Markandeyapurana 46
English (machine translation) 46
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- English
Contents
46.1
Krauṣṭuki said: / "Revered sir, the origin of the Egg has been declared to me as it truly is, / and likewise the birth of the great-souled Brahmā in the cosmic egg has been told.
46.2
This I wish to hear from you, O descendant of the Bhrigu lineage: / when there is no creation of beings, does [anything] exist or does it not, / at the time, indeed, when everything is withdrawn at the end of the dissolution?"
46.3
Mārkaṇḍeya said: / "When this entire world goes to dissolution in Prakṛti, / then this is called by the wise the elemental reabsorption.
46.4
When the unmanifest abides in itself and all modification has been withdrawn, / Prakṛti and Puruṣa remain in an identical state.
46.5
Then darkness and purity abide in equality, / neither swollen nor diminished, interwoven with each other.
46.6
Or as oil is present in sesamum seeds, or clarified butter in milk, / so passion also abides pervading darkness and purity.
46.7
As long as the lifespan of Brahmā is from his origin, consisting of two parārdhas, / so long is a day of the Supreme Lord, and his night during dissolution is of equal length.
46.8
Awakening at the break of day, the beginning of the world, without beginning, / the cause of everything, whose nature is inconceivable, transcendent, beyond all actions,
46.9
having swiftly entered both Prakṛti and Puruṣa, the Lord of the world, / the Supreme Lord, agitated them through supreme yoga.
46.10
Just as passion entering young women, or as the spring wind, / [enters] to cause agitation, so did that embodiment of yoga.
46.11
When Pradhāna was being agitated, that god called Brahmā / was born within the shell of the Egg, as was related to you by me.
46.12
He alone is the agitator first; he is the agitated, the lord of Prakṛti; / through contraction and expansion, he abides even in the state of Pradhāna.
46.13
Born as the womb of the world, although devoid of qualities, / experiencing the quality of passion, he proceeds in creation, having assumed the state of Brahmā.
46.14
Having created creatures in the state of Brahmā, then, possessing an excess of purity, / having attained the state of Viṣṇu, he maintains them through dharma.
46.15
Then, with the quality of darkness swollen, in the state of Rudra, / having withdrawn the entire threefold world, he, devoid of qualities though possessing the three qualities, sleeps.
46.16
As previously the pervader is the cultivator of the field, the protector, and the reaper, / so he comes to assume the designation that effects Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva."
46.16.p1
In the state of Brahmā he creates the worlds; in the state of Rudra he destroys them;
46.17
and in the state of Viṣṇu he remains indifferent: these are the three states of the Self-born.
46.18
Brahmā is passion, Rudra is darkness, and Viṣṇu, lord of the world, is goodness; / these alone are the three deities, these alone are the three qualities.
46.19
For these form a mutual pair, and they support one another; / they are not separated even for a moment, nor do they abandon each other.
46.20
Thus Brahmā, the first of the world, god of gods, four-faced, / taking resort in the quality of passion, took his stand in the office of creator.
46.21
Hiraṇyagarbha, the beginning of the gods, yet figuratively beginningless, / seated on the pericarp of the lotus of the earth, Brahmā was born at the beginning.
46.22
A hundred years is the highest lifespan of that great-souled one; / hear from me its reckoning according to the measure of Brahmā.
46.23
Fifteen twinklings of the eye are called a kāṣṭhā; / thirty kāṣṭhās are a kalā, and thirty kalās are a muhūrta.
46.24
A day and night of men is traditionally remembered as thirty muhūrtas; / by thirty days and nights two fortnights are called a month.
46.25
By six of those is a course; a year consists of two courses, the southern and the northern; / that is a day and night of the gods, the northern course being the day.
46.26
A four-age cycle called Kṛta, Tretā, and the rest consists of twelve divine / thousand years; hear its division from me.
46.27
Four thousand divine years are said to be the Kṛta; / its dawn is four hundred, and its twilight is of the same measure.
46.28
The Tretā is three thousand divine years, and three hundred / is its dawn; its twilight is equal to that and of the same measure.
46.29
The Dvāpara is two thousand years, and two hundred / is declared to be its dawn; its twilight is two hundred years.
46.30
The Kali is one thousand divine years, O best of the twice-born; / its dawn and twilight are each declared to be a hundred.
46.31
This cycle of twelve thousand years has been calculated by the wise; / this multiplied by one thousand is said to be a day of Brahmā.
46.32
In a day of Brahmā, O brahmin, there are fourteen Manus; / they appear in parts, and that thousand is divided among them.
46.33
The gods, the seven seers, along with Indra, the Manu, and his sons, the kings, / are created together with the Manu and withdrawn as before.
46.34
A manvantara is reckoned to be seventy-one four-age cycles / with a remainder; hear its reckoning from me in human years.
46.35
Thirty full crores are counted by calculation, O twice-born, / and sixty-seven other millions by number,
46.36
and twenty thousand—this time without the remainder. / This is declared a manvantara; hear it from me in divine years.
46.37
Eight thousand years combined by divine reckoning, / and fifty-two other thousand years in addition.
46.38
Multiplied fourteenfold, this time is remembered as a day of Brahmā; / at its end the periodic dissolution is declared by the wise, O brahmin.
46.39
The earth world, the intermediate world, and the heaven world are subject to destruction; / they thus perish, but the Maharloka remains.
46.40
Its inhabitants also go to the Janaloka because of the heat; / and when the three worlds have become a single ocean, Brahmā sleeps at night.
46.41
That night is of the very same measure; at its end [the world] is created again. / Thus is one year of Brahmā, and his hundred years are such.
46.42
For a hundred of his years is called the supreme span; / and fifty years are celebrated as a parārdha.
46.43
Thus one parārdha of his has passed, O best of the twice-born, / at the end of which occurred the great kalpa renowned as the Pādma.
46.44
Of the second parārdha which is now running, O twice-born, / this kalpa conceived as the first is called the Vārāha.
46.44.p1
Thus ends the forty-sixth chapter, named “The Measure of Brahmā's Life,” in the glorious Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.
46.44.p2
Chapter forty-seven.
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit