Revākhaṇḍa ascribed to the Vāyupurāṇa (RKV) 17
English (machine translation) 17
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- English
Contents
- 17.37 — 2 parts
17.1
The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said:
While being praised in this way by Brahmā and the foremost of sages / who had gone to the realm of Brahmā, the Lord of the universe withdrew [the world].
17.2
He [revealed] that terrible, exceedingly fearsome, imperishable southern face, / with an immense roar from huge fangs, resembling the lower regions of Pātāla,
17.3
with reddish-brown eyes blazing like lightning, frightful, hair-raising, / having a huge tongue, huge fangs, and wearing a great serpent on its neck,
17.4
garlanded with the heads of great asuras, the cause of the great dissolution, / devouring the oblation composed of the wind and water placed within the oceans.
17.5
Resembling the submarine mare’s mouth, that mouth of Mahādeva / was seen licking all the world with the tip of its tongue.
17.6
For thousands of yojanas and hundreds of thousands, / the ten directions became exceedingly dreadful, thick with flesh, fat, and marrow.
17.7
His fangs grew by the hundreds and thousands; / together with asuras, gods, and gandharvas, with yakṣas, uragas, and rākṣasas,
17.8
the Grandfather saw them caught at the tips of his fangs, / trapped within the engine of his teeth, their necks crushed to powder.
17.9
"I see the world, O king of kings, entering the gaping mouth! / Just as rivers, their bodies broken by various waves and crowded with great masses of foam, / reach the ocean with a roar and meet their dissolution,
17.10
so this entire extended universe, unfathomable as an ocean of manifold living beings, / entered Rudra's vast, blazing, terrible mouth, frightful with the roar of thunderclouds.
17.11
Then, exceedingly dreadful flames issued from his mouth, accompanied by sparks, abundant and smoky, / of manifold forms, bright like fire, as if burning all the directions.
17.12
Then the face, possessing moving tongues and fangs, became garlanded with thousands of sun-like flames; / then, of Maheśvara of wondrous form, that single [face] became twelvefold in nature.
17.13
Then those twelve Ādityas, having issued forth from Rudra's mouth, / resorted to the southern quarter, burning up the earth.
17.14
Whatever earthly life there was, the dwelling of diverse trees and grasses, / previously dried up by drought, the whole earth being distressed,
17.15
all that, suddenly set ablaze by those suns born of Rudra, / became filled with smoke, with its planets and stars destroyed.
17.16
The entire orb of the earth suddenly blazed brightly; / all this, moving and unmoving, became filled with garlands of flames.
17.17
In the oceans of the seven continents, in the rivers, and in the lakes, the fire devoured the entire world like an offering of clarified butter in a sacrifice.
17.18
Blazing with immense brilliance and surrounded by great flames, / the Ādityas born of Rudra burned up the whole world.
17.19
And the rays of the Ādityas touched one another; / in this way the Lord burned the three worlds with what is moving and unmoving.
17.20
Maheśvara, becoming that fire equal in measure to the seven continents, / burned the earth up to the oceans of the seven continents.
17.21
They burned the earth right up to Sumeru and Mandara then; / and having pierced the seven subterranean worlds, it then burned the world of the nāgas.
17.22
Burning the seven subterranean worlds below the earth along with the nether regions, / the fire moved all around, burning [everything], O Yudhiṣṭhira.
17.23
As if blown upon with coals, glowing like a night of iron, / so everything blazed up, kindled by the fire of cosmic dissolution.
17.24
The earth became devoid of trees and grass, devoid of streams, lakes, and rivers, / its multitude of mountain peaks shattered, resembling the back of a tortoise.
17.25
Having filled the entire universe of consciousness with wreaths of flames, / Maheśvara, the Rudra who assumed a great form, remained.
17.26
Followed by the host of mothers, together with yakṣas, uragas, and rākṣasas, / the Goddess, whose eyes are like Hari’s, then entered Mahādeva.
17.27
She attained supreme extinction, like the flame of a fire extinguished; / for the entire world along with the three realms was burned, O sinless one,
17.28
leaving, by Rudra's grace, only me and the not-womb-born Narmadā, / for ten thousand yugas, and the god [devoured] by me today, because of hunger."
17.29
For formerly the bearer of the trident was worshipped [by me]; through that I am free from old age and death. / [Having muttered] the Aghamarṣaṇa, the Ghora, the Vāmadeva, the Tryambaka,
17.30
the Ṛṣabha, the Trisuparṇa, the Durgā, and the Sāvitra hymns, / the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, and the Bṛhat-sāman as well as the Uttara,
17.31
the supreme Raudrī Gāyatrī, and the Śivopaniṣad, / as well as the Pratiratha hymn, and having likewise muttered the Mṛtyuṃjaya mantra,
17.32
the earth, ending at the rivers and oceans, was reduced to ashes, / except for the highly fortunate Narmadā, who is like nectar.
17.33
Mahendra, Malaya, Sahya, Hemakūṭa, then Mālyavān, / Vindhya, and Pāriyātra: these seven are the principal mountain ranges.
17.34
Burnt by the twelve Ādityas, the mountains, their rocks shattered in pieces, / are seen turned to ash; yet the Narmadā was not destroyed then.
17.35
Himavat, Hemakūṭa, Niṣadha, Gandhamādana, / Mālyavān the best of mountains, Nīla, Śveta, and Śṛṅgavān—
17.36
these kings of mountains, frequented by gods and gandharvas, / were all burnt by the fire at the end of the cosmic age, their great rocks shattered.
17.37
Thus the total destruction at the end of the cosmic age was seen by me long ago, / except for the exceedingly sacred Narmadā, O best of kings.
17.37.p1
|| Thus ends the seventeenth chapter, named 'The Description of the Destruction of the Universe in the Form of the Twelve Ādityas', in the glorification of the sacred Narmadā, in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth book, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses, the glorious Skandapurāṇa.
17.37.p2
RKV Chapter 18
Linked texts (1)
- Revākhaṇḍa (Vāyupurāṇa) — Sanskrit