Matsyapurana 2

English (machine translation) 2

Language: English

2.1

The Sūta said: / Addressed thus by him, Manu asked Madhusūdana: / ‘O Lord, in how many years will the dissolution of the interval take place?

2.2

And how, O master Madhusūdana, shall I protect the living beings? / Or how will my meeting with you take place again?’

2.3

Matsya said: / ‘Beginning from today, there will be drought upon the surface of the earth / lasting for a full hundred years, a famine bringing misfortune.

2.4

Then seven dreadful rays of the sun, bringing destruction to feeble beings, / will arise, raining down blazing hot coals.

The submarine fire too will undergo transformation at the end of the cosmic age; / and the fire of poison, falling from the mouth of Saṃkarṣaṇa out of the netherworld, / and the fire of the third eye rising from the forehead of Bhava,

2.6

burning the three worlds, will undergo agitation, O great sage. / When the whole earth has thus been burned, resembling ashes,

2.7

the sky will be scorched by the heat, O scorcher of foes; / then the world, together with the gods and constellations, will go to destruction.

2.8

Saṃvarta, Bhīmanāda, Droṇa, Caṇḍa, Balāhaka, / Vidyutpatāka, and Śoṇa: these are the seven clouds of dissolution.

2.9

Arisen from the sweat of the fire, they will flood the earth; / the oceans, having attained agitation and merging into one,

2.10

will make this entire triple world into a single primordial cosmic ocean. / Taking this boat of the Vedas, having taken the seeds of all living beings,

2.11

and embarking, by means of a rope given by me, O you of noble vows, / tying the boat to my horn, you, protected by my fish form,

2.12

will alone remain, even when the gods are burned, O scorcher of foes! / The bringer of the moon and sun, Brahmā together with the four worlds,

2.13

And the holy river Narmadā, the great sage Mārkaṇḍeya, / Bhava, the Vedas, the Purāṇas, completely enveloped by the branches of knowledge,

2.14

Together with you, this universe will abide at the end of the cosmic epoch of Manu. / When the primordial cosmic ocean has arisen thus at the end of the Cākṣuṣa cosmic epoch of Manu,

2.15

I shall set forth the Vedas at the beginning of your creation, O king.” / Having spoken thus, the Blessed One vanished right there.

2.16

Manu too resorted to yoga born of Vāsudeva's grace, / practicing it until the cosmic dissolution of beings previously indicated.

2.17

When the appointed time had arrived, issuing from the mouth of Vāsudeva, / horned Janārdana then manifested in the form of Matsya.

2.18

A serpent in the form of a rope approached Manu's side. / Having gathered all beings and embarked them through yoga, the knower of dharma,

2.19

Fastened the boat to the horn of Matsya with the serpent-rope. / Standing upon it, having bowed down to Janārdana,

2.20

When that cosmic dissolution of beings had passed, [Matsya,] lying in yogic sleep, / being questioned by Manu, taught the Purāṇa in the form of Matsya. / That I shall now proclaim; listen, O best of sages!

2.21

What you previously asked me, O twice-born, concerning creation and the rest, / that very thing Manu asked Keśava in that primordial cosmic ocean.

2.22

Manu said: / "Creation and cosmic dissolution, lineages and cosmic epochs of Manu, / the deeds of the descendants of lineages, and the expanse of the cosmos,

2.23

And the rules of religious giving, the eternal ritual of ancestral offerings, / the division of social classes and stages of life, and that known as sacrificial rites and public works,

2.24

The installation of deities, and whatever else exists on earth— / all that dharma you ought to explain in detail."

2.25

Matsya said: / "At the end of the time of the great cosmic dissolution, this [universe] was made of darkness, / as if asleep, inconceivable, unknowable, and devoid of characteristics,

2.26

Indiscernible, unmanifest, the world mobile and immobile. / Then the self-born, the unmanifest source of meritorious deeds,

2.27

Illuminating all this, appeared, dispelling the darkness. / He who is beyond the senses, beyond the unmanifest, minute, supreme, eternal, / celebrated as Nārāyaṇa, that One alone arose by Himself.

2.28

He, having meditated from his body and desiring to create the diverse universe, / first emitted the waters alone, and into them he cast his seed.

2.29

That very [seed] became a great egg, consisting of gold and silver, / in a thousand years, radiant like ten thousand suns.

2.30

Entering inside, the one of great splendor, self-born indeed, / by virtue of his majesty, through pervading it, attained the state of Viṣṇu once again.

2.31

Within it, this blessed Sun arose of old; / he became Āditya from being first-born, and Brahmā reciting sacred speech.

2.32

He made the sky and the earth from the two halves of that egg; / and he made all the directions, and in the middle the eternal sky.

2.33

The outer membrane became the mountains, chief among them Meru; / that which was the embryonic sac became the clouds, the host and mass of lightning.

2.34

The rivers were born from the veins of the egg, as were the ancestors and the Manus; / and these seven seas, they too were born from the water within it, / the saline, sugarcane, liquor, and the rest, endowed with various jewels.

2.35

Desiring to create, that god became the lord of progeny, O scorcher of foes; / and from his splendor, there Mārtaṇḍa was born.

2.36

Because he is born from a dead egg (mṛte 'ṇḍe), he is therefore remembered as Mārtaṇḍa. / That form of that great-souled one which was composed of the quality of rajas, / that four-faced Blessed One became Pitāmaha of the worlds.

2.37

By whom the entire universe was created, along with gods, Asuras, and humans— / know that form of rajas to be declared the great being.

Translations (1)

The Matsya Puranam — A Taluqdar of Oudh 1916, English

Linked texts (1)

Matsyapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit