit grows with its husk, / so this [fetus], enclosed in its membrane, head downwards, grows.
11.7
Placing his hands on his palms against his knees and sides, he grows, / with thumbs placed above on the knees and fingers in front,
11.8
the eyes behind the knees, the nose between the knees, / the buttocks resting on the two heels, and the arms and calves on the outside.
11.9
In this way the creature situated in the woman's womb grows by degrees; / in the belly of any other being, its posture matches its form.
11.10
It attains firmness through digestive fire, lives on what is eaten and drunk; / such is the creature's dwelling in the womb, based on merit and demerit.
11.11
And a conduit named Āpyāyanī is attached to its navel; / likewise, it is attached to the intestinal aperture of women.
11.12
As what is eaten and drunk enters the woman's womb, / that creature, its body nourished by those, indeed attains growth.
11.13
Many memories of its transmigratory states arise; / then, tormented on all sides, it experiences despondency:
11.14
'Once released from this belly, I will never do such again; / I will strive in such a way that I shall not obtain another womb,'—
11.15
so he reflects, remembering hundreds of sorrows of births / that were experienced previously, both caused by fate and caused by elements.
11.16
Then, in the course of time, the creature turns head downwards, / for in the ninth or tenth month it becomes ready.
11.17
Being expelled, it is afflicted by the wind of Prajāpati; / and it is cast out weeping, afflicted with pain in its heart.
11.18
Emerging from the belly, it falls into unbearable swoon; / and touched by the air, it regains consciousness.
11.19
Then the deluding Vaiṣṇavī Māyā overcomes it; / bewitched by her, it suffers the loss of its knowledge.
11.20
Bereft of knowledge, the creature then enters infancy, / then childhood, youth, and old age.
11.21
And once again man meets death and birth likewise; / then he is turned about in this wheel of saṃsāra like a waterwheel.
11.22
At times a man attains heaven, at times hell; / and having died, at times he experiences hell, at times heaven.
11.23
At times, born again right here, he experiences his own karma; / and at times, having exhausted his karma, having died, he passes on with little [remaining].
11.24
And sometimes [a person] is born here with small remnants of auspicious and inauspicious deeds, / having mostly exhausted [the fruits] in heaven or in hell, O best of the twice-born.
11.25
In the hells there is this great suffering: that the inhabitants of heaven / are seen rejoicing, father, while the denizens of hell are being thrown down.
11.26
Even in heaven there is unequalled suffering, because from the very moment of ascent / onward, this thought dwells in the mind: 'I will fall!'
11.27
And beholding the denizens of hell, great sorrow is experienced, / [fearing:] 'I shall go to this state!'—day and night without peace.
11.28
There is great pain in dwelling in the womb, and for one being born from the womb, / and in lack of strength after birth, and in old age there is only suffering.
11.29
And in youth, connected with desire, envy, and anger, it is extremely unbearable; / old age consists mostly of suffering, and in death there is supreme suffering.
11.30
Then, being dragged by the attendants of Yama and cast down into the hells, / again [there is] the womb, birth, then death, and likewise hell.
11.31
Thus, in this wheel of saṃsāra, living beings, like [buckets on] a water-wheel, / are spun around, bound by the bonds of nature, and repeatedly afflicted.
11.32
There is no happiness whatsoever here, father, in this world agitated by hundreds of miseries; / therefore, striving for liberation, how could the triad [of the Vedas] be followed by me?
11.32.p1
Thus ends the eleventh chapter, named 'The Dialogue between Father and Son', in the venerable Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.
11.32.p2
Chapter Twelve
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit