Markandeyapurana 13
English (machine translation) 13
- Language
- English
Contents
- 13.17 — 2 parts
13.1
The son said:
'I was born in a family of vaiśyas in my seventh previous birth;
long ago, I prevented cattle from reaching a watering place.
13.2
From the ripening of that deed, I reached an exceedingly dreadful hell,
terrible with tongues of fire and teeming with iron-beaked birds,
13.3
Muddied with streams of blood from limbs crushed by machines,
and agitated by the cries of evil-doers falling as they were being slaughtered.
13.4
Cast down there, more than a hundred years passed for me,
as I was tormented by intense agony, afflicted by burning thirst.
13.5
Then, suddenly, an invigorating wind, delightfully cool,
reached me as I stood in the midst of the cauldron of heated sand and groats.
13.6
From contact with it, the torment of all men ceased,
and for me too there arose supreme bliss, just like that of the denizens of heaven in heaven.
13.7
Saying, "What is this?", with eyes widened and unblinking in joy,
we beheld approaching an unsurpassed jewel among men,
13.8
And an attendant of Yama, fierce, rod in hand, flashing like lightning,
showing the way ahead, saying: "Come! Come!"
13.9
That man, then seeing the hell crowded with hundreds of torments,
filled with compassion, said to that servant of Yama:
13.10
The man said:
"O servant of Yama, tell me: what misdeed was committed by me,
by which I have arrived at this extreme hell, fearful with torments?
13.11
Renowned as Vipaścit, I was born in the lineage of the Janakas
in the land of Videha, a ruler who protected men properly.
13.12
I sacrificed with many sacrifices, the earth was ruled according to dharma,
battle was never abandoned, nor did a guest depart turned away.
13.13
The ancestors, gods, seers, and servants were not neglected by me,
nor was desire felt by me for other men's wives, wealth, and the like.
13.14
On festive days the ancestors, and on lunar days the deities,
come to a man of their own accord, like cows to a watering trough.
13.15
When they turn away sighing from a householder,
both the dharmas of sacrifice and public works perish for him.
13.16
A sigh of the ancestors destroys the merit accumulated in seven births;
the sigh of a deity undoubtedly destroys that arising from three births.
13.17
Therefore I was always diligent toward deities and ancestors.
How have I reached this exceedingly terrible hell?"
13.17.p1
Thus ends the thirteenth chapter, named 'The Dialogue between Father and Son', in the venerable Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.
13.17.p2
Fourteenth Chapter
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit