The telling was over. In the forest of Naimisharanya, Suta was coming to the end of what Vyasa had once said to King Janamejaya, and Vyasa’s own last words to the king were these: “Whatever you asked me I have told you, as Narayana once told it to the great-souled Narada. Whoever hears this most wonderful Purana of the Mahadevi has done what there was to do, and has become most dear to Bhagavati.” One grief remained in the hall. A son carries his father’s fate after death as his own charge, and Janamejaya had learned how low his father, Parikshit, had fallen; the knowledge had sat in him ever since. Vyasa gave him the remedy plainly. “You are deeply grieved by your father’s ill state. Now perform the Devi-yajna, the Amba-makha, for his deliverance, and take by due rule the initiation into the Mahadevi’s mantra, the best of all mantras, the one that makes a human birth bear fruit.” Janamejaya entreated the lord of munis for it, and from Vyasa’s own mouth he duly received the Devi’s great mantra, the pranava.
The Amba-yajna
When Navaratra came, the nine nights that belong to the Devi, the king summoned Dhaumya and the other munis and began the Amba-yajna at once, with no meanness about wealth; whatever the rite asked for, the treasury gave. For the pleasure of Bhagavati Jagadamba he had Brahmins recite this supreme Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana in her presence, through the nine nights, so that the whole of it was heard before the Devi herself. He fed Brahmins past counting, and suvasinis and kumaris, the married women and the girls, and batukas, the boys under the brahmacharin’s vow, and the poor and the orphaned, and he satisfied every one of them with gifts of wealth. The yajna was finished, and the lord of the earth had just taken his seat, when Devarshi Narada came down out of the sky, bright as the flame of a blazing fire, playing his vina, the one named Mahati. The king rose in astonishment. A devarshi does not come down from the sky without a reason, and Janamejaya worshiped him with a seat and water and the other honors due a guest, asked after his welfare, and then asked why he had come. “Where have you come from? Tell me what service I may do you. By your coming I have a protector over me, and I am fulfilled.”
Narada’s Glad News
Narada answered him. “Today in the world of the gods I saw a wonder, and I have come to you, still amazed, to tell it. Your father had fallen into an ill state because of his contrary deeds. Now he has taken a divine body and mounted a splendid vimana, and, praised on every side by the best of the gods and by the apsaras, he has gone to Manidvipa.” The king knew the name. Manidvipa is the island of jewels that lies above every other world, above the heavens the gods inhabit, and it is where Bhagavati herself keeps her seat; a father who had been in naraka was now there. “It is by the fruit of hearing this Devi Bhagavata and the fruit of the Devi-yajna that your father has reached the highest state. You are blessed. Your work is done, and your life has borne fruit. You have lifted your father out of naraka, and today your great fame has spread further through the world of the gods.”
At these words love rose in King Janamejaya’s throat and choked it, and he fell at the lotus feet of Vyasa, whose every deed was a wonder. “By your grace alone I am fulfilled. What can I do for you in return, except bow? Always show me this favor.”
Vyasa’s Counsel
Bhagavan Badarayana Vyasa greeted him with blessings and answered in a sweet voice. “Give up everything and worship the Devi’s lotus feet. Read the Devi Bhagavata daily with a gathered mind, and daily, without sloth, perform the Amba-makha with devotion. By that you will be freed from the bonds of becoming, and without effort. There are other Puranas, those of Hari and of Rudra and the rest, and they do not equal a sixteenth kala of this Devi Bhagavata, which is the essence of all the Puranas and the Vedas. Where Mulaprakriti herself is set forth, how could another Purana be its equal? The Purana whose recitation gives merit equal to reciting the Veda: that is the one the best of the wise should recite, with effort.” Having said this to the best of kings, the king of munis went away, and the pure munis, Dhaumya and the others, went to their own places, giving the Devi Bhagavata the highest praise. From then on Janamejaya ruled the earth with a contented mind, and the Devi Bhagavata stayed open in his court, read and heard without a break.
The Glory of the Purana
Then Suta told the munis of Naimisharanya where the book itself had come from. From the lotus mouth of the Paramba there had once come a half-shloka that awakens the doctrine of the Vedas, and it was called Shrimad Bhagavata, and the Devi herself taught it to Vishnu as he lay on the banyan leaf, the vatapatra. Brahma, of old, expanded it to a hundred crore shlokas. Then Vyasa, to teach his son Shuka, gathered its essence and composed the Purana named Devi Bhagavata, of eighteen thousand shlokas in twelve skandhas, and in the world of the gods it still exists in that vast form. Gita Press’s note gives the half-shloka as “sarvam khalv idam evaham nanyad asti sanatanam”, all this is I alone, and there is no other eternal one. No Purana equals this one in merit, in purity, or in the power to destroy sin; reciting it, a man gains the fruit of an Ashvamedha at every pada, every quarter of every verse.
Then Suta told them how it is to be heard, and the munis, who had just heard all of it, listened as if for the first time. “Write the Devi Bhagavata with your own hand, or have a scribe write it. Worship the Pauranika who will recite it with cloth and ornaments, and, holding him to be Vyasa, hear the Purana from his mouth under discipline, fasting. On the day the katha ends, the full moon of Bhadrapada, set the Purana on a golden lion-throne and give it to that Pauranika, and as his dakshina give a milk-giving Kapila cow with her calf, decked with ornaments and a golden garland. Then feed as many Brahmins as the Purana has adhyayas, and as many suvasinis, and as many kumaris with their batukas; hold them to be the Devi, worship them with cloth and ornaments, sandal, garlands and flowers, and feed them the best payasa.” By giving this Purana, he said, a man gains the fruit of giving the earth; he is happy in this world, and at the end he goes to Devipura, the Devi’s own city. For one who hears it daily with devotion nothing anywhere, at any time, is hard to get: the sonless gets a son, the seeker of wealth gets wealth, the seeker of learning gets learning, and he is famous over all the earth. A woman who is barren, or who has borne once and never again, or whose children have died, is freed of that defect by hearing it, and of this there is no doubt. In the house where this Purana stays, duly worshiped, Lakshmi and Sarasvati never leave, and vetalas and dakinis and rakshasas do not so much as peep in. Recited with a one-pointed mind while the reciter touches a man burning with fever, it drives the fever out of his body and sends it running, and by a hundred recitations even kshaya, the wasting sickness, is ended. Whoever reads one adhyaya of it at each sandhya, after performing the sandhya rite with attention, becomes a man of knowledge. And when a thing is to be done or left undone, one should consider the omens by this Purana, in the method Suta had told them earlier.
In the autumn Navaratra one should read it daily with the highest devotion, and Jagadamba, pleased, gives fruit beyond the wish. Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Sauras and Ganapatyas should read it with effort in the four Navaratras, those of Chaitra in the spring, Ashadha as the rains come, Ashvina in the autumn and Magha in the cold, for the satisfaction of the shakti of their own chosen deity, and Rama, Uma and the other shaktis are then always pleased with them; and the Vaidikas should read it daily for the pleasure of their own Gayatri. In this Purana there is no word against anyone, for the worship of every one of them, Vaishnava and Saura and the rest, is joined with shakti. So the dvijas should always read this Purana, to please the shakti. For women and shudras the rule is this: they do not read it themselves, misled by delusion; they hear it daily from a Brahmin’s mouth. “What use is saying much?” Suta said. “I will tell you its true essence. This Purana is most holy, and it is the essence of the Vedas, and reading it and hearing it give the fruit of reciting the Veda itself.”
The Conclusion
Then Suta bowed. “I bow to the Devi who is made of Hrim, whose form is sat-chit-ananda, being, consciousness and bliss, whom the Gayatri sets forth. May she impel our minds.” It was the Gayatri’s own prayer, turned toward the Devi who speaks through it. Shaunaka and the munis of Naimisharanya, rich in tapas, heard this last word of the best of Pauranikas, the word with which the whole long telling closed, and honored him with great ceremony. All of them, worshipers at Bhagavati’s lotus feet, grew glad at heart, and by the power of this Purana they reached supreme peace. They bowed to Suta and asked his pardon again and again, as hearers do of the one who has carried them so far. “Father, for crossing this ocean of samsara you are certainly our boat.” So Suta, having recited to the humble munis this Shrimad Devi Bhagavata, which sets forth the deeds of Durga and holds the secret matter of all the Vedas, and having grown by their blessings, went on his way, a bee at the lotus feet of Bhagavati. Here the twelfth skandha reaches its close, and here the Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana is complete.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)