Markandeyapurana 48
English (machine translation) 48
- Language
- English
Contents
- 48.45 — 2 parts
48.1
Krauṣṭuki said: / Creation has been related in brief correctly to me by your worship. / Tell me in detail, O holy one, the origin of the gods and the rest.
48.2
Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Conditioned, O brahmin, by former deeds, good and bad, / known thus and not liberated, they were withdrawn at the dissolution.
48.3
The four kinds of creatures, O brahmin, beginning with gods and ending with immovable things, / were then born of Brahmā's mind as he was performing creation.
48.4
Desiring to create these four waters—gods, asuras, ancestors, and men— / he then concentrated his mind.
48.5
As he disciplined his self, the measure of darkness became abundant in the Lord of Creatures; / then, from the groin of him wishing to create, asuras were born first.
48.6
He then cast off that body consisting of the measure of darkness. / That body, cast off by him, immediately became night.
48.7
Assuming another body, he, wishing to create, felt delight. / From the excess of sattva, the gods were then born from his mouth.
48.8
That all-pervading lord of creatures cast off that body too; / and cast off, it became day, consisting mostly of sattva.
48.9
Then he took another body consisting of the measure of sattva alone. / As he regarded himself as a father, the ancestors (pitṛs) were born from him.
48.10
Having created the ancestors, that lord cast off that body as well; / and cast off, it became twilight, situated between day and night.
48.11
Then that lord assumed another body consisting of the measure of rajas alone; / from that, humans were born, produced from the measure of rajas.
48.12
Having created humans, that all-pervading lord then cast off that body; / and it became the moonlight (jyotsnā) which appears at the end of the night and the break of day.
48.13
Thus these bodies of that wise god of gods / are known as night, day, twilight, and moonlight, O twice-born.
48.14
Moonlight, twilight, and day—this triad consists of the measure of sattva. / Night consists of the measure of darkness; therefore it has three watches.
48.15
Therefore the gods are endowed with strength by day, but the asuras by night; / humans at the arrival of moonlight, and the ancestors at twilight.
48.16
They become strong and unassailable to their rivals, no doubt; / falling into the opposite [conditions], they become powerless.
48.17
Moonlight, night, day, and twilight—these four are indeed the bodies / of the lord Brahmā, resting upon the three guṇas.
48.18
Having produced these four, the Lord of Creatures then / took another body composed of rajas and tamas at night, afflicted with hunger and thirst.
48.19
In that darkness the unborn lord created beings wasted with hunger, / deformed and bearded; and they began to eat that body.
48.20
Those among them who said, 'Let us protect (rakṣāmaḥ),' were rākṣasas; / and those who said, 'Let us devour (khādāmaḥ),' were yakṣas from devouring (yakṣaṇa), O twice-born.
48.21
Seeing them, through displeasure the hair of the Creator fell out; / and falling from the head of Brahmā, they were without climbing power.
48.22
From creeping (sarpaṇa) they became snakes (sarpa); from their deficiency (hīnatva) they are called ahis. / Seeing the snakes, he then, out of anger, created creatures of an angry nature:
48.23
they were tawny in colour, fierce bhūtas, feeders on raw flesh. / Then, as he meditated upon the earth (gā), the gandharvas were born as his sons.
48.24
They were born drinking in speech (vācaṃ pibantaḥ), therefore they are remembered as gandharvas. / When these eight classes of divine beings were created, that lord
48.25
then created other birds and beasts from his own body: / from his mouth he created goats, and from his chest he created sheep.
48.26
And Brahmā created cows from his belly and flanks, / and from his feet horses, elephants, donkeys, hares, deer,
48.27
camels, mules, and various kinds of species. / Plants bearing fruits and roots were born from his body-hair.
48.28
Having thus created domestic animals and plants, the Lord sacrificed at an offering / at that time in the beginning of the kalpa, at the dawn of the Tretāyuga.
48.29
The cow, goat, human, ram, horse, mule, and donkey— / these they call domestic animals; hear now from me the wild ones:
48.30
carnivores, cloven-hoofed beasts, the elephant, monkeys, birds as fifth, / aquatic creatures as sixth, and reptiles as the seventh.
48.31
The Gāyatrī, the ṛc, the Trivṛt [stoma], the Soma, the Rathantara [sāman], / and the Agniṣṭoma among sacrifices he fashioned from his first mouth.
48.32
The yajus verses, the Traiṣṭubha metre, the Pañcadaśa stoma, / the Bṛhat-sāman, and the Uktha he created from his southern mouth.
48.33
The sāmans, the Jagatī metre, the [Saptadaśa] stoma, / the Vairūpa [sāman], and the Atirātra he fashioned from his western mouth.
48.34
The Ekaviṃśa [stoma], the Atharvan, the Āptoryāma, / the Anuṣṭubh metre with the Vairāja [sāman] he created from his northern mouth.
48.35
Lightning, thunderbolts, and clouds, straight rainbows and curved rainbows, / and birds did the Lord, the Sovereign, create at the beginning of the kalpa.
48.36
High and low beings were born from his limbs / after he had first created the four groups: gods, asuras, pitṛs, and mortals.
48.37
Then he created beings motionless and moving: / yakṣas, piśācas, gandharvas, and crowds of apsarases,
48.38
men, kinnaras, rākṣasas, birds, cattle, wild beasts, and serpents, / both the imperishable and the perishable—all this that is static and locomotive.
48.39
Whatever actions those beings undertook prior to creation, / those very actions they assume as they are created again and again.
48.40
Harmful or harmless, gentle or cruel, dharma or adharma, truth or falsehood— / infused with that, they assume it; therefore that pleases each.
48.41
In sense-objects, in elements, and in bodies, that lord, / the Creator alone, personally established diversity and assignment.
48.42
The names and forms of beings and the unfolding of actions / he fashioned in the beginning from the words of the Veda for gods and the rest.
48.43
The names of the ṛṣis and whatever creations exist among the gods, / and for others born at the close of night, he gives [them all].
48.44
Just as the various signs of the seasons are seen returning / in their cycle, precisely so are conditions at the beginnings of the yugas.
48.45
Such creations of Brahman, who has unmanifest origin, / who is awakened at the end of night, occur in every kalpa.
48.45.p1
Thus ends the forty-eighth chapter, named 'The Topic of Creation', in the glorious Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa.
48.45.p2
Forty-ninth chapter - 49
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit