Markandeyapurana 38
English (machine translation) 38
- Language
- English
Contents
- 38.20 — 1 part
38.1
Jaḍa said:
Then, having bowed to the brahmin Dattātreya, that ruler of the earth,
bowed with modesty, spoke [these] words to the great-souled one:
38.2
"O brahmin, for me who sees correctly, there is no suffering whatsoever;
those who do not see correctly are always drowned in an ocean of misery.
38.3
To whatever an attached intellect of a person arises,
from each and every such thing it gathers and delivers only sorrows.
38.4
Such grief as occurs when a house-cock is eaten by a cat
does not occur over a sparrow or a mouse devoid of possessiveness.
38.5
That very I am neither sorrowful nor happy, because I am beyond material nature;
whatever overwhelm of beings by elements occurs consists indeed of pleasure and pain."
38.6
Dattātreya said:
"It is just so, O tiger among men, as has been spoken by you:
'mine' is the root of sorrow, and 'not mine' [is the root] of serenity.
38.7
From my question alone has this highest knowledge arisen in you,
by which the notion of 'mine' has been cast away like the fluff of the silk-cotton tree.
38.8
Arisen with the sprout of 'I', possessed of the great trunk of 'mine',
having houses and fields as its high branches, and sons, wives, and the like as its foliage,
38.9
with wealth and grain as its great leaves, grown over many occasions,
with merit and demerit as its foremost blossoms, and pleasure and pain as its great fruits,
38.10
obstructing the path of liberation, watered by association with fools,
filled with swarms of bees of worldly longings—this great tree of ritual action.
38.11
Those who, exhausted on the road of worldly existence, take refuge in its shade,
dependent on the pleasure born of erroneous knowledge—whence can there be ultimate [bliss] for them?
38.12
Those, however, by whom the tree of possessiveness has been cut down
with the axe of knowledge sharpened on the whetstone of good company, have traversed that path.
38.13
Having reached the cool forest of brahman, free of dust and devoid of thorns,
the wise, free from mental modifications, attain the highest serenity.
38.14
You are not this gross [body] consisting of elements and senses, O king, nor am I;
neither of us consists of subtle elements, nor are we of the nature of the inner sense.
38.15
Or which primordial nature of us two do I see, O lord of kings,
since the knower of the field is beyond, whereas the aggregate consists of the qualities?
38.16
Just as with a gnat and a fig, a reed and muñja grass, or a fish and water,
there is distinctness despite oneness, even so it is, O king, with the field and the self."
38.17
Alarka said:
"O venerable one, by your grace, this highest knowledge has appeared in me,
which effects discrimination between primordial nature and the power of consciousness.
38.18
However, stability does not exist here in my mind overcome by sense objects,
nor do I know how I may be freed from the bondage of material nature.
38.19
How may I not exist again, and how may I attain freedom from the qualities?
And how indeed may I attain oneness with eternal brahman?
38.20
Therefore, O brahmin, tell that yoga properly to me who am bowed and begging,
O greatly wise one! For association with the good benefits men."
38.20.p1
Thus ends the thirty-eighth chapter, named 'The Chapter of Questions', in the dialogue between father and son in the glorious Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit