Skandapurana 1.4.47
English (machine translation) 1.4.47
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Arjuna said:
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'Having heard of the exceedingly wondrous sacred fords and liṅgas, O great sage,
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from your lotus mouth, my mind rejoices greatly.
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The principal sacred fords of Mahīnagara as well,
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which was established by you, O sage—describe them to me, O lord!'
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Nārada said:
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'The sacred fords that are in glorious Mahīnagara, O Phālguna,
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I shall relate to you, where the sun, the lord Jayāditya, resides.
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Whatever person here glorifies the name of Jayāditya,
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freed from all diseases, he too obtains the desire of his heart.
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Merely by beholding him, a faithful person is filled with auspicious blessings,
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and is freed from inauspicious things, O son of Pṛthā.
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Listen, O son of Pṛthā, I shall tell you the origin of that deity;
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hearing it or reciting it, one obtains grace from the sun.
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Having established this settlement, I, in the course of time,
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went at will to the realm of the sun, desiring his darśana.
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Having honored me, who was bowed down and seated, with an offering of argha,
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the radiant god said this with a sweet voice, as if smiling:
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'From where do you come, O brahmin, and where are you going?'
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And where, O sage Nārada, has this time been spent by you?”
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Nārada said:
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Addressed thus by the Sun, I then spoke this word to him:
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“I wandered in the Bhārata section, and from Mahīnagara,
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I have arrived, O all-pervading one, O Sun, for your darśana.”
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The Sun said:
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“The place that was established by you—the brahmins who are there,
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tell me their qualities. Indeed, what virtues do those twice-born have?”
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Nārada said:
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Questioned thus by the Lord, I spoke this word once again:
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“O Lord, if I praise them, there will be the reproach: ‘He praises his own.’
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Or why should I blame those who do not deserve it? There is difficulty in both cases.
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Moreover, since the majesty of those great-souled ones is supreme,
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if a meager description is made, it would indeed be a great fault on my part.
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If there is a desire to hear of those foremost twice-born honored by me,
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then you should go and observe them yourself; this is my opinion, O Sun.”
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Hearing this word of mine, the Sun was greatly astonished,
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and the Lord of Day said again and again, “I shall see them myself.”
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Then, having assumed the form of a brahmin and dismissed me, the Sun,
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blazing in the sky and through yogic power, went to the bank of the Arṇavā.
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Bearing matted hair tawny from ritual ablutions at the three junctures of the day,
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an elderly twice-born of great splendor was seen by my brahmins.
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Then, their eyes wide with intense joy, headed by Hārīta,
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rising from the hall of Vedic study, those twice-born ran toward the twice-born.
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Bowing to that foremost twice-born, out of intense joy they said this:
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“Today our day is auspicious; today this place is supreme,
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since you yourself, O best of brahmins, have come here.
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For solely out of compassion for a blessed householder, the best of the twice-born
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arrive in the guise of guests for the sake of purification; of this there is no doubt.
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Therefore, by the pacing of your feet, purify our homes,
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and together with us, [purify] this place by your darśana and by taking a meal.”
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The guest said:
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“Food is of two kinds, O brahmins: the ordinary and the supreme.
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I properly desire the supreme food to be given to me.”
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Having heard this from the guest, Hārīta said to his son:
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“Son, an eight-year-old Kamaṭha, do you understand what was spoken by the twice-born?”
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Kamaṭha said:
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“Father, having bowed to you, I will speak of such supreme food,
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and I will satisfy the twice-born by offering the supreme food.
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For indeed, when a son is born, a father becomes free from debt;
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I will make that saying true by fully satisfying the excellent guest.
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Food is of two kinds, and this is their distinction:
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one is called the ordinary, and the other is the supreme food.
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Among them, that which is called ordinary is the satisfaction of the group
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of the twenty-four cosmic principles headed by Prakṛti; so it is said.
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And that food has six flavors, and they say it has five categories;
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by consuming it, the field characterized by the physical body is satisfied.
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Just as the other is called supreme, it is named supreme food;
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the Self is called supreme, and that would be its food.
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Therefore, that hearing of dharma of various kinds—
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that is called the food; the enjoyer is the knower of the field; the two ears are the mouth.
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I will give that to the foremost twice-born. Ask, O brahmin, whatever you wish!
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According to my ability, I will satisfy you in the assembly of brahmins.”
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Nārada said:
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Hearing these great words of Kamaṭha, that guest,
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praising him in his mind alone, then asked this question:
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“How is a living being born, and how does it dissolve?
