Revākhaṇḍa ascribed to the Vāyupurāṇa (RKV) 9
English (machine translation) 9
- Language
- English
Contents
- 9.55 — 2 parts
9.1
The venerable Mārkaṇḍeya said: / 'I shall tell you of another end of a yuga; listen to that! / Long ago, when the world, moving and unmoving, was set ablaze by suns,
9.2
When rivers, lakes, and oceans had completely perished, / when humans and the exclamation vaṣaṭ had ceased, and [the world] transgressed all bounds,
9.3
Then all the sky was filled with clouds of diverse forms / shining with rainbows, when it was filled with torrents of water,
9.4
And when everything had become a single cosmic ocean, covered on all sides with water, / the blessed Lord Hara, having placed the entire universe within his belly, fell asleep.
9.5
Resting upon his own nature (prakṛti), that lord of creatures whose essence is yoga / sleeps until the end of a thousand yugas, entering the time of the cosmic ocean.'
9.6
There, the dwellers of the realm of Brahmā, all the sages beginning with Bhṛgu, / and whoever others beginning with Sanaka [saw] the great-souled one asleep;
9.7
they saw the god, whose banner is the bull, sleeping with his wife / upon a spotless white couch spread with various coverings.
9.8
That woman had the form of the universe, and Maheśvara had the form of the universe; / and I saw him, the imperishable one, asleep, embracing her tightly.
9.9
Then, at his feet, I see that dark maiden with lotus marks, / of shapely hips, gently massaging his two feet.
9.10
She was clothed in spotless garments, wearing a serpent sacred thread, / dark, lotus-petal-eyed, and adorned with all ornaments.
9.11
For a whole thousand yugas, this Narmadā, knowing [all], / of fair complexion, attended upon the deeply sleeping lord of the gods.
9.12
With the four Vedas stolen away, Brahmā too, along with Maheśvara, / praised the imperishable Śaṅkara together with his mind-born sons beginning with Bhṛgu,
9.13
with supreme devotion, O king, [praising] the faultless Śambhu there, / lauding the lord of the gods there with mantras originating from Īśvara.
9.14
[Brahmā] stood near, awakening the sleeping god, Īśāna: / “Arise, O Hara, yellow-eyed one, Mahādeva, Maheśvara!
9.15
All my Vedas have been stolen; therefore I am ready to praise [you]. / By the Vedas the entire world is pervaded—divine and non-divine, moving and unmoving.
9.16
The past and the present I remember, and I create. / But without them, I am alone, mute, blind, and always like an inert stone.
9.17
Motion, vigor, strength, and energy do not arise without them; / without them, O lord of the gods, I indeed remember nothing at all.
9.18
You ought to give me those Vedas swiftly, O lord of the gods! / The entire world, unmoving and moving, has become inert, blind, and deaf.
9.19
The fourteen realms do not shine, O lord of gods; / devoid of the Vedas, I bow down because of my diminished vigor, O lord of gods!
9.20
From the Vedas arose everything whatever, moving and unmoving; / all sacred treatises shine, O teacher of the world, only as long
9.21
as this eternal treasury of the Vedas is not present. / Just as darkness goes to destruction when the sun has risen,
9.22
even so all sins go [to destruction] from holding the Veda. / That which is subtle in the secret [knowledge] of the Veda, that which is the eternal Brahman—
9.23
residing in the heart, O god, I know it has gone from the roaring of the Vedas. / As I was reciting the Vedas today before you, O Śaṅkara,
9.24
suddenly those Vedas were gone; I cannot create the earth, O omnipresent one! / They too have all entered the ocean right before us, O Mahādeva!
9.25
When they are requested, O lord of the gods, let them abide in my memory. / This large-eyed daughter—she knows all [and] everyone;
9.26
she has been awake for a thousand yugas; no other could be like her! / And this great-souled sage Mārkaṇḍa is the best among the wise;
9.27
in kalpa after kalpa, O Mahādeva, he attends upon you / and performs an excellent vow for the welfare of the three worlds.”
9.28
Thus addressed by Brahmā, the supreme lord, / the lord of the gods spoke with gentle words to Narmadā, best of rivers:
9.29
“Tell Brahmā who is inquiring, O highly fortunate one: / by whom were all the Vedas stolen from the creator, the teacher of the world?”
9.30
Thus addressed by Rudra, the doe-eyed one said: / “While Brahmā was muttering the Vedas and you were asleep, O Maheśvara,
9.31
finding a gap in you, in this dreadful expanse covered with water, / two asuras born in a previous kalpa, invincible to the gods,
9.32
enveloped in fortune, O Mahādeva, who were created by you long ago, / difficult to be conquered by gods or asuras, the two dānavas Madhu and Kaiṭabha—
9.33
the two of them, having become wind, subtle, quickly stole the Vedas / from this Grandfather as he was reciting, and entered the great ocean.”
9.34
Having heard this, the words from the immortal one, he of great splendor / remembered that lord of gods who holds the conch, discus, and mace.
9.35
He, the best among the gods, entered the surface of the earth, O great king— / the god who destroys the dānavas, worshipped by all deities.
9.36
Assuming the form of a fish, the divine lord churned the ocean, / and there the master saw the Vedas deposited in the netherworld.
9.37
Madhusūdana saw those two daityas of great valor, / of great speed and mighty arms, and destroyed them with his fiery energy.
9.38
There the teacher of the world brought the Vedas situated in the water; / adorned with the discus, he gave [them] to the four-faced god.
9.39
Then, rejoiced at having recovered the Vedas, the lord Grandfather / once again produced the entire world, moving and unmoving.
9.40
And that divine, holy river, the attendant of Rudra, / purifying all beings, then flowed with water.
9.41
Then, on her bank, the gods and the ascetics rich in penance / worship Tryambaka, the god, with delighted inner souls.
9.42
A single form of the great lord, entered into another cause, / through the three qualities performs action in the forms of Brahmā, the wielder of the discus, and the Lord.
9.43
Those who, utterly deluded, consider them to be separate— / how can religious merit or attainment arise for those evildoers?
9.44
Thus these three great rivers arose from Rudra; / being only one, she became threefold: Gaṅgā, Revā, and Sarasvatī.
9.45
Gaṅgā is a Vaiṣṇava form, destroying all sins, / and in the very same way Narmadā arose from Rudra's body.
9.46
Sarasvatī is a form of Brahmā, renowned in the three worlds; / divine, moving at will, the goddess is stationed for the manifestation of speech.
9.47
Narmadā is a supreme, auspicious portion in mortal form; / divine, moving at will, the goddess is worshipped everywhere by the gods,
9.48
pervading all beings, considered subtler than the subtle, / imperishable, immortal, the best stairway to heaven,
9.49
created by Rudra to carry the worlds across the ocean of worldly existence.
9.50
Even those who drink her flowing water in the world are freed from multitudes of distinct sins; / abandoning the state of beginningless worldly existence, they go forever to the pure state of liberation.
9.51
As is Gaṅgā, so is Revā, and so also is Sarasvatī; / equal fruit of religious merit is declared through bathing, seeing, and meditating [on them].
9.52
By virtue of a boon given, the highly fortunate one is said by the wise to be superior: / because of her compassionate inner nature, she did not perish but arrived [here].
9.53
Therefore, by the auspicious acts of bathing [and] by sight, they are freed from sins, / O best of kings, who bow to the three-eyed one at the Narmadā.
9.54
Since this great river was born from the bodies of Umā and Rudra, / she leads the worlds to heaven; by that she has attained holiness.
9.55
Whoever, having thus distinguished the goddess as the body of the supreme Īśāna, listens [to this glorification] here, / goes to Rudra with great acclaim, as if being praised in song by Gandharvas and Yakṣas.
9.55.p1
|| Thus ends the ninth chapter, titled 'The Account of the Origin of the Narmadā, the Fruit of Bathing in It, and Related Matters', in the glorification of the Narmadā, within the Revākhaṇḍa of the Avantyakhaṇḍa, in the Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses, the glorious Skandapurāṇa.
9.55.p2
Revākhaṇḍa Chapter 10
Linked texts (1)
- Revākhaṇḍa (Vāyupurāṇa) — Sanskrit