Markandeyapurana 82
English (machine translation) 82
- Language
- English
Contents
- 82.70 — 2 parts
82.1
The sage said: / Long ago there was a war between the devas and the asuras for a full hundred years, / when Mahiṣa was the sovereign of the asuras and Purandara of the devas.
82.2
There the army of the gods was defeated by the asuras of great valor, / and having conquered all the gods, the asura Mahiṣa became Indra.
82.3
Then the defeated gods, placing Prajāpati, the lotus-born, at their head, / went to where the Lord and he who has Garuḍa on his banner were.
82.4
The thirty [gods] related to the two what had occurred, the actions of the asura Mahiṣa, / and the detailed story of the subjugation of the gods:
82.5
"He himself has taken over the offices / of Sūrya, Indra, Agni, Anila, Indu, Yama, Varuṇa, and the others.
82.6
Driven out of heaven by him, all the hosts of gods wander / upon the earth like mortals, because of the evil-minded Mahiṣa.
82.7
All these actions of the enemy of the immortals have been told to you. / We have sought your protection; let his death be devised!"
82.8
The sage said: / Hearing these words of the gods, Madhusūdana / and Śambhu became angry, their faces contorted with knitting brows.
82.9
Then from the mouth of the discus-bearer, filled with immense wrath, / there issued forth a great splendor, as also from that of Brahmā and Śaṅkara.
82.10
And from the bodies of the other gods as well, beginning with Śakra, / went forth an exceedingly great splendor, and it all merged into a single unity.
82.11
The gods saw there an immense mass of splendor, like a blazing mountain, / pervading the quarters with flames.
82.12
That peerless splendor, born from the bodies of all the gods, / gathered in one place and became a woman, pervading the three worlds with her brilliance.
82.13
The splendor that belonged to Śambhu—by that her face was produced; / her hair came from the splendor of Yama, and her arms from the splendor of Viṣṇu.
82.14
Her two breasts were formed from Soma's, her waist from Indra's, / her thighs and shanks from Varuṇa's, and her buttocks from the splendor of Earth.
82.15
Her two feet came from the splendor of Brahmā, her toes from the Sun's splendor, / the fingers of her hands from the Vasus, and her nose from Kubera's.
82.16
Her teeth arose from the splendor of Prajāpati; / likewise, the triad of her eyes was born from the splendor of Fire.
82.17
Her two eyebrows came from the splendor of the two twilights, her ears from the Wind's; / the auspicious goddess was the manifestation of the splendors of the other gods as well.
82.18
Then, beholding her who was born from the mass of splendors of all the gods, / the immortals, afflicted by Mahiṣa, rejoiced.
82.19
Then the gods gave her their own weapons; / desiring victory, they cried aloud, "Victory! Victory!" to the victorious goddess.
82.20
Drawing a trident out of his trident, the bearer of Pināka gave it to her, / and Kṛṣṇa gave a discus, producing it from his own discus.
82.21
Varuṇa gave her a conch, and Fire gave a spear; / the Wind gave a bow and two quivers filled with arrows.
82.22
Producing a thunderbolt from his thunderbolt, Indra, the thousand-eyed lord of the immortals, / gave it to her, and a bell from the elephant Airāvata.
82.23
From the staff of time Yama gave a staff, and the lord of the waters gave a noose; / Prajāpati Brahmā gave a rosary and a water-pot.
82.24
The sun [placed] his own rays in all her pores of hair, / and Time gave her a sword and a spotless shield.
82.25
The ocean of milk gave a pure necklace and an unfading pair of garments, / as well as a divine crest-jewel, two earrings, and bracelets,
82.26
likewise a shining crescent ornament, armlets on all her arms, / similarly two pure anklets, an unsurpassed neck-ornament, / and jewel-rings on all her fingers.
82.27
Viśvakarman gave her an exceedingly gleaming axe, / weapons of various forms, and impenetrable armor.
82.28
The ocean gave her a garland of unfading lotuses for her head and another for her breast, / and an exceedingly beautiful lotus.
82.29
Himavat gave a lion for her mount and various jewels, / and the lord of wealth gave a drinking cup never empty of liquor.
82.30
Śeṣa, the lord of all serpents, who upholds this earth, / gave her a serpent-necklace adorned with great gems.
82.31
Honored thus by the other gods with ornaments and weapons, / the goddess roared loudly with mocking laughter again and again.
82.32
By her terrifying roar the entire sky was filled; / by that immensely vast [roar] a great echo arose.
82.33
All the worlds were agitated, and the oceans trembled; / the earth shook, and all the mountains quaked.
82.34
“Be victorious!” said the gods with joy to her who rides the lion, / and sages praised her, their bodies bowed down in devotion.
82.35
Seeing the entire three worlds agitated, those enemies of the gods, / having mobilized all their armies, rose up with raised weapons.
82.36
Exclaiming in fury, “Ah! What is this?”, Mahiṣāsura / rushed toward that sound, surrounded by all the asuras.
82.37
Then he saw the goddess pervading the three worlds with her radiance, / bending the earth with the tread of her foot, scraping the sky with her diadem,
82.38
agitating the entirety of Pātāla with the twang of her bowstring, / standing and completely pervading the quarters of the sky with her thousand arms.
82.39
Then battle commenced between that goddess and the enemies of the gods, / illuminating the spaces of the quarters with weapons and missiles unleashed in many forms.
82.40
The general of Mahiṣāsura, the great asura named Cikṣura, / fought, and Cāmara [fought], accompanied by a fourfold army.
82.41
With sixty thousand chariots the great asura named Udagra / fought, and Mahāhanu fought with ten million [chariots].
82.42
With fifty million [chariots] the great asura Asiloman [fought], / and Bāṣkala fought in the battle with six million.
82.43
Ugradarśana, surrounded by many thousands of elephants and horses / and ten million chariots, fought in that battle.
82.44
Biḍālākṣa fought there in the encounter, / surrounded by fifty million chariots.
82.45
Kāla, surrounded in battle by fifty thousand chariots, / fought there in the encounter, encircled by that many.
82.46
And other great asuras there by the tens of thousands, surrounded by chariots, elephants, and horses, / fought together with the goddess in the battle.
82.47
Surrounded by thousands of millions of chariots, elephants, / and horses, Mahiṣāsura was there in the battle.
82.48
With javelins, sling-stones, spears, and clubs, / with swords, axes, and halberds, they fought the goddess in the battle.
82.49
Some hurled spears, others lassos, / and they set out to strike down that goddess with sword-blows.
82.50
Then that goddess Caṇḍikā, raining down her own weapons and missiles, / casually cut down those weapons and missiles.
82.51
With untroubled countenance, being praised by the divine sages, / the sovereign goddess discharged weapons and missiles into the bodies of the asuras.
82.52
The goddess’s mount, the lion, enraged, his mane shaking, / stalked among the asura armies like fire in the forests.
82.53
The breaths that Ambikā released as she fought in battle, / these immediately became host-troops by the hundreds and thousands.
82.54
They fought with axes, sling-stones, swords, and halberds, / destroying the asura hosts, empowered by the goddess’s power.
82.55
Some hosts beat drums, others blew conches, / and still others sounded tabors in that great festival of battle.
82.56
Then the goddess struck down great asuras by the hundreds / with trident, mace, showers of spears, swords, and the like.
82.57
She felled others bewitched by the sound of her bell, / and dragged along other asuras having bound them on the ground with her lasso.
82.58
Some were sliced in two by sharp strokes of her sword, and others, / crushed by the blow of her mace, lay on the ground.
82.59
Some vomited blood, severely battered by a club; / some were brought down to the earth, pierced in the chest by a spear.
82.60
Others on the battlefield, riddled through by a flood of arrows, / tormentors of the gods resembling mountains, gave up their vital breaths.
82.61
The arms of some were severed, others had their necks severed, / the heads of others fell, and others were torn apart at the waist.
82.62
Still other great asuras fell to the earth with legs shorn away; / some, with one arm, one eye, and one leg, were cut in two by the goddess.
82.63
Even with head severed, others fell and rose up again; / headless trunks holding excellent weapons fought with the goddess.
82.64
Others, headless trunks with severed heads holding swords, spears, and darts in hand, / danced there in the battle in time with the rhythms of the war trumpets.
82.65
Other great asuras, their bodies smeared with streams of blood / in that hair-raising combat, shouted to the goddess, “Halt! Halt!”
82.66
By the felled chariots, elephants, horses, and asuras, / the earth became impassable there where that great battle took place.
82.67
Great rivers consisting of floods of blood flowed forth immediately there, / in the midst of the asura army, from the elephants, asuras, and horses.
82.68
In an instant Ambikā brought that great army of the asuras / to destruction, just as fire consumes a vast heap of grass and wood.
82.69
And that lion, shaking his mane and uttering a great roar, / seemed to pluck the vital breaths from the bodies of the gods' enemies.
82.70
Such a battle was fought there by the goddess's host-troops with the asuras / that the gods in heaven were gladdened, showering down rain of flowers.
82.70.p1
Thus ends the eighty-second chapter, titled “The Slaying of the Army of Mahiṣāsura,” in the Devīmāhātmya within the Sāvarṇi manvantara of the glorious Mārkaṇḍeya Mahāpurāṇa.
82.70.p2
Eighty-third Chapter — 83
Translations (1)
- The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — Frederick Eden Pargiter 1888, English
Commentaries (1)
- Guptavatī — Bhāskararāya Makhin 1741, Sanskrit
Linked texts (1)
- Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit