Matsyapurana 142

English (machine translation) 142

Language: English

142.1

The sages said: / 'The four ages that existed in the previous epoch of Svāyambhuva, / we wish to hear in detail the count of their natures.'

142.2

Sūta said: / 'In connection with earth and heaven, it was spoken of by me previously; / this is the fourfold age, and I shall tell it, listen, / having calculated its measure fully and in detail.

Determining the human year by standard worldly measure, / calculating by that here, I shall speak of the four ages; / whose duration is equal to twinkling of the eye and the syllables of short measure.

142.4

Fifteen winkings make a kāṣṭhā, and thirty kāṣṭhās one should count as a kalā; / thirty kalās make a muhūrta, and thirty of those together make a day and night.

142.5

The sun divides the day and night of worldly humans: / the night is for the sleep of creatures, and the day is for activity in deeds.

142.6

A day and night of the ancestors is a month, and the division between the two again is this: / the dark fortnight is their day, and the bright [fortnight] is their night for sleep.

142.7

What is thirty human months is called a month of the ancestors; / three hundred months with sixty more, / this is considered an ancestral year by human reckoning.

142.8

What is a hundred years by human measure, / those are counted as three years for the ancestors, / and twelve months are proclaimed here in ancestral reckoning.

142.9

The year that is considered human by the worldly measure, / that is a divine day and night; such is the Vedic scriptural tradition.

142.10

A year is a divine day and night, and their division again is this: / the northern course [of the sun] is the day, and the southern course is the night; / these two are reckoned as the divine day and night.

142.11

What is thirty [human] years is considered a divine month; / what is a hundred human [years] is three divine months; / likewise this divine rule is traditionally handed down with its reckoning.

142.12

Thus three hundred years and sixty years as well— / this is proclaimed as a divine year by human reckoning.

142.13

Three thousand years by human measure, / and thirty other years, are remembered as a year of the Seven Sages.

142.14

Nine thousand human years / and ninety years are remembered as a year of Dhruva.

142.15

Thirty-six thousand human years, / and sixty thousand [years] counted by calculation, / knowers of reckoning call a divine millennium.

142.16

Thus has it been sung by the sages in divine computation, O twice-born ones; / by divine measure alone has the number of the cosmic ages been calculated.

142.17

The sages spoke of four cosmic ages in Bhārata Varṣa: / Kṛta, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali—thus the four cosmic ages.

142.18

First is the age named Kṛta, then Tretā is mentioned; / one should arrange the cosmic ages as Dvāpara and Kali.

142.19

They say that Kṛta Yuga consists of four thousand years; / its dawn is as many hundreds, and the twilight of the dawn is of the same kind.

142.20

In the other three, along with their dawns and twilights, / the thousands and the hundreds decrease by a single quarter.

142.21

Knowers of cosmic age calculation know Tretā to be three thousand [years]; / its dawn too is three hundred, and the twilight is equal to the dawn.

142.22

Dvāpara is two thousand, and the dawn and twilight are four hundred; / Kali is proclaimed as just one thousand years, / and two hundred others are remembered for its dawn and twilight.

142.23

This is known as the count of cosmic ages consisting of twelve thousand [divine years]: / the tetrad called Kṛta, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali.

142.24

There the human years were created; understand them: / twelve hundred thousand and five hundred thousand by count here, / and twenty-eight thousand—the Kṛta Yuga is then said [to be].

142.25

One full million and two other hundred thousands again, / and ninety-six thousand counted in calculation: / this is known as the count of Tretā Yuga in human [years].

142.26

Eight hundred thousand human years / and sixty-four thousand years make the Dvāpara Yuga.

142.27

The Kali Yuga consists of four hundred thousand years, / and thirty-two thousand other years besides by count. / This is declared to be the Kali Yuga according to human measurement.

142.28

This duration of the four cosmic ages has been proclaimed according to human measurement; / it has been reckoned together with the twilights and the twilight portions of the four cosmic ages.

142.29

This cycle of seventy-one fourfold cosmic ages, with an excess, / comprising the Kṛta, Tretā, and other [ages], is called a cosmic epoch of Manu.

142.30

Understand the reckoning of a cosmic epoch of Manu according to human measurement: / thirty-one crores have been counted by the twice-born in number,

142.31

and ten hundred-thousands besides in parts, / thirty-two thousand, and eight hundred more,

142.32

and eighty years, and six additional months; / this is proclaimed as the reckoning of a cosmic epoch of Manu by human measurement.

142.33

And I will declare the cosmic epoch of Manu by divine measurement: / by enumeration they say it is three hundred thousand

142.34

and forty thousand [divine years]; this is called the cosmic epoch of Manu. / The duration of the cosmic epoch of Manu is proclaimed together with its cosmic ages.

142.35

This cycle of seventy-one fourfold cosmic ages, with an excess, / having rotated in succession, is called a cosmic epoch of Manu.

142.36

Those who know it say that fourteen times this [period] is an eon. / Then follows the complete cosmic dissolution; it is the great cosmic dissolution,

142.37

which in reckoning becomes equal to the measure of an eon multiplied by two. / Thus the fourfold cosmic ages have been explained, and the Kṛta and Tretā Yugas.

142.38

I shall relate the creation of the Tretā, and also the Dvāpara and the Kali. / What occurred simultaneously cannot be told in two separate ways.

142.39

These two cosmic ages, arriving in due order, were not related to you by me / because of distraction due to the topic of the lineages of the ṛṣis, and thus following the sequence.

142.40

The remainder concerning the Tretā Yuga was not told; understand that, which I shall now declare: / Then, at the beginning of the Tretā Yuga, Manu and the seven sages, / urged by Brahmā, expounded the Vedic and traditional dharma.

142.41

The relationship of marriage and the agnihotra, the collections of the Ṛg, Yajur, and Sāma, / and many such matters of Vedic dharma were spoken by the seven sages.

142.42

Svāyambhuva Manu proclaimed the traditional dharma handed down through lineage, characterised by proper conduct, / joined with the duties of the social classes and stages of life.

142.43

By truth, celibate studenthood, sacred study, and ascetic heat, / for those who had well performed ascetic heat, according to the succession of the ṛṣis,

142.44

for the seven sages and for Manu, at the beginning of the Tretā Yuga, / spontaneously and indeed just as before,

142.45

those mantras became manifest through visions of the stars and the like; / in the initial eon they had manifested spontaneously for the gods.

142.46

Then, among the standard measures of the perfected ones and of others, / the application of mantras proceeds after thousands of eons have elapsed; / those mantras indeed appeared before them once again in counterpart.

142.47

The Ṛc, Yajus, and Sāman verses, and the mantras of the Atharvan, / were declared by the seven sages, while Manu spoke the traditional law.

142.48

At the start of the Tretā, the Vedas were united, solely serving as dams of righteousness; / on account of the curtailment of lifespan, they are divided in the Dvāpara. / The ṛṣis study the Vedas through ascetic heat day and night.

142.49

Beginningless and endless, divine, spoken formerly by Svayambhū, / endowed with their own duties and with their auxiliary sciences, according to dharma in each cosmic age, / their own duties are modified age by age in accordance with the Vedic teachings.

142.50

Sacrifice by physical endeavor is prescribed for the Kṣatriya, sacrifices of clarified butter for the Vaiśyas, / sacrifices of service for the Śūdras, and sacrifices of mantra recitation for the Brāhmaṇas.

142.51

Then in the Tretā the social classes arose, possessed of righteousness, / performing rites, blessed with offspring, prosperous, and happy.

142.52

The Kṣatriyas are guided by the Brāhmaṇas, the Vaiśyas by the Kṣatriyas, / and the Śūdras attend upon the Vaiśyas, through mutual benevolence.

142.53

Auspicious are their natures and the duties resting on social class and stage of life; / whether conceived by mind, spoken by speech, or done by handiwork, / in the flawless Tretā Yuga the undertaking of actions reaches success.

142.54

Lifespan, physical form, strength, intellect, health, and devotion to righteousness— / all this was common to everyone in the Tretā Yuga.

142.55

Brahmā thus established the order of their social classes and stages of life, / and likewise the collections and the mantras, health, and devotion to righteousness.

142.56

And the collections and the mantras [were brought forth] by the ṛṣis, the sons of Brahmā, / and sacrifice was indeed set in motion at that time by the deities.

142.57

By the Yāmas, Śuklas, and Jayas, furnished with all provisions, / along with the creators of the universe and the mighty sovereign of the gods, / those sacrifices were first set in motion by the gods in the epoch of Svāyambhuva.

142.58

When truth, mantra recitation, ascetic heat, and generosity, which are called the original dharma, / diminish in dharma, the secondary branches of dharma increase.

142.59

And then are born heroes, long-lived, of great strength, / free from violence, of great yoga, performers of sacrifices, and expounders of the Veda,

142.60

with eyes wide as lotus petals, broad-faced, well-proportioned, / lion-chested, of great fortitude, striding like rutting elephants,

142.61

great archers, the universal emperors in the Tretā, / complete with all auspicious marks, of proportionate banyan symmetry.

142.62

The arms are traditionally called banyans, and a fathom is called a banyan; / one whose height is equal to his fathom, and above that for an embodied being, / whose height and circumference are equal, has banyan symmetry.

142.63

The wheel, the chariot, the jewel, the wife, the treasure, the horse, and the elephant— / these are declared to be the seven jewels formerly in the epoch of Svāyambhuva.

142.64

Universal emperors are born from a portion of Viṣṇu upon the earth / in all cosmic epochs of Manu, both past and future.

142.65

In whatever Tretā Yugas have been, will be, / or are present here, universal emperors are born in them.

142.66

Four exceedingly marvelous blessings are perceived in these rulers of the earth: / strength, righteousness, happiness, and wealth.

142.67

Without mutual conflict, these are attained simultaneously by the king: / wealth, righteousness, pleasure, renown, and victory.

142.68

Endowed with lordly power and strength through sovereignty beginning with the power of becoming atomic, / they indeed surpass the ṛṣis in sacred learning and ascetic heat.

142.69

By their strength they overcome the Dānavas and mortals, / and they are born with bodily marks that are superhuman:

142.70

hair standing on the forehead, a tongue that can wipe [the face], / a dark luster, four fangs, fine lineage, and upward-drawn vital fluid.

142.71

With arms reaching to their knees, palms measuring a tāla, shaped like bulls / in girth and height, lion-shouldered and wise;

142.72

having the discus and the fish on their feet, and the conch and lotus on their hands, / they live for eighty-five thousand [years], free from aging and disease.

142.73

Those universal sovereigns have four unimpeded courses: / in the intermediate space, across oceans, in the netherworld, and on mountains.

142.74

Sacrifice, charity, austerity, and truth are traditionally remembered as the duties of the Tretā [Yuga]; / then duty proceeds according to the division of social classes and stages of life, / and governance by punishment is instituted to establish boundaries.

Translations (1)

The Matsya Puranam — A Taluqdar of Oudh 1916, English

Linked texts (1)

Matsyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit