Skandapurana 6.3.19

English (machine translation) 6.3.19

Language: English

6.3.19.1

Chapter 19 / The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, in that single ocean, distressed, on the verge of death, / gasping for breath, swimming the water with my arms, O best of kings,

6.3.19.2

standing in the middle of the ocean, in the noiseless calm then / I heard an incomparable roaring of waters that made the ten directions resound.

6.3.19.3

Resembling a swan, a kunda flower, or the moon, pale as a pearl necklace or cow's milk, / her limbs variegated with diverse jewels, possessing golden horns, delightful,

6.3.19.4

adorned with a tail-banner made of coral, / with an elongated snout, lowing, wading into the ocean with her hooves,

6.3.19.5

distressed, I beheld a cow standing directly facing me, / covered with nets of tinkling ornaments, pearls, and golden bells.

6.3.19.6

By the strides of her feet all the waters of the single ocean, / with masses of scattered foam-heaps, were as if dancing all at once.

6.3.19.7

Agitating the great ocean with the splash of waters, she bellowed. / She said to me, O highly blessed one, in a smooth and deep voice:

6.3.19.8

'Do not fear, child, my child! There is no death for you. / By the grace of Mahādeva, there is no death for you, nor for me.'

6.3.19.9

"Take hold of my tail; from this I shall convey you across,
O brahmin, from this dreadful terror, as long as the world is flooded.

6.3.19.10

To overcome your hunger and thirst, drink from my two udders;
[drink] the celestial milk that holds ambrosia, and having drunk it, find peace."

6.3.19.11

Hearing those words of hers, in joy I drank from her udder.
As soon as the udder was sucked, neither hunger nor thirst remained in me then.

6.3.19.12

A divine bodily strength arose [in me], capable of swimming across the sea.
Then I spoke back to her: "Who are you, wandering in the cosmic ocean?

6.3.19.13

Tell me the truth, for great wonder is in my heart!
While I was wandering here, afflicted, wishing to die, struck down,

6.3.19.14

you indeed became my refuge through the remnant of my good fortune, O virtuous one!"

6.3.19.15

The cow said:
"Have you forgotten me, the universal-formed sovereign goddess,
the Narmadā who grants righteousness to men, conferring heaven, happiness, and strength?

6.3.19.16

Seeing you sinking, however, I was dispatched by Rudra:
'Noble lady, rescue that twice-born man; let him not lose his life in the water!'

6.3.19.17

In the form of a cow, by the word of the Lord, I came here into your presence,
hastening so that Śambhu might not become one whose word is false."

6.3.19.18

Thus addressed by her, knowing her tail, splendid like Indra's bow, to be imperishable,
I clung to it with both my arms.

6.3.19.19

Then I crossed that ocean, relying on the tail as my banner.
She spoke back to me: "This god is Mahādeva."

6.3.19.20

Then for the span of a thousand yugas I roved with her
in that world turned into darkness, covered on all sides by water.

6.3.19.21

Then, wandering in that great ocean, holding on to the cow's tail,
in the windless and dark, devoid of light and free from ailment,

6.3.19.22

suddenly in that water [I saw the Lord], resembling the flax flower,
like crushed collyrium, stainless like the sky,

6.3.19.23

dark as the petal of a blue lotus, clad in yellow garments, imperishable,
with a diadem the colour of the sun, flashing like lightning,

6.3.19.24

with a head shining like the sky, having endless forms,
his cheeks brushed by his earrings, his chest illumined by a necklace,

6.3.19.25

adorned with divine ornaments made of Jāmbūnada gold,
lying on the serpent as his bolster, having the splendour of a thousand suns,

6.3.19.26

possessing many arms and thighs, having more than one face, charming,
the hero sleeping in the cosmic ocean, endowed with a thousand eyes and necks,

6.3.19.27

having a great mass of matted hair with rays like flashing lightning,
the god stationed there, pervading the whole world turned into a cosmic ocean.

6.3.19.28

Having swallowed everything along with gods, asuras, and humans, Śaṃkara,
the sovereign Īśāna, the Lord, I behold sleeping in the single ocean,

6.3.19.29

all-pervading, unmanifest, infinite, facing all directions.
Near the soles of his feet, [I beheld the Goddess] adorned with golden armlets,

6.3.19.30

universal-formed, highly fortunate, bearing the cosmic illusion,
consisting of fortune, modesty, intellect, and speech, the auspicious Śivā,

6.3.19.31

perfection, fame, delight, the consort of Brahmā, the night of cosmic dissolution, not born from a womb;
her alone I then beheld, stationed very near to the Lord,

6.3.19.32

moon-faced, constancy, Umā, the ruler of all.

6.3.19.33

The peaceful, sleeping, fresh-gold-coloured Lord, God accompanied by Umā,
enveloped in darkness, most sacred, the highest—circumambulating him, I bow down.

6.3.19.34

Then, having been asleep, the best of gods suddenly awoke by his own nature at the end of the night,
agitating the waters of the ocean with his arms, having reflected on the world lost in the flood.

Reflecting, 'What is to be done?', he assumed the form of a boar, wondrous of limb,
with a brilliance equal to massive clouds laden with water, wearing a long garland, garments, and a gold-coin necklace,

6.3.19.36

bearing the conch, discus, and sword, wearing a diadem, embodied with the Vedas and Vedāṅgas, the Great Soul,
the creator of the three worlds, ancient, and bearing the form of the triad of gods in action.

6.3.19.37

He alone is Rudra; he destroyed the world. For the purpose of creation, the Lord became the Grandfather [Brahmā].
For the protection of the world, he alone is Hari, bearing the auspicious discus, sword, mace, and lotus in his hands.

6.3.19.38

Indeed, no division ought to be made among these great souls sharing a single body.
The ignorant person who would make a division among them with arguments based on Mīmāṃsā reasons and meanings,

6.3.19.39

that evil-minded one, a maker of division whose mind is full of hatred, goes gradually to a dreadful hell.
Whichever deity one has devotion to, through that very [devotion], upon abandoning his body, one surely attains immortality.

6.3.19.40

Deluding the world here through his forms, that god is the creator, the protector, and the destroyer.
Therefore, one should not enter into delusion, nor harbor hatred, seeing the forms as divided.

6.3.19.41

Assuming the form of a boar, therefore, that best sovereign, the creator of the world,
when the three worlds were lost, submerged in ocean waters, the inner Self searched in the flood of waters.

6.3.19.42

Having cleaved the ocean water, he entered the depth of Pātāla in an instant;
he touched the entire earth sunk in the water, her eyes like lotus petals,

6.3.19.43

the earth with shattered rocks and mountain peaks, dissolved in the cosmic dissolution;
Viṣṇu, the god of incomparable valor, lifted her up himself with a single tusk.

6.3.19.44

Her limbs hanging from the tip of his tusk, she shone like moonlight on the peak of Mount Kailāsa,
and of incomparable form, she shone like lightning clinging to the crescent of the moon.

6.3.19.45

He hauled her up, sunk in the ocean water, as an elephant violently hauls up a submerged female elephant,
or like a shattered boat from the midst of the water, he of aroused vitality and matchless power.

6.3.19.46

Having raised her from the great flood of water, the noble one divided the entire ocean;
he poured back the water of the great ocean into the oceans and into the rivers.

6.3.19.47

And he made anew the broken mountains, all the islands, and the oceans;
he made the mountain ranges that are piled up everywhere with rocks and stones in the kalpa.

6.3.19.48

Dividing his body of manifold forms, he produced all the hosts of the lords of gods.
From his mouth fire arose, from his mind the moon, and from his eye the sun suddenly came to be.

6.3.19.49

Then, as that [Lord] whose form is the yoga of Īśvara meditated, the host of the chiefs of the gods was born, / as well as the Vedas, sacrifices, and likewise the castes, and indeed all medicinal herbs and juices.

6.3.19.50

The entire universe came into being from his mind: whatever is stationary here or egg-born, / or born from a womb, sweat-born, or shoot-born—whatever exists, down to insects and ants.

6.3.19.51

Then in an instant, through his mind, the great lords of various forms were suddenly born; / and the imperishable Self, having pervaded there again with his eight forms, brought it about.

6.3.19.52

Then he of abundant splendor engaged in sport; hence, right as I was watching, O brahmins, / my vision of all those [creations] took place within an instant, O king.

6.3.19.53

Having indeed accomplished everything in mere sport, that god of gods, the creator of the worlds, / the all-seeing, omnipresent god, the primeval maker, vanished from sight.

6.3.19.54

Just as from that moment name and form [arose] here, so too did I behold the universe: / surrounded by continents and oceans, crowded with the aerial chariots of constellations, stars, and the like,

6.3.19.55

variegated with the sky, clouds, and the circle of planets, and filled with various kinds of living creatures. / Yet I did not see her, the noble lady in the form of a cow, the sovereign of all the gods.

6.3.19.56

"Where is she now?"—reflecting thus, O king, my mind became bewildered at that very moment. / Looking around at the quarters of space without seeing her whose body is of the Lord, how

6.3.19.57

could I see her again here—the bright one, dark as a great cloud, of pure and white waters, / her body adorned with numerous trees, and surrounded by elephants, horses, and birds?

6.3.19.58

Just as previously, having approached the bank of the goddess, I remained stationed at Amarakaṇṭaka, / in that very same way, seated at ease, unperturbed, and having attained bliss, I beheld myself

6.3.19.59

having seen again—even at the end of the kalpa—the holy one, carrier of pure waters, / who is like a compassionate mother, noble, of undiminished waters, free from disease, and I was free from sorrow.

6.3.19.60

The best among the twice-born who recite and listen to this most sacred kalpa / of the Great Boar and the Great Lord become pure day by day.

6.3.19.61

Shaking off hundreds of thousands of evils, they reach the heaven frequented by the immortals and accompanied by siddhas and gandharvas; / together with all the apsarases, resplendent like the spotless moon, they attain heavenly happiness with diverse pleasures.

6.3.19.61_1

Thus ends the nineteenth chapter, entitled "Description of the Account of the Vārāha Kalpa," in the Narmadāmāhātmya of the Revākhaṇḍa in the fifth Āvantyakhaṇḍa of the glorious Skandamahāpurāṇa consisting of eighty-one thousand verses.

Linked texts (1)

Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit