Skandapurana 6.3.1
English (machine translation) 6.3.1
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6.3.1.1
Chapter 1 / Om, salutations to Gaṇeśa. (1.1)
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Om, salutations to Śrī Puruṣottama. / Om, salutations to the auspicious Narmadā. / Om, salutations to Hari, Hara, and Hiraṇyagarbha; salutations to Vyāsa, Vālmīki, Śuka, and Parāśara; salutations to the spiritual teachers, cows, and brahmins. / Om. May the waters of the Narmadā protect you— / whose swarms of bees are intoxicated by the fragrance of the rut-wine dripping from the temples of bathing elephants; / which are turned yellowish-red by contact with the saffron melting from the pairs of breasts of Siddha women during their baths; / whose trees on the banks are covered with heaps of flowers by sages evening and morning; / and whose wave-currents are struck by the trunks of elephants and makaras. (1.2)
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Endowed with holy sacred fords on both banks, washing away the flood of sins of all the worlds, / praised by gods, sages, and mortals—may the Narmadā always remove sin! (1.3)
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May she destroy all sin—past, future, and present—of living beings on earth! / O purifier of all, your holy water, Narmadā, becomes nectar. (1.4)
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Whose sandy bank even gods devoted to Śiva and ascetics desire, / and who is served by hosts of sages—may the Revā bring about my welfare! (1.5)
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Having bowed down to Nārāyaṇa and Nara, the best among mortals, / and to the goddess Sarasvatī and Vyāsa, one should then recite the ‘Victory.’ (1.6)
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In Naimiṣa, the sacred abode frequented by various seers, / Śaunaka, seated at a sacrificial session, questioned Sūta at length: (1.7)
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“I consider that skill in righteousness is ever revered in you, Sūta; / for you are the narrator of holy, nectar-like stories, indeed the disciple of Vyāsa. (1.8)
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Therefore I ask you, O wise poet, concerning the refuge of righteous sacred fords. / There are many sacred fords, and many of them have been heard by me. (1.9)
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I have heard of the divine river belonging to Brahmā, as well as the river belonging to Viṣṇu; / but nowhere have I heard of the third, the best of rivers, belonging to Rudra. (1.10)
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Tell me, O greatly wise one, of her who holds the Vedas within her, who is celebrated, saluted by hosts of gods, / and adorned with an abundance of sacred fords. (1.11)
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Which land has the Revā resorted to? How was she born from the glorious Rudra? / And whatever sacred fords belong to her, please tell them to me.” (1.12)
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Sūta said: / “Well asked, O head of the clan, concerning the history pertaining to the Narmadā, / wonderful, purifying, destroying faults, as heard and proclaimed, O best of good men! (1.13)
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Having arranged the Vedas, Upavedas, Vedāṅgas, and the rest, the son of Satyavatī was fulfilled; / he is the proclaimer of the eighteen Purāṇas. (1.14)
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Having bowed to him, I shall speak of the Purāṇas in due order, / by whose recitation righteousness and life-span increase. (1.15)
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Revelation and tradition are declared to be the two eyes of brahmins; / a man lacking one of them is one-eyed, and lacking both, he is declared blind. (1.16)
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Revelation, tradition, and the Purāṇas are the three eyes of learned men; / he who sees with three eyes is considered a portion of Maheśvara. (1.17)
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The knowledge of the Veda was fashioned by the Lord for oneself, / as well as the Śaunakīya, the Paurāṇic, and that which has the nature of Dharmaśāstra. (1.18)
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These three lores are primary in determining all sacred teachings. / ‘The Purāṇa is the fifth Veda’—such is the ordinance of Brahmā. (1.19)
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He who does not know the Purāṇa knows nothing here at all. / What kind of righteousness is that, or what kind of knowledge is that— (1.20)
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or what else is there in this world that is not seen in the Purāṇa? / Formerly, the Vedas were established in the Purāṇa; there is no doubt about this. (1.21)
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The Veda fears one of little learning: ‘Lest this man deceive me.’ / And through the Itihāsas and Purāṇas this determination was made of old. (1.22)
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The Purāṇa is the soul of the Vedas; those six limbs are separate. / And what is seen in the Vedas is indeed seen through the Smṛtis; (1.23)
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and what is seen by both is sung in the Purāṇas. / The Purāṇa is remembered as the first of all sacred teachings from Brahmā. (1.24)
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And afterwards the Vedas emerged from his mouths. / There was only one single Purāṇa in that other kalpa, O sage, (1.25)
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which achieved the three aims of life, holy, extending to a billion verses. / Remembering it, the four-faced god spoke to the sages; (1.26)
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from that occurred the emergence of all the sacred texts and the Purāṇa. / Then the sage, seeing the inability to grasp the Purāṇa in the course of time, (1.27)
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the all-pervading lord, having assumed the form of Vyāsa, condenses it age after age / to the measure of eight hundred thousand verses in every Dvāpara. (1.28)
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Having made it eighteenfold, it is proclaimed in this mortal world. / Even today, in the world of the gods, it extends to a billion verses, (1.29)
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while here it has been concisely arranged into four hundred thousand. / The eighteen Purāṇas are now stated here; / I shall speak of them by name: listen, O best of seers! (1.30)
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Creation, secondary creation, lineage, the Manu-periods, / and the history of lineages: this is the fivefold characteristic of a Purāṇa. (1.31)
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Among them, the first is the Brahma Purāṇa, adorned in a collection / of ten thousand verses, containing various holy stories. (1.32)
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The Padma Purāṇa is said to have fifty-five thousand verses; / the third, named Viṣṇu Purāṇa, has twenty-three thousand in number. (1.33)
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The fourth, spoken by Vāyu, is remembered as the Vāyavīya; / on account of its union with devotion to Śiva, it is also known by another name as Śaiva. (1.34)
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It is counted as twenty-four thousand verses, O Śaunaka; / and the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa is proclaimed as the fifth, in four sections. (1.35)
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It has fourteen thousand and five hundred verses. / The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa is declared as the sixth, with nine thousand verses. (1.36)
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The Āgneya is proclaimed as the seventh, with sixteen thousand verses; / and the Nāradīya is spoken of as the eighth, with twenty-five thousand. (1.37)
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The ninth is named Bhāgavata, adorned with two parts; / it is declared to have eighteen thousand in text count. (1.38)
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The tenth, the Brahmavaivarta, is said here to be of the same count; / the Liṅga is to be known as the eleventh, having likewise eleven thousand in number. (1.39)
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That Liṅgapurāṇa is composed in two parts, O best of seers; / the Vārāha, the twelfth, they know to be twenty-four thousand [verses].
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Divided into seven sections is the Skānda, O best of the fortunate; / it is indeed determined by measure to be eighty-one thousand [verses].
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Then the fourteenth is remembered as the Vāmana by name; / in measure it was proclaimed of old, O patriarch, to be ten thousand [verses].
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They say the Kaurma is the fifteenth, adorned with two parts; / [it contains] seventeen thousand [verses] of old in the Kali [age], O lord of Sāṅkhya.
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The Mātsya, which was spoken by the Fish to Manu, is the sixteenth in order; / that is fourteen thousand in number, O best of speakers.
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The Gāruḍa is remembered as the seventeenth, and [has] nineteen [thousand verses]; / the eighteenth is the Brahmāṇḍa, adorned with two parts,
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and that contains twelve thousand and eight hundred [verses]. / Likewise the secondary Purāṇas, which were also spoken by Brahmā:
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This easily obtainable, excellent Saura belongs to the Brahmapurāṇa, / joined with two collections, holy, resting upon tales of Śiva.
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The first was spoken by Sanatkumāra, the second uttered by the Sun; / it is renowned indeed by the name of Sanatkumāra, O great sage.
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The second is the Nārasiṃha, belonging to the Purāṇa named Padma; / the third is considered the Śaukeya, belonging to the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇa.
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The fourth is the Bārhaspatya, always agreed to belong to the Vāyavya; / the fifth is remembered as the Daurvāsasa, always [belonging] to the Bhāgavata.
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In the Bhaviṣya is the one spoken by Nārada, declared of old by the wise; / also the Kāpila and the Mānava, and likewise the one uttered by Uśanas,
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the Brahmāṇḍa, and the Vāruṇa, and then the pair of Kālikās, / the Māheśvara, likewise the Sāmba, and the Saura that holds all matters,
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the Pārāśara, the Bhāgavata, and the Kaurma as the eighteenth in sequence. / These secondary Purāṇas have been spoken by me in proper order.
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Whoever recites or hears this collection of Purāṇas / shall possess infinite merit and, when deceased, go to the city of Brahmā.
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Thus ends the first chapter, the description of the collection of Purāṇas, in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth [section], the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, a compendium of eighty-one thousand [verses].
Linked texts (1)
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit