Revākhaṇḍa ascribed to the Vāyupurāṇa (RKV) 18

English (machine translation) 18

Language: English

18.13 — 2 parts

18.1

Glorious Mārkaṇḍeya said: / Then, when this world had been completely consumed by the suns born of Īśvara, / and the seven oceans were dried up, along with the seven continents,

18.2

then from his mouth went forth clouds, immensely terrible, resembling the rainbow, / dread water-bearers casting the universe into darkness, impelled by the supreme command of Īśāna.

Some had the luster of blue lotuses, some the appearance of collyrium, and some the resemblance of cow's milk, jasmine, or the moon; / others had the shapes of peacocks' tail-feathers, and some possessed the brilliance of smokeless fire.

18.4

Some clouds had forms like great mountains, some resembled swarms of great fish; / some had the fine forms of lords of elephants, and some resembled massive peaks.

18.5

Some had forms resembling tossing waves and billows, or resembled vast city gates; / they looked like city gates and watchtowers, their edges adorned with lightning, meteors, and thunderbolts.

18.6

The god's body became enveloped; that fierce host named Saṃvartaka, / pouring down rain immeasurably upon the world, turned all of this into a single ocean.

18.7

Then, with my body trembling from fear, my limbs surrounded by floods of Gaṅgā water, / I could no longer see Īśāna, swelling with the great clouds, his body encircled by Indra's thunderbolts.

18.8

Drinking again and again, the clouds [extinguished] the universe that was burning all around; / and when the world was filled all around by all of them, they vanished from sight.

18.9

The seven great oceans, the lakes, the continents, all the rivers, and the earth and mid-space, / being filled by masses of water-floods, all this became a single ocean.

18.10

Ah, nothing moving or unmoving was to be seen in the world, which was devoid of fire, moon, and sun, / darkened by gloom wherein the stars had perished, whose winds had ceased, its single resting place vanished.

18.11

In that great deluge of waters, a praise of him, pure in essence, was uttered by me then, O king; / thereafter, reflecting thus: 'Where indeed shall I go to find the one peaceful refuge?'

18.12

Standing in the water, contemplating in my heart, I remembered the divine Lord, the refuge; / and meditation upon him was performed by me, saying: 'I bow to God, I resort to him for refuge.'

18.13

Then, having meditated, I crossed the water with an unconfounded mind by his grace; / my faintness and fatigue were destroyed by the grace of the Goddess, O prince.

18.13.p1

|| Thus ends the eighteenth chapter, named 'The Description of the Glorification of the Narmadā', in the Revākhaṇḍa of the fifth book, the Āvantyakhaṇḍa, in the Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses, the glorious Skandapurāṇa.

18.13.p2

RKV Chapter 19

Linked texts (1)

Revākhaṇḍa (Vāyupurāṇa) — Sanskrit