"Skandham-2, ends"

Skandham-2.

 

Chapter-10.

 

 

 

Slokam- 1 to  51.

 

 

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 Skandham of the Srimad Bhâgavatam.