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And having been reduced to ashes, where does it go?”
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Kamaṭha said:
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“Having first bowed to the Guru, and next to Dharma,
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I shall answer this question sung in the Vedas according to my ability, O twice-born.
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Indeed, threefold action is the cause of a living being’s birth:
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meritorious, sinful, and mixed, consisting of sattva, rajas, and tamas.
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Among them, that which is called sāttvika attains heaven;
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fallen from heaven by the passage of time, one becomes wealthy, righteous, and happy.
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Likewise, that which is called tāmasa attains hell;
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having suffered many torments, one attains the state of immobile creatures.
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Through seeing, touching, sharing food, and sitting together with great beings,
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transmigrating through a long course of time, one becomes human.
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Even so, surrounded by misery, poverty, and the like, with defective senses,
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he is visible to all people; for this is the mark of sin.
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Now, he whose action is mixed attains animal birth;
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by association with great beings alone, transmigrating, he becomes human.
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He whose merit is greater and sin is lesser
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first becomes unhappy and afterwards is endowed with happiness.
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He whose sin is greater and merit is lesser
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is first happy and then unhappy; this is the characteristic of mixed [karma].
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Hear how human birth comes to be in this regard:
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At the union of the semen and ovum of a man and a woman,
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the soul, completely freed from all faults, clearly transmigrates,
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endowed with the qualities of mind and intellect, accompanied by good and bad [actions].
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Having entered the womb, the soul resides in the embryo at its fluid stage;
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and stupified, it remains there in the fluid stage for just a month.
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In the second month it remains having become a solid mass;
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the formation of its limbs occurs in the third month.
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And in the fourth month bones are produced;
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the birth of skin is in the fifth month; in the sixth is the appearance of hair.
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In the seventh month its consciousness is awakened;
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and in the seventh month it partakes of what is eaten and drunk by the mother.
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In the eighth and ninth months it is then intensely agitated;
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with its limbs wrapped in the amnion, its fingers clasped to its mouth.
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An eunuch lies in the middle, a female on the left, and a male on the right;
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it stays in the abdominal region, facing the digestive fire from behind.
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It recognizes without doubt that womb in which it stays;
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it remembers the entire course of even many births.
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What can be seen in blind darkness? From the smell it falls into deep delusion.
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When cold water is drunk by the mother, it feels cold; likewise, it feels hot when [she drinks] hot [water].
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During the mother's physical exertion it suffers distress, and it feels pain from illness.
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Other severe diseases arise that cannot be noticed by the father and mother;
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due to its delicacy, these cause sharp agony to it.
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Even a very brief time it perceives as equal to a hundred years.
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It burns intensely in the womb because of its past actions,
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and repeatedly forms resolutions for the sake of virtuous deeds:
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“If I obtain birth and life in the human realm,
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then I shall do that by which liberation will clearly come to be.”
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While it is thinking thus, after the rite of parting the hair,
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those two months pass in suffering, shaped with three pairs [of limbs folded].
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Then, when its time is full, impelled by the wind of birth,
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the creature turns head downward, experiencing intense agony.
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Head downward, it emerges through the narrow opening of the vulva,
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even while being tormented with a pain like the flaying of the skin.
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The touch of hands and the like feels to it like the touch of a saw;
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being born, deluded, it experiences this for just a month.
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Subject to past actions, its womb-knowledge perishes;
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then it performs actions that are white, red, and black.
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[The body,] framed with rafters and pillars of bone and fastened by sinews,
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smeared with the clay of blood and flesh, a vessel for the matter of feces and urine,
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well-secured by seven walls, thatched with the grass of body hair,
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having one great gate, the mouth, adorned with eight windows,
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possessing two lip-doors, and sealed with the bolts of teeth,
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having a stream of channels and sweat, flooded with phlegm and bile,
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overtaken by old age and sorrow, standing in the fiery mouth of Time,
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ruined by passion, hatred, and the like, arisen from the six sheaths.
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Thus, O twice-born, this bodily house is produced for man,
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in which dwells the knower of the field as the householder, with intellect as the mistress of the house,
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living there while bringing about liberation, heaven, or even hell.
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Thus ends the forty-ninth chapter, titled "Description of the Origin of the Embodied Soul's Body" in the dialogue between Kamaṭha and the Sun, in the Kaumārikākhaṇḍa of the first [section], the Māheśvarakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand verses.
Linked texts (1)
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit