Markandeyapurana 70
English (machine translation) 70
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Contents
70.1
Mārkaṇḍeya said:
Then, having bowed to the great sage, he mounted his chariot / and went to that forest called Utpalāvata described by him.
70.2
And the lord of men saw the wife of the brahmin, of the form described by her husband, / eating bilva fruits.
70.3
And he asked: 'Fair lady, how have you come to this forest? / Tell clearly, are you the wife of Suśarman, son of Viśāla?'
70.4
The brahmin woman said:
I am the daughter of Atirātra, a forest-dwelling brahmin, / and the wife of the son of Viśāla whose name has been spoken by you.
70.5
I, fast asleep at the rear of the house, was carried off / by the evil-minded rākṣasa Balāka, separated from my brothers and mother.
70.6
May that rākṣasa be reduced to ashes, by whom I have thus been separated / from my mother, brothers, and others, and remain here in deep sorrow.
70.7
Brought to this dense forest, I was abandoned by him; / I do not know the reason why he neither enjoys nor devours me.
70.8
The king said:
Is it known where that rākṣasa has gone after abandoning you? / O daughter of a brahmin, I have been sent here by your very husband.
70.9
The brahmin woman said:
That night-wanderer stays at the edge of this very forest; / go in and see, if you are not afraid of him.
70.10
Mārkaṇḍeya said:
Then he entered, the path having been shown by her, / and saw the rākṣasa surrounded by his retinue.
70.11
As soon as he was seen, that rākṣasa, hastening, / went from afar to the proximity of his feet, touching the ground with his head.
70.12
The rākṣasa said:
By your coming here to my house, a great favor has been done. / Command what I shall do; I reside in your domain.
70.13
Receive this water of hospitality, and let this seat be occupied; / we are your servants, you are our master; command me firmly.
70.13.p1
The king said:
70.14
You have indeed performed all the duties of hospitality. / For what purpose, O night-wanderer, was the brahmin's wife brought by you?
70.15
She is not beautiful, and there are others, if she was carried off by you for a wife; / if for the sake of food, why was she not eaten by you? Tell me this.
70.16
The rākṣasa said:
We do not feed on human beings, O king; those are other rākṣasas. / But we consume the fruit of good deeds, O king.
70.17
Disrespected or respected, we consume the disposition of men and women; / we are not eaters of living beings.
70.18
When the patience of men is eaten by us, then they become angry; / and when an evil disposition is eaten, they become virtuous.
70.19
We have rākṣasa women, O king, equal to apsarases in beauty; / while they exist, how could there be delight in human women?
70.19.p1
The king said:
70.20
If she is neither for enjoyment nor for food, O night-wanderer, / then why, having entered the brahmin's house, was she carried off by you?
70.21
The rākṣasa said:
That best of brahmins knows the mantras; whenever I go to a sacrifice, / he causes my expulsion, O king, by reciting rakṣas-destroying mantras.
70.22
We are starved by his act of mantra-expulsion. / Where can we go? In all sacrifices that brahmin serves as officiating priest.
70.23
Therefore, this disability was brought about by us for him: / without a wife, a man is not qualified for sacrificial rites.
70.24
Mārkaṇḍeya said:
From that mention of the disability of the high-minded brahmin, / the king then became exceedingly dejected.
70.25
[Thinking:] 'Speaking thus of the brahmin's deficiency, he rebukes me alone; / and that best of sages also told me that I was unworthy of the water of hospitality.
70.26
Just as the rākṣasa spoke to me of that brahmin's deficiency, / so I, through wifelessness, have fallen into a great calamity.'
70.27
Mārkaṇḍeya said:
As he was contemplating thus, O sage, the rākṣasa spoke once more, / bowing down in reverence to the king with folded hands:
70.28
O lord of men, bestow your grace upon me by issuing an order / to your servant who bows before you and dwells in your domain.
70.28.p1
The king said:
70.29
As for what was said by you, O night-wanderer, that 'We eat disposition,' / we seek that; hear from me the purpose on account of which [we do].
70.30
"Let the bad character of this brahmin woman be consumed by you today, / so that, with her bad character consumed by you, she may become disciplined."
70.31
"Let her be taken, night-wanderer, to the house of him whose wife she is. / When this is done, everything will have been done for me, who have approached your abode."
70.32
Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then that rākṣasa, entering inside her by his illusory power, / devoured her bad character with his own potency at the king's command.
70.33
The wife of that twice-born had been abandoned by him / on account of her extremely fierce bad character; she spoke to that lord of the earth:
70.34
"By the ripening of the fruit of my own deeds, / I was separated from that noble husband; this night-wanderer was merely the instrument.
70.35
There is no fault in him, nor in my noble husband; / the fault is mine alone, not another's, for one's own deed is indeed experienced.
70.36
In another birth separation was caused by me to someone; / that very same has now come upon me; what fault is there in this noble person?"
70.37
The rākṣasa said: / "By your command, O lord, I shall take her to her husband's home; / whatever else is to be done by you, order that, O king!"
70.37.p1
The king said:
70.38
"When this is done, everything has been done by you for me, O night-wanderer; / and you must come, O hero, when remembered by me at a time of need."
70.39
Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Having said, "So be it," that rakṣas, taking that brahmin woman / who had then become pure through the departure of her bad character, led her to her husband's house.
70.39.p1
Thus ends the seventieth chapter in the holy Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, in the Auttama manvantara.
70.39.p2
Chapter seventy-one.
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit