Skandapurana 10

English (machine translation) 10

Language: English

10.1

The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, O great king, one should go to the supremely purifying sacred ford, / exceedingly hard to reach on the Narmadā, the perfected Anarakeśvara.

10.2

A person who bathes at that sacred ford, even if doer of sinful deeds, O descendant of Bharata, / does not behold the terrifying [portal] known as the gate of hell.

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / Dear father, having experienced their fruits in hell through auspicious and inauspicious deeds, / men are born here with certain bodily marks; tell me of those, O best of good men.

10.4

Just as the individual soul departs leaving the body and cannot see, / so returning again to a body equipped with the five elements,

10.5

together with hundreds of layers of skin, bone, flesh, fat, blood, hair, and sinews, / in an aggregate of feces, urine, and semen—what consciousness arises in men?

10.6

Thus addressed, Mārkaṇḍeya, knower of yoga, / having meditated upon the eternal, the all-pervading god of gods, Maheśvara, spoke:

10.7

Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Hear, O Pārtha, this profound question; I shall tell you as I heard it / of old in the presence of Brahmā, at the gathering of seers and gods.

10.8

The guru is the punisher of those who have self-control; the king is the punisher of the wicked; / but the punisher of those with secret sins in this world is Yama, the son of Vivasvat.

10.9

For those who have not performed atonement, in the world of Yama, indeed in various ways, / after enduring tortures through numerous lineages of living forms,

10.10

and then coming to the human condition, they bear the marks of sin. / I shall explain that to you; listen with a single mind, O king.

10.11

Having endured every torture after arriving at the abode of the son of Vivasvat, / those whose tortures were extensive come to this world marked [by signs].

10.12

One who lies becomes a stammerer, and one who lies about cows becomes mute; / a killer of a brahmin is born a leper, and a drinker of alcohol has dark teeth.

10.13

A stealer of gold has diseased nails; a violator of the guru's bed has bad skin; / a partner of a low-born woman is born into a low womb, and one who does not give gifts becomes poor.

10.14

One who performs sacrifices for those unfit to sacrifice becomes a village pig, O king; / one who sacrifices excessively becomes an ass; from eating when uninvited, one becomes a dog.

10.15

One who eats unexamined food becomes a monkey in a lonely forest; / an abuser becomes a cat; one who sets fire to a thicket becomes a firefly.

10.16

He who teaches false knowledge becomes an ox; / giving stale food to a brahmin, one would become a eunuch.

10.17

From malice one becomes blind from birth; one is born blind by stealing a book; / the child of one who steals fruits dies—there is no doubt about this.

10.18

When dead, he becomes a monkey; freed from that, he has a goiter; / eating them without sharing, a person becomes childless.

10.19

Stealing clothes, one becomes an iguana; a poisoner becomes an eater of wind [a serpent]; / from having intercourse with a female ascetic, O king, one becomes a wilderness goblin.

10.20

A stealer of water becomes afflicted by wind, and a stealer of grain becomes a mouse; / approaching a girl who has not reached puberty, one becomes a serpent, so says the tradition.

10.21

One who covets the guru's wife becomes a chameleon for a long time; / and a man who damages a water spring becomes a fish.

10.22

Selling things that must not be sold, a man becomes cross-eyed; / one who engages in unnatural intercourse becomes a wolf; an owl from cheating in buying.

10.23

Eating on the eleventh day after a person's death, one is born as a dog; / having promised wealth to a brahmin and not giving it, one becomes a bee.

10.24

From approaching a queen, a wicked thief becomes a dung-eating pig; / a defamer of twice-born people receives the body of a tortoise.

10.25

A temple attendant for hire goes to the womb known as a cāṇḍāla, O king; / a seller of fruit becomes ill-favoured; the husband of a śūdra woman becomes a scorpion.

10.26

Touching fire with one's foot, one becomes a cat; an eater of another's flesh becomes diseased; / from approaching one's uterine sister, one becomes impotent; and stealing fragrant perfume, foul-smelling.

10.27

A village priest becomes an outcaste; an astrologer becomes a donkey; / a false scholar becomes a cat, and a slanderer becomes a dog.

10.28

That very [fate] is seen, O king, from revealing another's secrets; / whether it be this or that belonging to another, whether slight or great,

10.29

having taken it, he indeed attains an animal womb; there is no doubt about this. / These and other signs, O best of kings,

10.30

are seen [as] ordained by their own deeds, through which men are known. / Then birth, then death among all creatures, O descendant of Bharata,

10.31

is born, there is no doubt, when good and evil have become equal, / through the union of woman and man, when the semen and ovum are purified.

10.32

Endowed with the five elements, the supreme lord is the sixth. / The sense faculties, the mind, the vital breaths, knowledge, lifespan, pleasure, steadfastness,

10.33

retention, prompting, pain, desire, and also egoity, / effort, bodily form, complexion, voice and aversion, existence and non-existence—

10.34

all this belongs to this soul that, though beginningless, wishes for a beginning. / In the first month, it becomes a moist mass, blended with the bodily constituents.

10.35

In the second month it is a rounded mass, and in the third it is endowed with senses: / from space comes lightness, subtleness, sound, hearing, strength, and so forth; / from wind comes touch, motion, burning, and dryness;

10.36

from bile comes vision, digestion, heat, form, and illumination; / from water comes taste, coldness, oiliness, moisture, and softness;

10.37

from earth comes smell, the sense of smell, heaviness, and solid form. / The birthless soul assumes [these] first, and in the third [month] it stirs.

10.38

By not granting the pregnancy longings, the fetus may incur a defect, / deformity, or even death; therefore, what is pleasing to the woman must be done.

10.39

In the fourth month comes firmness of the limbs, in the fifth the production of blood, / in the sixth strength and color, and the appearance of nails and hair.

10.40

Endowed with consciousness through the mind, covered with hundreds of nails and hairs, / in the seventh and eighth [months] it possesses skin and also memory.

10.41

Its vital essence runs back and forth between the fetus and the mother; / hence a fetus born in the eighth month is deprived of life.

10.42

In the ninth or tenth [month], driven by powerful winds of delivery, / it emerges like an arrow through the opening of a machine, overcome with distress.

10.43

Endowed with the bodily parts and equipped with major and minor limbs, / there are one hundred and eight vital points, and three hundred bones,

10.44

seven cranial bones arranged by the self-manifest [Brahmā], / and three and a half crores of hairs upon the limbs, O Bhārata.

10.45

Seventy-two thousand [channels] branch out from the heart; / these channels are indeed called hitā, and among them is the moon-bright one.

10.46

Thus turns the wheel of fourfold classes of living beings; / birth and destruction occur for all embodied souls.

10.47

An upward course comes through dharma, but a downward course through adharma; / it occurs for all classes, O king, from deviating from one's own duty.

10.48

In divinity and in humanity, acts such as charity and enjoyment / that are seen, O great king, are all fruits born of action.

10.49

In the dreadful state caused by one's own karma, acquired through lust and anger [or] auspicious, / one may sink into a dreadful hell from which there is no crossing over.

10.50

For the salvation of living beings, situated on the bank of the Narmadā / is this great tīrtha, the supreme Narakeśvara,

10.51

destroyer of hell, immensely meritorious, destroying great sins; / that tīrtha is the best of all tīrthas, hard to attain on earth.

10.52

Having bathed in that tīrtha, whoever worships Maheśvara, / even if possessed of great sins, never sees hell.

10.53

Whoever gives an auspicious Vaitaraṇī cow at that tīrtha, / is freed with ease from Vaitaraṇī; there is no doubt.

10.54

Yudhiṣṭhira said: / That river Vaitaraṇī which is at the terrifying gateway of Yama, / what is its form, what is its extent, and how does it flow, O twice-born one?

10.55

How are people freed from it, who dwells in it perpetually, / and to whom is it favorable? Tell this in detail.

10.56

Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said: / O son of Dharma, O mighty-armed one, hear everything spoken by me / concerning that great river named Vaitaraṇī at the gateway of Yama.

10.57

It is bottomless, boundless, and terrifying just to behold. / Its waters are pus and blood, and it is made of mire of flesh.

10.58

Its water swirls rapidly, like ghee in a frying pan; / it is full of pus and teeming with worms having adamantine beaks and iron mouths,

10.59

and with dolphins and crocodiles equipped with adamantine shears, / and with other water creatures that are intensely violent and pierce the vital points.

10.60

Twelve suns blaze fiercely as if at the end of a cosmic dissolution. / Mortals fall in there, weeping intensely and dreadfully,

10.61

lamenting again and again, ‘O brother! O son! O mother!’ / Who can protect the one falling into the terrifying Asipattravana?

10.62

Creatures swim, sink, and become exhausted. / That great river must be faced by the four types of living beings.

10.63

They cross over it through noble gifts; otherwise they fall. / Those who do not respect their mother, teacher, and guru,

10.64

the fools who despise them—theirs is a perpetual dwelling [there]. / A devoted wife of virtuous conduct, legally married and steadfast in duties—

10.65

those wicked men who abandon [her] dwell [there] perpetually. / Of those who have placed their trust—masters, friends, ascetics,

10.66

women, children, the elderly, and the helpless—those who seek their vulnerabilities, / those great sinners are boiled in the middle of it, crying out.

10.67

The evil-minded one who obstructs an exhausted, hungry brahmin / is eaten there by worms for three hundred kalpas.

10.68

He who promises a gift to a brahmin and does not give it, / or summons him and says ‘There is nothing,’ dwells there perpetually.

10.69

An arsonist, a poisoner, an informer to the king, a slanderer, / an interrupter of sacred discourse, a false witness, and a drinker of liquor,

10.70

a destroyer of thunderbolts, a taker of what was given by oneself, / a destroyer of dikes in good fields, and a violator of another's wife,

10.71

a brahmin who sells liquids, a husband of a Śūdra woman, / and he who breaks the water embankment of thirsty cattle,

10.72

a corrupter of maidens, one who regrets having given a gift, / a Śūdra who drinks milk from a tawny cow, a brahmin who eats meat—

10.73

these dwell [there] continually; do not doubt it, O king. / Hear that by which it may become favorable, O ruler of men.

10.74

At a solstice, at an equinox, at a vyatīpāta, on the day of a new moon,
and at other sacred times, this supreme gift is given.

10.75

One should make an auspicious Vaitaraṇī cow, either black or reddish-brown,
with golden horns, silver hooves, and milkable into a bronze vessel,

10.76

covered with a pair of black garments, accompanied by the seven grains,
seated upon a copper vessel topped with a droṇa [of grain].

10.77

One should make a golden Yama equipped with an iron rod,
and having constructed a raft made of sugarcanes bound with silken cords,

10.78

the wise man should place that cow, born from the body of the sun,
upon the raft, equipped with an umbrella and a pair of sandals.

10.79

He should present a finger-ring and garments to a brahmin,
and, taking hold of the cow's tail, he should recite this mantra:

10.80

“Oṃ. The river that is the Vaitaraṇī at the terrible door of Yama—
desiring to cross it, I give this [cow]; homage to you, O Vaitaraṇī!”
Such is the mantra of preliminary consecration.

10.81

“May cows be in front of me; may cows be behind me;
may cows be in my heart; I dwell in the midst of cows.”

10.82

“Oṃ. You who are a form of Viṣṇu, best of the twice-born, earthly god, sanctifier of the row,
this [cow] is given by me with a sacrificial fee; homage to you, O Vaitaraṇī!”
Such is the gift mantra.

10.83

Having circumambulated the brahmin, Dharmarāja, and the auspicious Vaitaraṇī cow,
he should present everything to the brahmin.

10.84

Taking hold of the cow’s tail, having placed the twice-born in front, then:

10.85

“O cow, wait for me at the gateway of Yama, which brings great fear!
I wish to cross over, O cow; homage be to you, Vaitaraṇī!”
Such is the mantra for following after.

10.86

He should follow him as he departs, and bring everything to his house.
When this is done, O protector of the earth, the river flows pleasantly.

10.87

By means of that cow, that river which flows with water carries him across.
He obtains all desires, both divine and human.

10.88

A sick man would be freed from illness; the greatest misfortunes are pacified.
When healthy, [the gift's fruit] is multiplied a thousandfold; when sick, it is reckoned a hundredfold.

10.89

The gift given on behalf of a deceased person in their absence is remembered as equal [to ordinary fruit].
Therefore, one should give with one's own hand: when one is dead, who will give to whom?
Considering this, O great king, what is given by oneself bears great fruit.

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit