See for the online version with illustrations, music and links to the previous translation: http://bhagavata.org/ 

S'RÎMAD BHÂGAVATAM

'The story of the fortunate one'

CANTO 2: The Cosmic Manifestation

Chapter 1 The First Step in God realization.

Chapter 2 The Lord in the heart.

Chapter 3 Pure Devotional Service: The Change in Heart.

Chapter 4 The Process of Creation

Chapter 5 The Cause of all Causes

Chapter 6 The Hymn of the Original Person Confirmed

Chapter 7 Brief Description of the Past and Coming Avatâras

Chapter 8 Questions by King Parîkchit

Chapter 9 Answering by Citing the Lords Version

Chapter 10 Bhâgavatam is the Answer to all Questions

 Chapter 1

The First Step in God Realization

(-) My obeisances unto the Supreme Lord Vâsudeva. (1) S'rî S'uka said: ' The question you asked is a glorious one, as being beneficial to all man, o King, It carries the approval of the transcendentalists and constitutes the Supreme for everybody in all kinds of hearing. (2) There are countless of subject matters to hear about in human society, o Emperor, that are the interest of those materially engrossed who are blind to the reality of the soul. (3) Wasting their nights sleeping or indulging in sex they either spend their lives during the day with making money, or with maintaining their family, o King. (4) In spite of experiencing the destructivity of the fallible soldiers of the body, the children, the wife and everything thereto, they, being too attached, do not see. (5) For this reason, o descendant of Bharata, must the Supersoul, the Supreme Personality who is the controller and vanquishing Lord, be heard of, be glorified and also be remembered as He frees the ones in desire from anxiety. (6) All this analyzing in the knowledge of yoga of one's particular nature and on how a person from his birth should attain to the full awareness of the Supreme, in the end only concerns the remembrance of Nârâyana [Krishna as the Supreme Personality]. (7) Predominantly those sages, o King, who through the restrictions are transcendentally situated above the regulative principles, are the ones taking pleasure in distinctly describing the glories of the Lord.

(8) This story called the Bhâgavatam containing the essence of the Vedas, was by me, at the end of this Dvâpara Yuga [the age of honoring monarchs] studied with my father Dvaipâyana Vyâsa. (9) In spite of being fully realized in transcendence my attention was drawn towards the enlightened verses on the pastimes, o saintly King, of which I studied the content. (10) Those I will recite to you, as you from your good self are a most sincere devotee - they who give full respect and attention very soon will find an unflinching faith in Mukunda [Krishna as the Lord granting liberation]. (11) Of those free from material desires, of those who are desirous ànd of all who free from fear and doubts are united within [the yogis], o King, is it to the decided truth of the Lord His holy name that one is ['always'] singing in succession. (12) What is there better, to the bewildered in the inexperienced of their many years in this world, than a moment of consciously trying for the matter of the supreme interest? (13) The saintly king known as Khatvânga, knowing that the duration of life in this world is but a moment, set aside everything and experienced the full safety of the Lord. (14) O, member of the Kuru-family, therefore also your life's duration limited to seven days should inspire you to perform everything that traditionally belongs to the rituals for a next life. (15) Seeing the end of one's life one should be free from the fear of death in cutting, by means of the weapon of non-attachment, with all desires, as well as with everybody associated with them. (16) Piously self-controlled having left one's home for a sacred place, one should, properly cleansed and purified, seat oneself poised, in solitude according the regulations. (17) The mind should be set to the practice of the three transcendental letters [A-U-M], and thus one attains, without forgetting the seed of the absolute [Brahman, the impersonal spirit], to the control of the supreme by regulating the breath. (18) For the sake of the virtue, being fixed in meditation, withdraw the mind from the senses their engagement, for, being absorbed in fruitive labor, the intelligence tends to be driven by the mind. (19) Concentrating, without losing sight of the complete, the mind thereafter on the different parts and divisions [of the body as also of the logic], one should consequently not think of anything but the feet of that Supreme Vishnu, the reconciler of the mind. (20) By the passion and inertia of nature the mind is always agitated and bewildered, but one will find that rectified in the concentration of the pacified that destroys all the wrong done. (21) Being fixed in the habit of such systematic remembrance the mystics holding on to this devotion will soon attain to success in the shelter of the yoga that sees this as all-good.

(22) The king, attentive to what was said, asked: 'O brahmin, what is in short the idea of where and how a person must engage in or hold on to, to escape without delay from a polluted mind?'

(23) S'rî S'uka said: 'From the controlled sitting and breathing, one's association to the senses about the gross matter of the Supreme Lord His features, must engage the thinking intelligently. (24) His individual body is this gross material world wherein we experience all past, the present and future of this universe its existence. (25) This outer shell of the universe known as a body with seven coverings [fire, water, earth, sky, ego, noumenon and phenomenon, see also kos'as], is the conception of the object of the Universal Form of the purusha as the Supreme Lord. (26) The lower worlds are recognized by the ones who studied it as the soles of His feet [called Pâtâla] to which His heels and toes are called Rasâtala, His ankles Mahâtala while the shanks of the gigantic person are called the Talâtala worlds. (27) The two knees of the Universal Form are called Sutala, the thighs Vitala and Atala and the hips are named Mahîtala, o King, while outer space is taken to be the depression of His navel. (28) The higher illumined worlds are of His chest, with above it the neck called Mahar, His mouth called Jana while Tapas is the name of the worlds of the forehead with Satyaloka [the world of Truth] as the uppermost of the [middle] worlds of the Original Personality who has a thousand heads. (29) The gods headed by Indra are His arms, the four directions are His ears and sound is His sense of hearing. The nostrils of the Supreme are the As'vinî-kumâras [a type of demigods], while fragrance is His sense of smell and His mouth the blazing fire. (30) The sphere of outer space are the pits of His eyes, while the eyeball of the sun is making up His seeing. The eyelids of Vishnu are the day and night, the movements of His eyebrows are the supreme entity [Brahmâ and other demigods], His palate is the director of water [Varuna] and His tongue is verily the nectarine juice. (31) They say that the vedic hymns are the thought process of the Unlimited One, that His jaws make up Yamarâja [the Lord of death], His teeth are His affection and that His smile is the most alluring unsurpassable material energy [mâyâ]; the material creation is but the casting of His glance. (32) Modesty is His upper lip, His chin for sure the hankering, religion is His breast, and the way of irreligion His back. Brahmâ is His genitals, His testicles are the Mitrâ-varunas [the friends], His waist the oceans and the stack of His bones are the mountains. (33) His veins are the rivers and the plants and trees are the hairs on the body of the Universal Form, o King. The air is His omnipotent breathing, the passing ages are His movement and the reactions of the modes of material nature are His activities. (34) Let me tell you that the hairs on the head of the Supreme Controller are the clouds, o best of the Kurus, and that the intelligence of the Almighty is the prime cause of the material creation, so one says. His mind, the reservoir of all changes, is known as the moon. (35) The material principle constitutes His consciousness, so one says, while Lord S'iva is the cause within (His ego, His self). The horse, mule, camel and elephant are His nails, and all other game and quadrupeds are represented in the region of His belt. (36) The singing of the birds is His artistic sense and Manu, the father of man forms the contents of His thought with humanity as His residence. The angelic and celestial beings [the Gandharvas, Vidyâdharas and Caranas] constitute His musical rhythm while the remembrance of terrorizing soldiers represents His prowess. (37) With the intellectuals [brahmins] for the face and the rulers [kshatriyas] for the grip of the Universal Form, are the traders [vais'yas] the thighs and the laborers [s'ûdras, the dark or 'Krishna'-class] those who are protected by His feet. Through the various names of the demigods He overtakes with the provision of feasible goods [that appease Him] through the performance of sacrifices.

(38) I explained all these locations in the Form of the Supreme Lord to you so that anyone who may concentrate the mind on this virâth-rûpa Universal Form can attain through intelligence, as beyond Him as such there is nothing else to be found in the gross of matter. (39) He who from all realization knows everyone as the Supersoul as much as a dreamer sees it, is the one and only Supreme Truth and ocean of bliss. Towards Him one should never worship anything else or else see oneself degraded by attachments.'

Chapter 2  

The Lord in the Heart

(1) S'rî S'uka said: 'Soon, the soul from its birth, meditating the Universal Form regains its lost memories in thus finding peace with the Lord, whereafter, with a cleared vision, it can rebuild its life the way it was before. (2) For certain the adherence to the spiritual makes the intelligence, because of its many names, ponder over meaningless ideas in which one wanders around in realities of illusion and its different desires without ever enjoying, as if one is dreaming. (3) Therefore the enlightened person in the world of names should restrict himself to the bare necessities without being mad of desire, intelligently being fixed [on the Universal Form] in order to be successful. He should arrive at the practical insight that otherwise he would endeavor for the sake of hard work only. (4) What is the need of a bed, when one can lie on the ground; what is the need of a pillow when one has his arms; why should one use utensils if one can eat with one's hands and with the cover of trees, what is the use of clothing? (5) Aren't there rags lying on the road, isn't there giving in charity; don't the trees offer their alms maintaining others; have the rivers dried up; are the caves closed; did the Almighty Lord give up His protecting the surrendered soul? Then why should a learned man flatter the ones intoxicated by wealth? (6) Thus will for certain with the worship of the in one's heart so dearly cherished goal of the Supersoul perfect in itself, in detachment from the world for the sake of Him, the Eternal and Unlimited Supreme Lord, give the highest and lasting gain in which the cause of material bondage no doubt will find its end. (7) Who else but the materialists would by neglecting the transcendental thoughts take to the non-permanent of names and see themselves, the general mass of the people, fallen into the river of suffering being overtaken by the misery that is the consequence of their own work?

(8) Others see in the meditation on Him within their own body in the region of the heart the Personality of God residing there measuring eight inches in the notion of Him as having four arms, carrying the lotus, the wheel of the chariot, the conchshell and the club. (9) With His mouth expressing happiness, His eyes wide spread like a lotus, His clothes yellowish like a Kadamba flower bedecked with jewels and with golden ornaments studded with precious stones, He wears a glowing headdress with earrings. (10) His feet are on the whorl of the lotus hearts of the great mystics. On His chest He wears the beautifully engraved Kaustubha jewel and around His neck He has a fresh flower garland spreading its beauty. (11) With a decorative wrap around His waist, valuable finger rings, ringing leglets, bangles, oiled spotless bluish, curling hair and His beautiful, smiling face He looks very pleasing. (12) His magnanimous pastimes and the glowing glances of His expression are indicative for the extensive benedictions of this particular transcendental form of the Lord one should focus on as long as the mind can be fixed on it for one's meditation. (13) One by one, one should meditate the limbs, from the feet up, until one sees the smiling of His face, and thus gradually taking control over the mind one leaves in meditation for higher and higher spheres and purifies that way the intelligence. (14) As long as the materialist does not develop devotional service to this form of the Lord, the seer of the mundane and transcendental worlds, he should, at the end of his prescribed duties, remember the Universal Form of the Original person with proper attention.

(15) Whenever one desires to give up one's body, o King, one should as a sage without being disturbed, comfortably seated with one's thinking unperturbed by matters of time and place, control the senses by the mind in conquering the breath of life. (16) The mind, by its own pure intelligence, should, by regulating itself to the living being with all of it, merge with the self, while that self should be locked to the fully satisfied Supersoul so that it thus, ending all other activities, may attain the full bliss. (17) Therein one will not find the supremacy of time that for sure controls the godly who direct the worldly creatures with their demigods, nor will one find there mundane goodness, passion or ignorance, nor any material change or causality of intelligence or nature. (18) Knowing what and what not relates to the divine of the supreme situation, those desiring to avoid the godless give up the perplexities [of arguing to time and place] completely in the absolute of the good will taking the worshipable lotus feet in their heart at every moment. (19) Through insight the philosopher thus should retire, familiar with the science of properly regulating the energy for the purpose of life, by blocking the arse ['air-hole'] with one's heel and directing the life air upward through the six primary places [navel, plexus, heart, throat, eyebrows and top of the skull] and thus put an end to the material desire. (20) The soaring force should gradually be directed from the navel to the plexus [the 'heart'] onwards to the chest from where the meditator intelligently should search out the meditative by bringing it slowly into the throat. (21) From between the eyebrows the seer should, blocking the outlet of the seven centers and maintaining to the fearless, independent of sense enjoyment, for a while ('half an hour'), enter the domain of the head and give up for the sake of the Supreme.

(22) If however one maintains a desire, o King, to lord over, what one calls, the place of enjoyment of the gods in the sky, or with the eight mystic powers, [the eight siddhis] in the world of the gunas [the modes of nature] one will surely have to take it up with the mind and the senses that come along with it also. (23) One says of the destination of the great transcendentalists who reside within and without of the three worlds, that they exist from within the air of the subtle body, while those who do their work materially motivated never attain to the progress to which those in the absorption of yoga achieve in the austerity of devotional service.

(24) In the control of the divinity of fire one reaches, following the movements in the sky, through the gracious passage of breath [the sushumnâ], the pure spirit [Brahmaloka, place of the Creator] that is illuminating and washing off the contaminations, after which one reaching upward attains to the circle [the cakra, the wheel], o King, called S'is'umâra [meaning: dolphin, to the form of the Milky Way, galactic time]. (25) Passing beyond that navel of the universe, the pivot of the Maintainer [Vishnu], is by the single living entity purified by the realization of his smallness, the place reached worshipable to those transcedentally situated, where the self-realized souls enjoy for the time of a kalpa [a day of Brahmâ]. (26) Thereupon, will he, who sees from the bed of Vishnu [Ananta] the universe burning to ashes by the fire of His mouth, be gone from that place to the supreme abode [of Brahmâ] that, home to the purified souls of elevation, lasts for two parârdhas [the two halves of the life of Brahmâ]. (27) There one will never find bereavement or old age, death, pain or anxieties, save that one sometimes has feelings of compassion, seeing how the ignorant are subjected to the hard to vercome misery of the repetition of birth and death.

(28) Without doubt from that pure self one attains, surpassing the forms of water and fire, to the effulgent atmosphere where, in due course of time, the self by its air attains to the ethereal, the real greatness of the soul. (29) By smelling scents, by the taste of the palate, by the seeing of forms and being in touch through physical contact, and, as it were, through aural reception attaining to the identification with the ethereal, the yogi by the senses also attains to material actions. (30) In the mode of goodness he surpasses the change to the material form by neutralizing the gross and subtle senses, seeing by that progress the wisdom of true reality [selfrealization] coming along in that complete suspension of the [operating] material modes. (31) The person by that purification to the self of the Supersoul attains to the rest, satisfaction and natural delight of being freed from all contaminations. He who attains to this destination of devotion for sure will never become attracted to this material world again, my dearest [Parîkchit].

(32) All that I described to you, o protector of man, is according to the Vedas as your Majesty properly requested for, and it is also verily in accord with the eternal truth as it definitely was heard in the pure of the spirit to the satisfaction of the worshiped Supreme Lord Vâsudeva. (33) For those wandering in this life in the material universe, is there for sure nothing more auspicious as a means of attaining than that at which is aimed in the devotional service [bhakti-yoga] towards the Supreme Personality Lord Vâsudeva. (34) The great personality [Vyâsadeva] studied the Vedas three times, and scrutinizingly examining with scholarly attention, he ascertained that one's mind is properly fixed in being attracted to the soul. (35) The Supreme Personality can be perceived in all living beings as the actual nature of that soul; as the Lord who is discerned by the intelligence of the seer in different signs and suppositions. (36) Therefore must every human soul, o King, wherever and whenever hear about, glorify and remember the Lord, the Supreme Personality. (37) Those who drink the nectar filling their ears with the narrations about the Supreme Lord, the dearest to the devotees, will purify their material enjoyment, the polluted aim of life, and go back to the feet that reside near the lotus.'

Chapter 3  

Pure Devotional Service: The Change in Heart

(1) S'rî S'ukadeva said: 'For the intelligent among men, I have given you all the answers in response to the inquiring of your good self about the human being on the threshold of death. (2-7) The ones who desire for the luster of the absolute worship the master of the Vedas; Indra, the King of Heaven is for the ones desiring strength of the senses [sex] and the Prajâpatis [the strong progenitors] are for those who desire offspring. The goddess [Durgâ] is for those desiring after the beauty of the material world, the firegod for the ones desiring power, for wealth there are the Vasus [a type of demigod] and the incarnations of Rudra [Lord S'iva] are for those wishing for strength and heroism. For a good harvest the mother of the demigods Aditi is worshiped, desiring heaven one worships her sons, for those desiring royal riches there are the Vis'vadeva demigods and for a commercial success there are the Sâdhya gods. The As'vinîs [two brother demigods] are for the desire for longevity, for a strong body the earth is worshiped and those who want to maintain their position and be renown respect their environment up to the horizon. Aspiring beauty there are the heavenly Gandharvas, those who want a good wife seek the girls of the heavenly society [the Apsaras and Urvas'îs] and everybody who wants to dominate over others is bound to the worship of Brahmâ, the head of the Universe. Yajña, the Lord of Sacrifice is worshiped for tangible fame and for a good bank balance Varuna the treasurer is sought. But those who desire to learn worship S'iva himself while for a good marriage his chaste wife Umâ is honored.

(8) Thus for spiritual progress the supreme truth [Lord Vishnu and His devotees] is worshiped, for offspring and their protection one seeks the ancestral [the residents of Pitriloka], pious persons are sought by those seeking protection while the demigods in general are for the less common desires. (9) The godly Manus [the fathers of mankind] are for those desiring a kingdom, but the demons are sought for defeating enemies. The ones desiring sense gratification are bound to the moon [Candra], while those who are free from desire worship the Supreme Personality beyond. (10) Whether free from desire, full of it or desiring liberation, the person with a broader intelligence should with all his heart worship in devotional service [bhakti-yoga] the Original Personality of God, the Supreme Whole. (11) All these types of worshipers surely develop, worshiping the highest benediction in this life, unflinching spontaneous attraction to the Supreme Lord through the association with His pure devotees. (12) The knowledge leading to the limit of the complete withdrawal from the whirlpool of the material modes, gives the satisfaction of the soul, which to the transcendence in detachment of these modes, carries the blessings of the path of bhakti yoga. Who, absorbed in the narrations about the Lord would not act on this attraction?"

(13) S'aunaka said: "What did the king, the ruler of Bharata, after hearing all this, want to know more from the son of Vyâsadeva, the poetic wise? (14) O learned Sûta, explain to us, who are eager to hear about it, these topics that lead to the narrations about the Lord that certainly are welcome in the assembly of the devotees. (15) He, the king, was no doubt a great devotee, that grandson of the Pândavas; a great fighter who playing with dolls as a child enacted the activities of Lord Krishna. (16) And so was it also bound to be with the son of Vyâsadeva, there in the presence of the devotees, because of his great qualities in his attachment to the Supreme Lord Vâsudeva who is glorified by the philosophers. (17) The rising and setting of the sun is sure to decrease [in vain] the duration of people's lives, except with the one who spends his time on the topics about the One of the Supreme Scriptural Truth. (18) Aren't the trees alive, do the blacksmith's bellows not breathe and do the beasts all around not eat and procreate? (19) A person is, just like a dog, a hog, an ass or a camel, as good as an animal if the holy name of the deliverer of all evils never reached his ear. (20) The ears of a man who never heard of Vishnu, the One of giant progress, are like those of snakes and the tongues also of those who never sung aloud the songs of worth are just as useless as those of frogs. (21) Even carrying a heavy silk turban, is the upper part of the body just a burden, never bowing down to Mukunda [Krishna granting liberation]; just like hands that are not engaged in the worship of the Lord are as those of a dead body, even though decorated with glittering golden bangles. (22) Like the eyes on the plumes of a peacock are the eyes of those men who do not look upon the forms of Vishnu and like the roots of trees are the feet of those human beings who never went for the holy places of the Lord. (23) Dead alive are the mortals who never in particular received the dust of the feet of pure devotees and, while breathing, is a descendant of Manu [a man] but a dead body when he has never experienced the wealth of the aroma of tulsî-leaves of Lord Vishnu's lotus feet. (24) Certainly is that heart steel-framed which, in spite of being absorbed in chanting the name of the Lord, does not change is not transformed with the emotional of having tears in the eyes and hairs standing on end therewith. (25) Therefore please explain, 0 Sûta Gosvâmî, as you are speaking words favorable to the pure devotee, what transcendental knowledge the expertly leading S'ukadeva Gosvâmî being questioned conveyed to the truth seeking king."

Chapter 4

 The Process of Creation

(1) Sûta said: "Just having realized what S'ukadeva Gosvâmî thus spoke about the verification of the reality of the soul, the chaste son of Uttarâ [Parîkchit] concentrated himself upon Lord Krishna. (2) In order not to be constantly disturbed, he gave up his deep-rooted affinity with his body, his wife, his son, his treasury and all his relatives and friends in the kingdom. (3-4) The great soul in full faith inquired for the purpose of this exactly the way you are asking me, o great sages. Being informed of his death he renounced his fruitive activity according the three principles [- of selfrealization: renouncing religious acts, economic development and sense gratification] and everything thereto and thus firmly fixed he achieved the attraction of love for the Supreme Lord Vâsudeva. (5) The king said: 'What you said is perfectly right, o learned one; being without contaminations you know it all and make the darkness of ignorance gradually disappear as you are speaking on the topics concerning the Lord. (6) Furthermore, I would like to learn how the Supreme Lord by His personal energies creates this phenomenal world of the universe so inconceivable for even the great masters of meditation. (7) And please tell me also about the way the powerful one maintains His energies and winds them up again, as the all-powerful Supreme Personality arriving at His expansions, involving them as also being involved Himself, enacting them and causing them to act. [see also canto1, chapter 3] (8) Even the highly learned in spite of their endeavors for Him, fall short, dear brahmin, in explaining the wonderful, inconceivable acts of the Supreme Lord. (9) Even though acting through His different incarnations He is the One and Supreme, whether He acts by modes, is there simultaneously in the material energy or is manifesting in many forms consecutively. (10) Please clear up these questions asked by me; since you, being as good as the Supreme Lord, are as well of the oral tradition with the vedic literatures as of full realization in transcendence'."

(11) Sûta said: "Upon thus being requested by the king to describe the transcendental attributes of Lord Hrishîkes'a [Krishna as the master of the senses] S'uka, in order to reply properly, proceeded methodically.

(12) S'rî S'uka said: 'My obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who for the maintenance as well as the winding up of the complete whole of the material creation, by His pastimes assumed the power of the three modes while residing within as the One whose ways are inconceivable. (13) Again my obeisances to Him who frees the truthful from the distressing controversies of the ones of untruth and again unto Him who is the form of pure goodness, granting all that is sought by those situated in the status of the highest stage of spiritual perfection [the paramahamsas]. (14) Let me offer my obeisances unto the great associate of the Yadu-dynasty who, keeping far from mundane wrangling, vanquishes the nondevotees. I bow down to Him who is of the same greatness of enjoying in opulences as in enjoying in His own abode the spiritual sky. (15) Of Him whose glorification, remembrance, audience, prayers, hearing and worship forthwith cleanses the effects of sin of all people; unto Him of whom one hears as being the all-auspicious one, I bring my due obeisances again and again. (16) The bright ones who by simply dedicating themselves to His lotus feet give up all attachments for a present or future existence completely, for sure realize without difficulty the progress of the heart and the soul towards the spiritual existence; unto that renown all-auspicious One my obeisances again and again. (17) The great sages, the great performers of charity, the most distinguished, the great thinkers, the great mantra chanters and the strict followers will never attain to tangible results without being dedicated to Him, unto Him so auspicious to hear about I offer my obeisances again and again. (18) The People of old Bharata, Europe, southern India, Greece, Pulkas'a [een province], Âbhîra [part of old Sind], S'umbha [another province], Turkey, Mongolia and yet others also addicted to sin who take to the shelter of the Lord His devotees at once get purified; towards Him, the powerful Lord Vishnu, my respectful obeisances. (19) He is the soul and Lord of the selfrealized; the personification of the Vedas, the religious literatures and austerity; the one held in awe by those above all pretensions, the Unborn One [Brahmâ] and Lord S'iva; o Supreme Lord, may your kindness be with me. (20) Of all opulence the owner, the director of all sacrifices, the leader of all living entities, the master of the intelligent, the ruler of all worlds, the supreme head of the planet Earth as well as the destination of the kings of the Yadu-dynasty in being the first among them; o Supreme Lord, master of all the devotees, be merciful upon me. (21) It is said that thinking of His lotus feet, at each moment absorbed, gives, purifying, following the authorities, for sure the pure knowledge of the ultimate reality of the soul and also that it makes the scholars describe Him the way they want; o Mukunda, my Supreme Lord, may Your grace always be with me. (22) May He who inspired the Goddess of Learning from the beginning and strengthened the first of creation [Lord Brahmâ] with remembrance in the heart about his own nature, while He Himself seemed to have been created from his mouth - may He, the Teacher of Teachers, be pleased with me. (23) He who lies down within the material creation empowering all these bodies made of the material elements while as the purusha [the original person] causing all to be subjected to the modes of nature with her sixteen divisions [consciousness , the elements of earth, water, fire, air, sky, the five organs of action and the senses]; may that Supreme Lord be the illustration of my statements. (24) My obeisances unto Him, the great lord of Vâsudeva [Vyâsadeva incarnate], the compiler of the vedic literatures, from whose lotus mouth his adherents drank the nectar of this knowledge. (25) The first one [Vyâsadeva; Brahmâ], my dear king, imparted, on the request of Nârada, from the inside, the vedic knowledge exactly as it was spoken by the Lord in the heart.'

Chapter 5  

The Cause of all Causes

(1) Nârada said [to the Creator]: 'My obeisances to you, o god of the demi-gods, as you are the first one, giving life to the living beings. Please explain which knowledge specifically directs the transcendental. (2) What is the form, the background and from where is this world created, o master, how is it conserved, what controls it and please what of this is factually real? (3) All this for sure is known by your good self, as you know all that has become, will become and is becoming, master, the universe is like a walnut in your scientific grip. (4) What is the source of your wisdom, under whose protection and ordination are you and in what capacity do you alone create the lives of all beings with the elements of matter that are for sure empowered by the soul? (5) Employed like a spider, you self-sufficient manifest without any help out of your own all those [lives] without being defeated yourself. (6) Whether or not I know myself as superior or inferior in this world, or as an equal, o powerful one, the qualities of name and form of all that eternally came into existence are just temporary, like anything else that originated from another source. (7) He, who of his good self undertook severe meditation in perfect discipline and made us suffer for that reason gives us the chance to doubt on the good of the ultimate truth. (8) All this I wonder about with all the inquiries on the all-knowing controller over all; please explain this so that I will surely be able to understand it myself as a follower of your argument.'

(9) The Creator answered: 'O gentle one, so dear to me, you are very kind in your perfect inquiries that inspire me to the heroism of the Supreme Lord. (10) You don't miss the point in what you just said in your describing me; my dear, without the Supreme beyond, knowing me it will certainly be the way you said it about me. (11) From the light of the radiating world [called brahmajyoti] I do manifest just like the sun and the fire, as well as the moon as also the firmament with its planets between the stars. (12) My obeisances are unto Him, the Supreme Lord Vâsudeva upon whom I meditate, by whose invincible potencies one calls me the teacher [guru] of the world. (13) Being shameful of staying in front with the bewildering material energy, those who are deluded abuse their words in talking of 'I' and 'mine', but thus speaking I am ill understood. (14) The five elements in their interaction in Eternal Time as also the intuition or nature of the living being certainly are part of Vâsudeva, o brahmin; never is there in truth any value in them being separate. (15) Nârâyana [Krishna as the four-armed original Personality of God and primordial Lord of man] is the cause of the knowledge, the demigods are His helping hands, for His sake do the worlds exist and all sacrifices are just there to please Him, the Supreme Lord. (16) The concentration of mind is just there to know Nârâyana, austerity is just there to achieve Nârâyana, the culture of transcendence is just there to become aware of Nârâyana and the progress on the path of salvation is there only to enter the kingdom of Nârâyana. (17) Inspired by His glancing me over I become aware of His surely modeling me by His vision, control and supreme intelligence as the Supersoul of that which has become and is becoming.

(18) Of this [modal reality of] goodness, passion and slowness [see 4.23], that because of the Almighty [Lord of Time] by the external energy was accepted, are there the three qualities of transcendence: maintenance, creation and destruction. (19) Under the influence of the modes of the material energy is the eternally liberated living entity conditioned to the material knowledge [of I and mine] that manifests by the symptoms of cause and effect in material activities. (20) He, this Supreme Lord who by the symptoms of all these three modes is, as the Superseer, verily unseen in His movements, o brahmin, is of everyone as well as of me the controller. (21) [The Lord of] Eternal Time, the controller of the deluding potency of matter [mâyâ] that sets the workload [karma] as also the specific nature [or svabhâva - of the living entity], by the energy of its [His] own Self appears, independently merged, employing different forms. (22) From that Eternal Time it so happened that because of the transformation of the activities created by the modes of nature, the original person His modification of the principle reality [the maha tattva] took place. (23) But of the transformation of the principle reality the modes of passion and goodness were being increased so that [countering it in reaction] a prominence of the mode of darkness took place with its single material knowledge and predominance of material activities. (24) That transformed material ego, thus said, manifested manifested itself in its three features of as well goodness, passion as ignorance, and thus, o master, were divided the powers of material action, knowledge in creation and guidance in intelligence. (25) From the idenfication with the darkness of matter surely of the transformation to that mode the [fifth element of the] sky was developed with its subtle form and qualities of sound characteristics to the seer that relates to what is seen. (26-29) Of the transformation to the sky one came through the quality of the air in touch with the previous in succession to the full of sound [the oral tradition e.g.] and thus also to a life of discrimination and the might of strength. Likewise fransforming to that air time as a reaction to the past naturally generated the element of fire duly giving form, touch and sound also [in books e.g.]. Of that fire of being transformed it also happened that one came in touch with the juices and taste of the element of water which, like seen before, also gave sound in succession [tears, saliva, semen, blood, milk]. But by the variegatedness of that transformation of water next in succession became the odorous [of the earth element] of the juice taking the form of the qualities of touch and sound. (30) From the mode of goodness [thus] the mind of the godly generated that act in that goodness, counting the ten of them as the controller of the directions, the air, the sun, the waters [Varuna], the longevity [As'vini Kumâra's associated with the smell], the fire, the heavens [Indra], the deity of transcendence, ceasing [Mitra, associated with the evacuation] and the spirit [Brahmâ]. (31) From the passion of ego the according tenfold transformation concerning the power of knowledge and action to the five senses took place giving the intelligence to the living energy of all its hearing, touching, smelling, seeing and tasting to the speaking, handling, procreating, walking and defecating. (32) For the time that all these elements of the senses and the mind to the modes of nature remained separate, for that time the body [of man and mankind] could not be formed, o [Nârada] best one in knowledge. (33) When all those [elements] one after another assembled by the Supreme Energy were applied and that also in acceptance of their primary and secondary nature, both [likewise material and spiritual realities] of this universe clearly came into being.

(34) Countless millennia that universal reality remained drowned in the [causal] waters until the individual soul [jîva or the Lord] of the action of eternal time to the modes of nature caused the non-animated to be animated. (35) He Himself as the original person [the purusha] came out from within the universal egg dividing Himself in thousands of divisions of legs, arms, eyes, mouths and heads. (36) The great philosophers imagine that all the worlds in the universe are like the limbs of the body with seven systems to the lower and seven to the upper part of what can be seen. (37) Of the mouth of the original personal the brahmins manifested, the ruling class came from His arms, from the Supreme Lord His thighs the traders came forth while the laborer class is of His legs. (38) The earthly [lower] worlds are of His legs one says, the ethereal worlds are from His belly, the heavenly worlds from the heart are of the chest while the supreme worlds of the saints and sages are of the great Soul. (39) While up to the neck one finds the worlds of manhood and next from the chest the worlds of renunciation and the worlds of truth with the head, it is the worlds of the spirit that are found in the eternal. (40-41) With down his waist the first of the lower worlds, the second on the hips, the third down to the knees, the fourth on the shanks, the fifth from His ankles, the sixth on His feet and the seventh on the soles of His feet [compare 2-1: 26-39], the body of the Lord [virât rûpa or universal form] is full of all the worlds. (42) Thus one [threefold] imagines oneself the earthly planets situated on the legs, the ethereal worlds on the region of His navel and the heavenly worlds from the chest upward or else the worlds as assumed otherwise [in a four or fourteen division]."   

Chapter 6

The Hymn of the Original Person Confirmed.

(1) The Creator said: 'Voicing the fire the mouth is the center generating the hymns to which there are seven coverings [worlds ...] of offering the nectar and all sorts of food to the tongue in respect of all the delicate. (2) To the nose there is the life-air and the air outside for the generation of the transcendental experience of longevity [the As'vini demigods] with all the medicinal herbs and the taking of pleasure in fragrances. (3) The eyes that see all kinds of forms as also all illumined that glitters to the eyeball of the sun accompany the hearing of the ears from all directions of all the sounds of veneration resounding in the sky. (4) His surface [of the Universal Form] is the ground for all articles and auspicious opportunities as well as the field for production, while His skin of the moving airs makes the touch surely generating all kinds of sacrifices also. (5) His bodily hair is the vegetation in the kingdoms, from which in particular the sacrifices are done to which the hair on His head, His facial hear and His nails make for the stones, iron-ore and clouds with their electricity. (6) His arms, the governing men of god, do mostly provide and protect the general mass. (7) His progressing with the lower and middle worlds as well as in heaven, providing for all that is needed of fearlessness and all the benedictions, is exactly known by the Lord His lotusfeet giving shelter. (8) Of water, of semen and of the generative of rains one realizes oneself the genitals of the Creator, the Lord and also the spot wherefrom the happiness originates engendered by the [need of the] begetting [of offspring or cultural products]. (9) O Nârada, the hole where the evacuation of the Universal Form takes place is of Mitra, the controlling deity of everything running to its end and is the rectum where envy, misfortune, death and hell is remembered. (10) Of frustration, immorality and ignorance His backside is found, while the rivers and streams [as said] make for His veins and the mountains for the stack of His bones. (11) The unseen mover [the time] of the seas and oceans of the becoming and annihilated beings seen from His belly [the middle worlds, S'iva], is known by the intelligent as the [beating] heart with the subtle body for its location.

(12) Your, mine and also my sons [the Kumâras] heartening of the [religious] duties in the continuity [S'iva, the continuing soul facing the destruction] and the transcendental knowledge is also the dependent consciousness [soul] of truth to the great personality. (13-16) Me, you, the Lord continuing [S'iva], as also certainly the great sages before you, the godly, the demoniac, the human beings and the excellent [the Nâgas], the birds, the beasts, the reptiles and all the heavenly beings as well as the plants and many other living entities on the land, in the waters and in the sky, together with the asteroids, the radiant leading stars, the comets, the lightening and thunder - certainly as whatever was, is and will be created, are all together of the Original Person who covers all in the idea of measuring only half a foot [see also 2.2: 8]. (17) The same way the sun illumines to the expansion [from the inside] of the living energy working as well from the outside, so also brings, by the expansion of the universal form, the Supreme Personality life to the internal as well as to the external. (18) He is the controller of the immortal and fearless in the transcendence over death and the fruit of anyone and therefore, o Nârada, are the glories of the Original Personality seen as being immeasurable.

(19) Beyond the material covering of the three worlds you should know the Supreme refuge of all the living beings as the one fourth that gives the immortality, fulfillment and fearlessness. (20) Situated beyond the three fourths are the ones of the status of not returning [the detached ones], while the others who cling to their family life without strictly following the celibate, are of the three worlds. (21) Thus neatly ordering the destination of the living beings, the Maintainer rules the devotion of both the nescient as the factually knowing and is thus as the Original Personality of God the master of both of them. (22) From whom all the planets and the gigantic universal form came, appeared the elements and the senses to the material qualities of the universes, to which the surpassing of that Universal Form is alike the way the sun relates to its distributed rays and heat.

(23) When I took birth from the lotus flower from the navel of this great person, I did, except for the personal limbs of the Original Person not know of the ingredients for performing sacrifices. (24) For the performance of sacrifices, the sacrificed such as flowers and leaves with the burning material [such as straw] is needed together with an altar as also the great of time [a calendar e.g.] in following the modes of nature. (25) Utensils, grains, fuel [clarified butter], sweetener ['honey'], capital ['gold'] and a fire place ['earth'], water, the scriptures ['Rig, Yajur and Sâma Veda'] and [at least] four [leading] persons are comprised in this, o pious one. (26) It also involves the invocation of holy names and mantras as also contributions and vows concerning the specific godhead at hand for which there is a particular scripture for each specific purpose. (27) For progressing to the ultimate goal by means of the worship and surely also the compensation with the ultimate offerings to the diverse parts of the body of the Original Person [the representing demigods], I arranged for the ingredients. (28) Thus well-equipped executed by all those expansions of the Original Person, I worshiped the Supreme Personality, the original enjoyer of all sacrifices. (29) Thereafter your [god-]brothers, the nine masters of the living creatures [schools; demigods next to Brahmâ; compare 5:30], performed for the personalities seen and unseen with proper ritual. (30) In following those [schools or demigods] also the Manu's, the fathers of mankind, worshiped in due course of time, pleasing Him, as well as did other great sages, forefathers, scholars, devotees, and mankind as a whole .

(31) Unto Nârâyana, the Personality of Godhead, all these greatly powerful manifestations having accepted the material illusion of form in the universal came into the existence of creation, maintenance and destruction although He on Himself is self-sufficient above it. (32) To His will, I create while under His subordination S'iva destroys, with Himself thereto as the controller of the three energies maintaining the whole Universe as the Original Person.

(33) Thus I explained all this to you, my dear, as you asked for, concerning the matter of never having anything else beyond the Supreme Lord in thinking of cause and effect. (34) O Nârada, for sure never did this state of mind prove to be false at any time, nor was my train of thought ever in untruth nor were my senses degraded in the temporal, because my heart with great zeal had caught hold of the Lord. (35) Being successful in the austerities of vedic wisdom according disciplic succession, worshipable as the master of all the forefathers and expert and self-realized in the practice of yoga, I could not completely understand Him from whom the self generated. (36) I am [therefore] devoted to the all-auspicious feet of the Lord of the surrendered souls, who stop the repetition of birth's and death and who give the vision of happiness; one surely cannot estimate the potency of His personal energies - as the way the sky can't see its own limit, therefore how can others know? (37) Since neither I, nor all you sons, nor the Destroyer can factually know [of all] His movements, what else then would the other god-conscious? The intelligence bewildered by the illusory energy of what is created can only see as far as one's ability reaches.

(38) Unto Him, the Supreme Lord, our respectful obeisances, whose incarnation and activities we glorify, although we do not know Him fully. (39) He, the very Primordial Original Personality in each millennium creates from the unborn soul to the [material] self by His own Self His own transcendental presence maintaining Himself [for some time] as well as absorbing [Himself again]. (40-41) Without a material tinge, pure and perfect in knowledge and all-pervading in His fullness He is situated in truth as the absolute without a beginning and an end, free from the modes of nature and eternally unrivaled. O wise one, the great thinkers can only understand this with a pacified self and their senses under cover, otherwise it will certainly be out of view and distorted by untenable arguments. (42) The first descend of Him [the avatâra called Kâranârnavas'âyî Vishnu] is the Original Person [the purusha], who in space-time is the cause of the mind to the elements of the material ego with its modes of nature and its senses making for the Universal Form [virât rûpa] of the movable and immovable of the Lord [also called Garbhodakas'âyî Vishnu]. (43-45) I myself [Brahmâ], the Destroyer and the Maintainer, all the fathers of the living beings like Daksha [and Manu], you yourself and the other sons [the Kumâras], the leaders of the higher worlds, the travelers, the earth and the lower worlds, the leaders of the denizens of heaven [of the Gandharva,Vidyâdhara and Cârana worlds] as well as the leaders of the demoniac [the Yakshas, Raksasa's and Uraga's] and the underworld as well as the leaders of the sages, the forefathers, the atheists, the miraculous, the uncivilized and also the dead, the evil spirits, the Jinn and Kûsmândas [other evil spirits] and the great aquatics, beasts and birds - in other words anything and everything in the world that is of power to a special degree or of a specific mental or perceptual dexterity or exceptional strength, forgiveness, beauty, modesty, opulence, intelligence or breeding are as if they are the form of His transcendental Principle Reality themselves, but in fact they are only a fragment of it. (46) O Nârada, now relish the devotion for the pastimes of all those incarnations of the Original Supreme Personality that will evaporate the foul matter accumulated in your ears. I will tell you of them one after the other as they are in my heart and pleasant to hear about.

Chapter 7

Brief Description of the Past and Coming Avatâras

(1) The Creator said: 'When the Lord attempted to lift the earth out of the great ocean [- the Garbodhaka],He assumed for His pastimes the form of the sum total of all sacrifices as the Unlimited One within the universe, being faced with the the first demon [called Hyranyâksa, the demon of gold] who was defeated by Him with His tusk [Him considered as the boar-avatâra Varâha] as if He was a thunderbolt piercing a pack of clouds.

(2) From Âkûti ['good intention'], the wife of the Prajâpati, Suyajna ['appropriate sacrifice'] was born who with his wife Dakshinâ ['the reward'] gave birth to the godly headed by Suyama ['proper regulation'] by which He greatly diminished the distress in the three worlds and because of which the father of mankind called Svâyambhuva Manu was named Hari [the Lord].

(3) Next He took birth in the house of the twice born Kardama ['the shadow of the Creator'], from the womb of Devahûti ['the invocation of the Gods'] accompanied by nine women. In teaching His mother as Lord Kapila ['the analytic one'] in spiritual realization, she in that life was freed from the soul-covering material modes and achieved liberation.

(4) The sage Atri praying for offspring, I, satisfied by his surrender, promised the Supreme Lord to be born as Datta [Dattâtreya, the given one] of whom the dust of His lotusfeet purified the body of mysticism bringing wealth to the spiritual and material worlds of Yadu [the founder of the dynasty], Haihaya [a descendant] and others.

(5) Because of my first having lived austere in penance for the sake of the creation of the different worlds the Lord appeared as the four Sana's [the four celibate son's called Sanat-Kumâra, Sanaka, Sanandana and Sanâtana]. In the epoch before, the spiritual truth was devastated in the inundation of the world, but it became completely manifest with these sages who had a clear vision of the soul.

(6) From Murti [the idol], the wife of Dharma [righteousness] and the daughter of Daksha[the able one, a prajâpati], He took the form of Nara-Nârâyana ['man, the course of man']. Thus [in that descent] by seeing the strength of [the beauties originating of] His personal penances the Supreme Lord never would see His vows broken by the celestial beauties that came to Him with Cupid [the god of love]. (7) Great stalwarts [like Lord S'iva] can overcome their being overwhelmed by lust by means of their wrathful vision, but they cannot overcome their own intolerance. To that however with having Him within the lust is afraid to enter. How can it factually recur to the attention with His mind?

(8) Incited by the sharp words uttered by a co-wife, even in the presence of the king, [He as] a boy took to severe penances in a great forest and therewith set the goal of the attainment of Dhruva [the immovable] with being prayed for to the satisfaction of the denizens of heaven as do the great sages ever since ascending and descending from that position [see also fourth Canto].

(9) When the twice born cursed King Vena [the anxious], going astray from the path of religion, it burnt him like a thunderbolt and all his great deeds and opulence went to hell. Being prayed for He delivered him coming to the earth as his son [named Prithu, the great one] as well achieving that the earth could be exploited to give all kinds of crops.

(10) As the son of King Nâbhi [the pivot] He was born as Rishabha [the best one] from Sudevi to go for the certainty of being equibalanced in the matter of yoga which is accepted by the learned sages as the highest stage of perfection, in which one does accept the selfreposed in suspension of the activities of the senses, being perfectly liberated from material influences.

(11) In a sacrifice of mine the Supreme Lord appeared with a horse-like head [called Hayagrîva] and thus He is seen as the personality of sacrifices with a golden hue from whose breathing through His nostrils the sounds of the vedic hymns, personal sacrifices and all that concerns the [Super-]soul of the godly can be heard.

(12) He who became the Manu [called Satyavrata, the truth abiding] at the end of the epoch saw that Lord Matsya [the fish] is the shelter of all living beings up to the earthly ones because of which out of a great fear for the waters, having taken to my mouth, therefrom certainly all the Vedas could be enjoyed.

(13) In the ocean of milk [knowledge] when the leaders of the immortals and their opponents where churning the mountain [called Mandara, big] for gaining the nectar the primeval Lord supported half asleep as a tortoise [called Kurma] it scratching and itching His back.

(14) As Nrisimha [the lion] He appeared as the one that takes away the fear of the god-conscious in rolling His eyebrows and showing the terrifying teeth of His mouth, immediately piercing on His lap with His nails the fallen king of the demons [Hiranyakas'ipu] who challenged Him with a club in his hands.

(15) The leader of the elephants who within the river at his leg was taken by an exceptionally strong crocodile, holding a lotus in great distress addressed [Him] like this: 'You are the original personality and Lord of the Universe and as famous as a place of pilgrimage all good ensues just hearing of Your name so worthy to chant.' (16) The Lord who heard him in his need, as the unlimited powerful one seated on the king of the birds [Garuda], cut the beak of the crocodile in two with His cakra-weapon and delivered him in His causeless mercy by pulling him out by his trunk.

(17) Although by His transcendental qualities the greatest He [as the youngest] of all the sons of Aditi [the infinite one] surpassed in this universe all the worlds [as Vâmana] and was therefore called the Lord of Sacrifice: pretending to need only three steps of land he took thus begging all the lands [of Bali Mahârâja] without ever offending the authorities he is never bereft of. (18) O Nârada, by virtue of the strength of the water that washed from the feet of the Lord, he [Bali Mahârâja], who kept it on his head and who had the supremacy over the kingdom of the godly, never tried for anything else but to keep - even at the cost of his own body - to his promise, as he was dedicated to the Lord within his own mind.

(19) Unto you, Nârada, the Supreme Lord satisfied by the developing of your goodness through your transcendental love, nicely in all detail described the light of the knowledge of yoga and the science of relating to the soul which all surrendered to Vâsudeva so perfectly know to appreciate.

(20) By His cakra and undeterred in all circumstances ['ten sides'] He in the different incarnations as the Manu-successor in the Manu-dynasty ruled over de miscreants and kings of that type subduing by the marks of His personal glories from the world of truth the three systems [see loka] thus establishing His fame.

(21) With the name of Dhanvantari ['moving in a curve'] the Supreme Lord as fame personified descended in the universe directing the knowledge for obtaining a long life by bringing the nectar from the [Kurma-churning] sacrifice that quickly cures the diseases of all living entities.

(22) With the purpose of diminishing the increasing dominance of the ruling class the great soul [as Lord Paras'urâma] as the ultimate spiritual truth abated all those thorns of the world who strayed from the path and opted for a hellish life, awfully powerful operating thrice seven times by His transcendental hatchet.

(23) By dint of His causeless all-embracing mercy, the Lord of all time [as Râma] descended in the family of Ikshvâku [the dynasty of the solar order] where on the command of his father [Das'aratha] he took to the forest with His wife [Sîtâ] and brother [Laksman] on the opposition of the ten-headed one [the demoniac ruler Râvana] that had caused great distress. (24) Unto Him the fearful Indian ocean, that saw its aquatics [sharks, seasnakes and such] burnt, quickly gave way when from a distance He, angered as he was about his aggrieved intimate friend [the kidnapped Sîtâ], meditated the city of the enemy [on the island of Lankâ] with red-hot eyes like Hara did [who wanted to burn the heavenly kingdom by his fiery looks] in desiring to burn it down. (25) When the trunk of the elephant carrying Indra broke on the chest of Râvana he was proudly overtaken by laughter strolling amidst the armies when it illumined all directions, but within no time the kidnapper was killed by the tingling of the bow [of Râma].

(26) When the entire world is in misery from the burden of the soldiers of disbelievers, He, with His plenary expansion, His beauty and His black hair, whose glorious activities are so difficult to see by the people in general, is bound to appear for the sake of the decimation of those atheists. (27) Who possibly else than He as a child could kill a living being that assumed the form of a giant demoness [Pûtanâ] or only being three months old with His leg turn over a cart and also uproot two high rising Arjuna trees? (28) At Vrindâvana [where Krishna grew up] by His merciful glance He brought back to life the cowherd boys and their animals who drank of the poisoned water [of the Yamunâ]. In order to purify [the water] from the excess of the highly potent poison he went into the river and took pleasure in punishing the snake severely that was lurking there with its venomous tongue. (29) He by His superhuman activity saved all the inhabitants of Vraja [the cowherd-village], that were sleeping that night carefreely, from being burnt by the fire that was ablaze in the dry forest. Thus to them [later on, also those cowherdboys] who were sure to see the last of their days, He together with Balarâma proved His unfathomable prowess [delivering them the same way from another fire in the forest] by simply having them closing their eyes. (30) Whatever rope His [foster] mother [Yas'odâ] tried to take to bind her son, time and again proved to be too short and that which she saw when He opened His mouth to the doubting cowherd woman were all the worlds, which convinced her thus in another way. (31) Nanda Mahârâja His [fostering] father whom He also saved from the fear for Varuna [the demigod of the waters] and the cowherd men who were held captive in the caves by the son of Maya [a demon] and also the ones [in Vrindâvana] working during the day and sleeping during the night of their hard labor, He surely awarded the highest world of the spiritual sky. (32) When the cowherd men were being stopped in their sacrifices by the king of heaven who caused the downpour of heavy rains, He, desiring to protect the animals in his causeless mercy, being only seven years of age, held up Govardhana Hill for seven days in a row, just like an umbrella playfully with one hand only without getting tired. (33) When in His nightly pastimes in the forest desiring to dance in the silver light of the moon with sweet songs and melodious music He awakened the amorous desires of the wives of Vrajabhûmi [the region of Vrindâvana], He decapitated their kidnapper [a demon known as S'ankhacûda] who was in pursuit of the riches of Kuvera [the heavenly treasurer]. (34-35) All who were like that like Pralamba, Dhenuka, Baka, Kes'î, Arishtha, Cânûra and Mushthika [wrestling for Kamsa], Kuvalayâpîda [the elephant], Kamsa [the demoniac uncle], many foreign kings [like those of Persia], the ape Dvivida, Paundraka and others, as well as kings like S'âlva, Narakâsura, Balvala, Dantavakra, Saptoksha, Sambara, Vidûratha and Rukmî and all powerful and well equipped as Kâmboja, Matsya, Kuru [the sons of Dhritarâshthra], S'rîñjaya, and Kekaya, found their dissociation or would attain to His heavenly abode through either Himself or with His other names like Baladeva [Krishna's brother], Arjuna or Bhîma.

(36) Born from Satyavatî He [as Vyâsadeva], in due course of time seeing the difficulties of the less intelligent and short-lived of mankind at large with His appearance in the exact complex vedic literature compiled, [would and] will for certain divide the desire tree of the Vedas into its branches according the circumstances of the age.

(37) To those well situated on the path of the Vedas envious with the divine who unseen roam the worlds by inventions of Maya [a demon] and who are destructive of the bewildered mind, He dresses Himself attractively [as the Buddha] speaking mainly of moral guidelines.

(38) When with even the civilized gentlemen there is no mention of the Lord and the twice-born [the higher classes] and government itself never take to the hymns, paraphernalia, altars and words wherever, then at the end of the Age of Dissent the Supreme Lord, the chastiser will appear.

(39) I of penance [as Brahmâ] from the beginning with the generating [nine] sages [Prajapatis], certainly [in the middle] maintained the duties of sacrifice [as Vishnu] with Manu, the godly and the different rulers, but in the end with the forsaking of the principles it is S'iva to the atheists subjected to anger. All of them are the potent representatives of the One of Supreme Power. (40) Who can fully describe the prowess of Lord Vishnu? Not even the scientist that might have counted the atoms. All were greatly moved by Him who by His own leg could cover the universe [as Trivikrama] up to the topmost world beyond the operating modes. (41) Never do I, nor all the sages born before you, know the end of the Omnipotent Original Person. Then what to say of others born after us who even to the present day by singing the qualities with the thousand faces of Ananta S'esha [the 'snakebed' of Vishnu] of the primordial God, cannot achieve to His limit? (42) He, the Supreme Lord, will only bestow the mercy of His Unlimited Potential upon those who by all means without any reservation and pretension are as the souls that surrendered to His feet who passed the insurmountable ocean of His material energies and not upon those who hold on to the I and mine of the body that is known [in the end] to be eaten by dogs and jackals. (43-45) O Nârada, know me and yourself to be of the Supreme over the deluding material potency as also are the great Lord S'iva, Prahlâda Mahârâja who came from the atheist family, S'atarûpâ, the wife of Manu and Svâyambhuva Manu himself with his children, Prâcînabarhi, Ribhu, Anga [the father of Vena], and like Dhruva, Ikshvâku, Aila, Mucukunda, Janaka, Gâdhi, Raghu, Ambarîsha, Sagara, Gaya, Nâhusha, etc. as also others like Mândhâtâ, Alarka, S'atadhanve, Anu, Rantideva, Bhîshma, Bali, Amûrttaraya, Dilîpa, Saubhari, Utanka, S'ibi, Devala, Pippalâda, Sârasvata, Uddhava, Parâs'ara, Bhûrishena, and first ones as Vibhîshana, Hanumân, S'ukadeva Gosvâmî, Arjuna, Ârshthishena, Vidura and S'rutadeva. (46) Undoubtedly do also those persons manage to surpass the illusion of the divine energy and to arrive at knowledge who are women, laborers, barbarians and outcasts do know despite of [formerly] being sinful souls - provided they live up to the instructions of admirable devotees. When even those who were not of the human do, then what to say about those who devotedly listened [from the beginning]? (47) Being eternal and unperturbed, free from fear and uncontaminated in the opposing consciousness without preferences in the reality of the Supersoul over the true and untrue, one is [having surpassed] unconcerned about the fruits of action in sacrifices and sees the illusion flying away that is full of shame [see also B.G. 2: 52]. For certain that is the ultimate phase of the Supreme Lord [bhagavân] who is the Spirit of Transcendence of the person which is thus known as being of unlimited happiness without grief. (48) In that state of hearing are the diverse practices of seeking the truth of the mystics in their process of spiritual culture then given up just the way Indra [god of the rains] doesn't worry to dig a well [to have water]. (49) He, all auspicious is also the master, the Supreme Lord, because to the natural living being its own constitution all doing good is rewarded the ultimate success to which, after the body with its constituent elements is being vanquished and given up, one, being unborn like the original person, will never be vanquished.

(50) My dear, like this I explained in brief to you about the Supreme Lord as the creator of the known worlds, without whom nothing else of whatever that may exist in the phenomenal and noumenal can be of any causation. (51) This story of the Fortunate One called S'rîmad Bhâgavatam, was given to me through the enlightenment of pure devotion and constitutes the accumulation of His diverse potencies. Now you from your good self must expound on this science of Godhead yourself. (52) Therefore describe with determination, for the cause of enlightening mankind, this science of devotion [bhakti] for the Supreme Personality, the summum bonum and Absolute of all Souls. (53) With the description of the external affairs of Him, the Lord, in regular devoted appreciation and attendance, the living entity will never become illusioned by the external energy.

Chapter 8

Questions by King Parîkchit

(1) The king asked: 'How did Nârada, being instructed by Lord Brahmâ, o brahmin, explain the modes and their transcendence, and whom did he explain it to?' (2) This I wish to understand o best one: what is the reality of those who are in the Absolute of the truth of the Lord who is so full of wonderful potencies and of whom the narrations are so auspicious for all the worlds?  (3) Please continue, o one of great fortune, as I likewise unto the Supreme of the soul have put myself to Lord Krishna, with my thoughts freed from material association in the renouncing of my body. (4) Those who with faith, regularly take to the matter and as well seriously endure in the endeavor, will after not too long a time see the Supreme Lord appear in their hearts. (5) Thus receiving it through their ears from the love of their own liberation, this lotus [the Bhâgavatam] of Krishna cleanses the lower from qualities like the waters of autumn do. (6) Once being cleansed will the person, who took to the shelter of Krishna's feet, never give up that liberation, just like a traveler, who going through the miseries of life, will never give up his home [see also B.G. 5: 17; 8: 16; 8: 21-28; 9: 3; 15: 3-4; 15: 6].

(7) As it is not a question of being material, o brahmin, can you as you may know from your good self tell me whether the living being in the beginning comes to the body accidentally or of some cause? (8) If He is in possession of the lotusflower of this world, that as it were sprouted from His abdomen, then what is the difference between the Original Person with this certain measurement [of the Virât Rûpa] and the situation that one speaks of with the many different embodiments? (9) How could he who was not born from matter himself and who gave life to all the ones born with a material body, through His mercy see His Form while being born from the lotusflower of the navel? (10) And also [how can it be that] He as the Original Person maintaining, creating and annihilating the material worlds remains untouched by His own external energy while resting as the Lord of all energies in the heart of everyone? (11) Also as you formerly explained how by the different parts of the body of the Original Person the worlds were there with their respective rulers, what thus by the worlds of such a one [can you tell] about those rulers I heard of?

(12) And what about the duration of time in periods or the secondary notions about it as also what to say about the time measuring the sound of the past, future and present - and how about the determining of the duration of life of all beings of whatever world as well? (13) O purest of the twice born, what may be the beginning of time and what about the way in terms of one's karma it is experienced as being short or long? (14) Then again to what extend is one taken over by accruing [karma] to the different modes of nature in the different life forms which are also certainly the result of one's desire. (15) Please describe us how life underneath the earth, in the four quarters of heaven, in the sky, on the planets and about the stars, on the hills, in the rivers, the seas and on the islands comes about and what are these inhabitants? (16) What is the extent and measurement of the outer space universe and the innerspace and what are their divisions? And what is the character and action of the great souls and the vocations and age-groups of society? (17) What are the different ages, how long do they take and what is their nature and which incarnation of the Lord performs what kind of wonderful activities in each and every age? 

(18) What are the specific religious affiliations of human society in general and what are the duties of the three classes [labor, trade and intellect] and their administration [the fourth class] as also what would the obligations be to people in distress? (19) And what is the number of elements of creation and what are their characteristics and interaction? What are the rules and regulations of the devotional practice to the Original Person in the cultivation of yoga and what are the different spiritual methods leading thereto?  (20) What are the opulences of the yogamaster, where do they lead to, how do the yogis detach from the astral body and what is the transcendental knowledge found in the religiosity about the historical accounts and the vedic stories? (21) What is the specific order of all those transient living beings and how does it end? What are the good deeds, rituals and also the regulative principles concerning the religion, the means of existence and the pleasing of the senses? (22) How do all those who either live in union with the Lord or go against Him come about and what is the conditioning of the ones liberated as also that of the ones that live undetermined? 

(23) As the independent Supreme Lord enjoying His pastimes from His own inner potency also gives them up as He wants to the external of His capacity, He as the Almighty remains just as a witness. (24) About all this and more that I didn't ask you, o Supreme Person, I've been wondering from the beginning. Please explain in accordance with the truth, o great sage, what you want to tell me with us all having fallen at your feet. (25) Surely in these matters of factual knowing you are like Brahmâ originating directly from the Lord, while others are only following to custom after what of borrowed knowledge could be said. (26) I never get tired, o brahmin, of drinking, in hunger of my fasting, of the nectar of the Infallible flowing from the ocean of your speech'." 

(27) Suta Gosvâmî said: "He [S'ukadeva] thus being questioned by the king on topics of the highest truth like these, was, as the instrument of the Creator, very pleased in meeting this servant of Vishnu. (28) He said: 'This science of the Personality of God called the Bhâgavatam consisting of the story in pursuance of the Vedas was given to the spirit by the Supreme Lord at the beginning of the age wherein the Creator found his existence.' (29) He then prepared himself to describe in full whatever the king, the best of the dynasty of Pându, all asked in his from the beginning to the end continuing inquiries."

Chapter 9

Answering by Citing the Lord's Version

(1) S'uka said: 'Without the drive of the [Super-]soul, o King, there will never be any good in the spirited consciousness of the beyond relating to the material body, which is then to the seer completely like in a dream. (2) Driven in matter the many forms that appear to have manifested experience different sorts of enjoyment according the modes of the material world and thus they think of 'I' and 'mine'. (3) Whenever indeed, in his own glory of transcendence to the time of the material energy, he [the living entity] enjoys the freedom from misconceptions, then, in that fullness, he will give up those two. (4) 'The reality of the soul is the goal of purification' is what the Supreme Lord factually told the Creator showing him His Form when he was without any misunderstanding in vows and worship (5) He, the first godly person in the universe, as the supreme spiritual teacher, began from his own divine position [on the lotus of the creation] to reflect on the matter of where it came from and he could not figure out what the directions and the ways were of how all should be put together materially.

(6) Once when he was immersed in thinking thus, he heard two syllables being spoken which were the sixteenth [ta] and the twenty-first [pa] of the spars'a-alphabeth and, joined together, became known as the wealth of the renounced order, o King [tapas means penance]. (7) When he heard that, he looked all sides to see the speaker, but there was no one to be found and from where he sat in his divine position he then thought it the best to pay attention to doing penance as he was instructed. (8) With a spotless vision for a thousand godly years, he as the controller of both life and mind, enlightened all the worlds executing such a penance in the past, being of all the one's doing penance the one of the severest practice.

(9) Unto him, the Supreme Lord being pleased by his penance, manifested His own abode [also called Vaikunthha, the place without fear], beyond which no other world is found and which is worshiped as the place where the five miseries of material life [ignorance, selfhood, attachment, hatred and death-fear] have completely ceased with persons who without illusion and fear of existence are of perfect selfrealization. (10) There, the mode of goodness prevails over the other two of passion and slowness without them ever being mixed with it, nor is there the influence of time, the external energy or what to say of [the influence of] others; there both the theists and atheists worship the Lord as devotees. (11) Sky-bluish and glowing with lotuslike eyes, very attractive and youthful with yellowish dress, all of them there have the four arms and the luster of pearls and effulgence of fine ornaments. (12) Some radiate like coral or diamonds, with heads blooming like a celestial lotus with earrings and garlands. (13) In the midst of that brilliance they live in high rising buildings specially designed for the great devotees of the Lord, with ladies beautiful like lightening who have an electrifying celestial complexion as if they are the clouds in the sky. (14) The goddess there is doing devotional service to the lotus feet of the Lord of praise with the help of diverse paraphernalia and a following of dearmost associates who moved by the company [of Apsara's] that took to the shelter of the [everlasting season of] spring are singing their songs. (15) There one surrounds the Lord of the entire community of devotees, of the goddess, of the Universe and the sacrifice - the Almighty One, who is being served in transcendental love by the foremost associates like Sunanda, Nanda, Prabala and Arhana. (16) The servitors affectionately facing Him are intoxicated by the very pleasing sight of His smile, reddish eyes, His face with His helmet and earrings, His four hands, yellow dress, his marked chest and the goddess of fortune at His side. (17) Adorable and seated on His throne He, accompanied by the opulence of His four [matter, original person, principles and ego] sixteen [the five elements, perceptive and working senses, and mind] and fivefold energies [sense objects of form, taste, sound, smell and touch] and other personal prowesses He sometimes shows [the eight siddhis or mystic powers], verily enjoys His abode as the Supreme Lord.

(18) The Creator of the Universe who was overwhelmed by the sight of that audience was in his heart full of ecstasy and with his body full of divine love he bowed down with tears in his eyes under the lotus feet of the Lord - an example which is followed by the great liberated souls. (19) Seeing him present before Him He thought the worthy great scholar suitable for creating the lives of all living beings to His own control and mildly smiling He addressed the beloved one with enlightening words shaking very pleased hands with His partner in divine love. (20) The Supreme Lord said: 'As opposed to My contentment with those who do profit-minded service, I am completely satisfied about your your long lasting penance to create from your vedic expertise. (21) All my blessings to you, just ask Me, the giver of all benediction, whatever favor you wish from Me, o Brahmâ, as the limit of My realization is the ultimate success of everyone's penances. (22) This enviable perception of My abodes you may actually experience because of your submissive hearing in doing penance to the beyond. (23) It was ordered by Me as you were perplexed in your duty. That penance directly affects My heart and soul and is to the one engaged in it what I factually am, o sinless one. (24) By that penance I create, surely by that penance I withdraw and again I, by that penance, maintain the cosmos; My power is found in strict penance'.

(25) Brahmâ said: 'Supreme Lord of all living beings, You are the director seated in the heart who unobstructed, by Your superior intelligence, knows of all endeavours. (26) Despite of that I ask you, o Lord, please enlighten me in my desire to know about Your being beyond and descending in Your form as we may know it, although You are yourself formless. (27) And How do You by your Own potency, from your own Self, combine and permutate the different forces in matters of annihilation, generation, acceptance and maintenance?. (28) O Mâdhava [master of all energies], please let me know in proper terms of all those [forms] You infallibly enact with determination like a spider does in covering [its own web]. (29) As the Supreme Lord teaching it me by Your acts I may by your mercy thus never factually be entrapped in matter, although certainly acting as your instrument making the lives of the beings. (30) O Lord, like a friend does with a friend you have accepted me for making the different lives of the living entities; o my Lord, may all those who are born unperturbed in the service of You never give rise to me being mad with imagination about it, o unborn One.'

(31) The Supreme Lord said: 'The knowledge acquired about Me is very confidential and is realized in combination with devotional service and its necessary paraphernalia; just try to take it up as I explain it to you. (32) Let that factual realization be there by the causeless mercy of Me, as seen in the transcendental existence of My eternal form with its diverse appearances and qualities. (33) I indeed existed before [your creation of these lives] and nothing else but the Supreme would be the cause of the effect of all that is seen, while it is also I that is all that remains of these created; that is what I am. (34) That which appears to be of value, is not what it seems without relating to Me - know that illusory energy of Mine as a reflection, as darkness. (35) Just like the elements of the universe that appear in the minute as well as in the gigantic before being engaged as well as after that, I, also am, as well in them as not in them Myself. (36) The student of the soul surely will have to research up to this on the Principial Reality, in a direct as well as indirect manner in whatever time, space or circumstances. (37) If your concentration of mind remains fixed on this conclusion about the Supreme you have no complacency to fear, nor in temporary loss nor at the end of your time."

(38) S'uka said: "After thus giving full instruction, the Unborn One, Lord Hari as He was seen in His transcendental form of the Absolute by the leader of the living entities [Brahmâ], disappeared. (39) On the disappearance Brahmaji, with folded hands unto the Lord; the objective of all senses, began to shape the lives of all living beings that fill the universe, exactly as he did before. (40) Thus once upon a time he, the father of all living beings and religious life, situated himself with vow and respect for the sake of the welfare of the living beings, desiring it in the interest of their own good qualities. (41) It is unto Him that Nârada, the very dear of the inheriting sons, is very obedient and ready to serve by the good behavior of his meekness and sense-control. (42) With his desire to know about Vishnu; the Lord of all energies, the great sage and first-class devotee, o King, very much pleased his Father [Lord Brahmâ]. (43) After seeing the satisfaction of the great grandfather of the whole universe, Nârada Muni questioned him the same way you are questioning me. (44) Thereupon this story of the Fortunate One [summarized in the four verses 33-36] was with its ten characteristics [see next chapter], explained by the Supreme Lord who told it the son, the creator of the universe, with great satisfaction. (45) Nârada instructed this Supreme of the Spirit, to the great sage, the meditative Vyâsadeva with his immense capacity, on the bank of the Sarasvatî, o King. (46) All the things you have been asking me about concerning the world of the Universal Form of the Original Person and other matters, I shall now explain to you in great detail."

Chapter 10

Bhâgavatam is the Answer to all Questions

 (1) S'rî S'uka said: 'In this [Bhâgavatam] there are [ten types of] statements about the following: the creation of the universe, the secondary creation, the different worlds, support [by the Lord], the creative drive, the changes of Manus, following divine instruction, returning to God, finding liberation and the Summum Bonum [description of the actions of Lord Krishna]. (2) For the purpose of doing justice to the Summum Bonum the symptoms of the other nine in this [Bhâgavatam] are described by vedic inference or more direct explanations or summaries given by the great sages. (3) The five gross elements, the objects of the senses and the senses themselves including the mind give rise to the manifestation which is called the created universe [sarga] of the Creator, while the resultant activities of the interaction to its modes is called the secondary creation [visarga]. (4) The stability of the worlds is the victory of the Lord of Vaikunthha, His support is His causeless mercy, the reign of the Manu's sets the perfection of duty and the creative drive is about the propensity to fruitive labor. (5) The following to divine instruction as said deals with the various narrations describing the activities of the Lord descending and the persons that are His followers. (6) Returning to God is about the resting in the Original Person of souls along with the energies while liberation is about giving up other forms [of existence] for the sake of the permanence of the constitutional original One.

(7) He is of both the cosmic manifestation and its returning to God, the source from which all takes place and thus He is called the reservoir of the Supreme Spirit or the Supersoul. (8) From being the personality in possession of his senses [adhyâtmika] He is as well the controlling deity [adhidaivika] as the person separate therefrom perceived as an other embodied living being [adhibhhautika]. (9) The one who sees that each one of the three is not understood in the absence of one of the others, knows that He is the soul that is its own shelter in this spiritual division.(10) When separating the Universes He as the same Original Person came out of Himself to rest in the [causal] waters desiring for the created the most pure of transcendence. (11) In that residing in His own for a thousand of His godly years, He in the matter of His own creation is known by the name of Nârâyana [the path, the lead of God relating to man], as resting in the causal waters He emanated from the Original Person. (12) The physical elements, the activities, the time and surely also the living entities all exist by His mercy and cease to exist on neglect. (13) Being on Himself He, from His mystic slumber, desired the variety and thus generated the golden hue of the seminal demigod to the created external energy perfect in its three features.

(14) Let me now tell you about how the Lord as the One only divided the potency of His Lordship in three deities ruling the sensing, controlling and embodied beings.(15) From within the body, willing to the sky the Primary Person generated after the lifeforce of the originating spirit the energy of the senses, the mental force and the physical strength. (16) The in all living entities endeavoring senses who follow the symptoms of life, find their peace the way all other subjects stop endeavoring with the following of a king. (17) The living force being agitated generates from the Supreme within hunger and thirst and at first, in order to quench that thirst and still that hunger, the mouth was opened. (18) From the mouth the palate generated showing the tongue after which the various tastes manifested that could be relished by it. (19) With the need to speak from the mouth of the Supreme there came the fire of as well vibrations as speeches, but because He was at rest in the waters, for a very long time that remained suspended. (20) In the nostrils the movement of the respiration was developed upon which from the nose its desire to function the sense to smell odors came about. (21) Being on Himself in the darkness on the desire to observe all the coming manifestations of His transcendental body, for His vision the Sun manifested to give all eyes the power of seeing. (22) From the wise desiring to understand from their realization that what He wanted to know, the ears as well manifested to the direction of the power of hearing and its objects. (23) Of the desire to experience the hard, soft, light, weight, heat and cold of all matter, the sense of touch was distributed over the skin with its bodily hair and of having perceived through the touch of that skin the objects of perception from within and without, the three controlling deities manifested as well.

(24) Desiring the different types of work, from them His hands manifested, but to give strength to the manipulation depending on them [the gods and His hands], Indra, the king of the godly, came into being. (25) Wishing to control movement the legs manifested, for the purpose of which The Lord of Sacrifice [Vishnu] Himself manifested motivating the different human beings to the duties according their fruitive activities [karma]. (26) From the genitals the pleasure of procreation came into existence and aspiring to taste that nectar, of the sexual organs came about the cherished lustful refuge of the both of them [controlled by the Prajâpati]. (27) Desiring to evacuate the refuse of eatables first the opening of the anus and then its sense came about after which Mitra, the controller over the excretion, came to give shelter to the both of them. (28) Wishing to spread everywhere in different bodies, from the one body the navel manifested after which it became the place wherefrom separately the arrest of the vitality and death were found. (29) In the want for food and drink the abdomen with the rivers and seas of the intestines and arteries originated as also the source of the sustaining metabolism of them. (30) Desirous to know His own energy the heart [as the seat of thinking] manifested after which the mind, Candra the controller [the moon] and thus the reality of determination and desire were found. (31) The seven elements of the nails, skin, flesh, blood, fat, marrow and bone are predominantly of earth, water and fire whereas the life breath is there from the sky, the water and the air [see also kosha]. (32) The senses of the material ego are attached to the modes of matter, which thus affect the mind after which all affection follows that shapes the intelligence and its deliberation of soul.

(33) Of all this is the Supreme Lord His form, as I explained to you, known in the eight elements [of earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence and false ego] of all the worlds and such, that make for an unlimited external covering. (34) Therefore there are, for the supreme of the finer than the finest, the featureless unmanifested, that is without a beginning, without a intermediate stage and without an end and is thus eternal, the words for the mind to the transcendental. (35) Neither of these forms about the Supreme Lord as I described to you are, because of their external manifestation, ever taken for granted by the learned ones of consciousness. (36) He by His incarnations and activities, His transcendental qualities and entourage, as the Supreme Lord of the Spirit, accepts in the pastimes of His forms the work of transcendence that is free from material interest. (37-40) O King, know that all the happiness and distress and their mixture as experienced by the members of the family of Brahmâ, the Manus, the godly, the wise, the inhabitants of Pitriloka [forefathers] and Siddhaloka [the perfected], the Câranas [the venerable], Gandharvas [singers of heaven], Vidyâdharas [scientists], Asuras [the unenlightened or the demons], Yakshas [treasure-keeper or evil spirits], Kinnaras [of superpowers] and angels, the snake-like, the monkey-shaped Kimpurushas, the human beings, the inhabitants of Mâtriloka [of the place of the mother], the demons and Pis'âcas [yellow demons], as also the ghosts, spirits, lunatics and evil spirits, the ones of good and evil stars, as well as the birds, the forest-dwelling and domestic animals, the reptiles, those of the mountains, the moving and standing living entities, the living entities born from embryos, from eggs, from heat [microorganisms] and from seeds, and all others, whether they be in the water, land or the sky, is with all of them there as the result of deeds in the past [karma].

(41) To the modes of goodness, passion and slowness we thus have the three of the godly, the human and the suffering ones and even others, o King, when one divides it to moving in habits developed in each of the three in relation to the other two. (42) Without doubt in this does He, the Maintainer of the entire universe, the Supreme Lord, assume the form of the principles of righteousness, in order to reclaim, after the creation of the universes, the godless, the human and the godly ones. (43) At the end of the era all that is with Him will be completely annihilated by fire in the form of Rudra [S'iva the destroyer], the way in time the wind does with clouds. (44) With these features concerning the matter of creation and destruction the Supreme Lord is described by the great transcendentalists, but the great devotees deserve to see more of the most glorious than these features alone. (45) Concerning the generating and finishing of the created the Supreme is never described as the engineering; it is about the counteracting [of the influence] of the material energy as being the creator that that is manifested. (46) This all but exemplifies the regulative principles by which the Creator operates for the duration of his time [described as a day of Brahmâ] and the duration of the universes. Herein, in summary, is the generating of the entire dispersed material creation given.(47) The exact measurement of the time to its form and symptoms of one day of Brahmâ [kalpa] I will explain after first letting you know about this epoch of His descend [also called the Pâdma Kalpa]'."

(48) S'aunaka said: "O Sûta, you told us from your good self about Vidura, who is one of the best of the devotees, as he took to the places of pilgrimage on this earth, leaving aside the relatives that are so difficult to give up.(49-50) O gentle one, please tell us here about the new things Vidura discussed with Maitreya [a famous rishi] who is so full of transcendental knowledge and anything else he asked His grace and got answered from him back then. Why did Vidura actually give up his activities and his associates and why did he return home afterwards?"

(51) Sûta replied:"Please listen while I explain to you what the great sage [S'uka] spoke about in his answering according the questions of King Parîkchit."

Thus ends the second Canto of the S'rîmad Bhâgavatam 

Translation: Anand Aadhar Prabhu, http://bhagavata.org/c/8/AnandAadhar.html

Production: the Filognostic Association of The Order of Time, with special thanks to Sakhya Devi Dasi for proofreading and correcting the manuscript. http://theorderoftime.com/info/guests-friends.html

The sourcetexts, illustrations and music to this translation one can find following the links from: http://bhagavata.org/ 

For this original translation next to the Sanskrit dictionary a one-volume printed copy has been used with an extensive commentary by A.C. Bhaktivedânta Swami Prabhupâda. ISBN: o-91277-27-7 . See the S'rîmad Bhâgavatam treasury: http://bhagavata.org/treasury/links.html for links to other sites concerning the subject.