Matsyapurana 166

English (machine translation) 166

Language: English

166.1

Matsya said: / Becoming the ascetic Nārāyaṇa, fire whose form is lucidity, / he dries up the oceans with blazing rays.

166.2

Then, having drunk all the oceans, rivers, and wells entirely, / and having taken up all the water of the mountains with his rays,

166.3

and piercing the earth with his rays, going from Rasātala, / having seized the netherworld water, he drinks the excellent essence.

166.4

Urine, blood, moisture, and whatever else exists constantly in living beings— / all that the lotus-eyed, supreme Person absorbs.

166.5

And becoming a powerful wind, shaking the entire universe, / Hari draws in the breaths: the incoming, the outgoing, the equalized, and the rest.

166.6

Then all the hosts of gods, and whatever beings there are, / odor, smelling, and the body—the properties resting in earth—

166.7

The tongue, taste, and moisture are qualities abiding in water; / form, the eye, and digestion are qualities abiding in light alone.

166.8

Touch, breath, and movement are qualities resting on wind; / sound, the ear, and the bodily cavities are qualities resting on space.

166.9

The illusory power of the worlds was destroyed in a moment by the Lord, / [along with] the mind and intellect of all beings, and he who is known as the Knower of the Field.

166.10

Parameṣṭhin sought refuge in that choice Hṛṣīkeśa; / then, surrounded by the rays of that Lord,

166.11

and residing on the branches of trees shaken by the wind, / the fire born of their friction, blazing in a hundred ways,

the enveloping Saṃvartaka fire then burned everything: / mountains, trees, shrubs, climbing plants, creepers, and grasses; / divine aerial chariots, diverse cities, / and whatever could serve as a shelter—all these it burned.

166.13

Then, having reduced all the worlds to ashes, Hari, the Guru of the worlds, / extinguished [it] again through the act of the end of the cosmic age.

166.14

Becoming a thousandfold rain divided a hundred ways, Kṛṣṇa of mighty strength / gratified the earth with divine water as an oblation.

166.15

Then, by the mass of milky, sweet, supreme water, / auspicious and holy, the earth reached supreme extinction.

166.16

Covered by that confinement of waters from the raining [clouds], the earth / turned into the waters of the primordial cosmic ocean, bereft of all beings.

166.17

Even the great creatures entered the all-pervading Lord of boundless splendor, / when the sun, wind, and sky had vanished, and the subtle universe was dissolved.

166.18

Having himself dried up the oceans and corporeal beings, / having burned them and flooded them thus, the eternal one sleeps alone.

166.19

Assuming his ancient form, the one of boundless valor sleeps, / pervading the waters of the primordial cosmic ocean, a yogin taking recourse in yoga.

166.20

For many thousands of cosmic ages in the water of the primordial cosmic ocean, / no one can know him, the unmanifest or the manifest.

166.21

And who is this Puruṣa, what is his yoga, and who possesses yoga? / For how long will that Lord perform

166.22

the ritual of the primordial cosmic ocean? Thus no one knows the Lord.

166.23

There is no seer, no one who reaches him, no knower, and no bystander; / nothing of him is known except for that best of gods.

166.24

Having calmed the sky, the earth, the wind, the waters, the illuminating [fire], the lord of progeny, the world-bearer, the lord of the Suras, / Pitāmaha, the abode of the Vedas, the great sage, he indeed desired to sleep once more.

Linked texts (1)

Matsyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit