Markandeyapurana 17
English (machine translation) 17
- Language
- English
Contents
- 17.25 — 2 parts
17.1
The son said:
Then, after a long time had passed, the blessed Atri, second son of Brahmā, / beheld his wife Anasūyā.
17.2
She had bathed after her menstrual course, with most charming limbs and an alluring, excellent form; / filled with desire, that sage in his mind united with that blameless woman.
17.3
As he concentrated his mind upon her, the agitation that arose / was carried horizontally and upwards by the swift wind.
17.4
Possessing the form of Brahmā, shining white, falling all around, / possessing the form of Soma and endowed with rajas, the ten directions received it.
17.5
From her, that Soma was born as the mind-born son of the lord of creatures, Atri, / and he is the very foundation of the lifespan of all living beings.
17.6
From the pleased, high-souled Viṣṇu, produced from his own body, / was born Dattātreya, best of the twice-born, filled with sattva.
17.7
Celebrated as Dattātreya, he drank the breast of Anasūyā; / he was Viṣṇu himself descended, and became the second son of Atri.
17.8
Cast forth from the mother’s womb after seven days, he was angered because, / having seen the king of the Haihayas returning, arrogant and offending
17.9
against Atri, he grew angry instantly and wished to burn the Haihaya, / filled with indignation at the distress and great weariness of dwelling in the womb.
17.10
Filled with tamas, Durvāsas was born as a portion of Rudra. / Thus three sons were born to her, belonging to Brahmā, Īśa, and Viṣṇu.
17.11
Soma became Brahmā, Viṣṇu was born as Dattātreya, / and Durvāsas was born as Śaṅkara, through the granting of the boon by the gods.
17.12
Soma, constantly invigorating creepers, medicinal herbs, and humans / with his cold, radiant rays, dwells as that lord of creatures in heaven.
17.13
Dattātreya protects the subjects by slaying wicked daityas / and bestowing grace on the virtuous; he is to be recognized as that portion of Viṣṇu.
17.14
The unborn, blessed Durvāsas utterly burns up anyone who slights him; / having assumed a fierce form, he is vehement in sight, mind, and speech.
17.15
The blessed lord of creatures once more assumed the nature of Soma from Atri; / Hari as Dattātreya, established in yoga, enjoyed sensory objects.
17.16
Durvāsas, leaving his father and mother, undertook the supreme vow / called ‘the frenzied’ and wandered over the earth.
17.17
Surrounded by sons of sages, the yogin Dattātreya, the lord, / desiring solitude, submerged himself in a lake for a long time.
17.18
Even so, those youths, resorting to the shore of the lake, / did not abandon that high-souled one of exceedingly pleasing appearance.
17.19
When a divine hundred years were completed and they still did not abandon him / out of love for him, all those young sons of sages remaining on the shore of the lake,
17.20
then the sage emerged from the water taking an auspicious woman / dressed in divine garments and possessing beautiful, plump hips.
17.21
Thinking, “If these sons of sages abandon me because of contact with a woman, / then I will remain free from attachment”;
17.22
even then, when the sons of the sages still did not abandon the sage, / he thereupon drank intoxicating liquor together with that woman.
17.23
Even when he was devoted to drinking liquor with his wife, they did not abandon him, / tainted though he was by association with women, singing, instrumental music, and pleasures.
17.24
Though they saw the high-souled one agitated from drinking wine, / the lord of yogins incurred no fault even while drinking the liquor of Varuṇa.
17.25
Like the wind dwelling inside the house of an outcaste, / he, knowing yoga, drank liquor together with his wife and practiced tapas; / the lord of yogins was meditated upon by yogins desiring liberation.
17.25.p1
Thus ends the seventeenth chapter, entitled ‘The Origin of Dattātreya,’ in the dialogue between father and son in the glorious Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.
17.25.p2
Eighteenth chapter.
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit