Skandapurana 6.3.18

English (machine translation) 6.3.18

Language: English

6.3.18.1

Śrī Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, when this world was burned by the suns originating from Īśvara, / and when the seven oceans were dried up along with the seven continents,

6.3.18.2

then from his mouth extremely terrible clouds issued forth, resembling rainbows; / dreadful clouds, making the universe dark, dispatched by the supreme command of Īśāna,

some having the lustre of blue lotuses, some the lustre of collyrium, and some resembling cow's milk, kunda flowers, and the moon; / and others having the forms of peacock eyes, and some having the radiance of smokeless fire;

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some having forms like great mountains, and some resembling shoals of great fish; / some possessing the forms of lordly elephants of beautiful appearance, and some clouds resembling great peaks;

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having forms like moving waves and billows, and some resembling great cities, / appearing like city-gates and watchtowers, their edges adorned with lightning, meteors, and thunderbolts.

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Covered over his body, that god became that dreadful host called Saṃvartaka. / Raining down, it made this entire measureless universe into a single ocean.

6.3.18.7

Then Īśāna, increasing by means of the great clouds, his limbs covered with Indra's thunderbolts, / I did not see, my limbs agitated with fear, my body submerged in masses of Gaṅgā-waters.

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And elephants, drinking repeatedly from the universe burning all around, / and the universe being flooded on every side by all of them, they vanished from sight.

6.3.18.9

The seven great oceans, the lakes, the continents, all the rivers, and the earth and the atmosphere, / being filled with masses of water, all this became a single ocean.

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Nothing moving or stationary was seen, alas, in a world devoid of fire, moon, and sun, / in the darkness of the vanished stars, where the winds had calmed and all had merged into a single shelter.

6.3.18.11

In this great flood of water, O king, a hymn of pure reality was uttered by me then. / Then, reflecting thus: 'Where indeed shall I go to that one peaceful refuge?'

6.3.18.12

I remember the god, having meditated on the Lord, the refuge, in my heart, settled in the water; / 'I bow to the god, I go for refuge,' and meditation upon him was performed by me.

6.3.18.13

Having meditated, I then crossed the water by his grace, my mind unconfused; / my languor and fatigue were destroyed by the grace of the Goddess, O son of the king.

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Thus ends the eighteenth chapter, named 'Description of the Greatness of the Narmadā' in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth Section, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the Śrīskandamahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit