Prahlada’s story was told, and Parashara turned to the rest of Kashyapa’s household, for the houses that would stand against the gods and the houses that would serve them both came out of it. Samhrada’s sons were Ayushman, Shibi, and Bashkala. Prahlada’s son was Virochana, and from Virochana was born Bali, who in his time had a hundred sons of his own, Banasura the eldest among them. Hiranyaksha’s sons were Utkura, Shakuni, Bhutasantapana, Mahanabha, Mahabahu, and Kalanabha, every one of them a fighter of great strength. Then came the house of Danu, another of Kashyapa’s wives. Her sons were Dvimurdha, Shambara, Ayomukha, Shankushira, Kapila, Shankara, Ekachakra, Mahabahu, Taraka, Mahabala, Svarbhanu, Vrishaparva, the mighty Puloma, and Viprachitti, the most valiant of them all; these fourteen are the ones the world remembers as Danu’s sons. Svarbhanu had a daughter, Prabha. Vrishaparva had three, Sharmishtha, Upadani, and Hayashira, and their beauty was spoken of far beyond their father’s house. Vaishvanara’s two daughters, Puloma and Kalaka, were given to Kashyapa himself, the son of Marichi, and from those two came sixty thousand danavas of the first rank, the ones called the Paulomas and the Kalakeyas. Viprachitti had sons by Simhika as well, and these were mightier, fiercer, and crueler than the rest: Vyamsha, Shalya, the strong Nabha, the mighty Vatapi, Namuchi, Ilvala, Khasrima, Andhaka, Naraka, Kalanabha, Mahavira, Svarbhanu, and the great daitya Vaktrayodhi. Through these the line of Danu swelled, and their sons and grandsons ran into the hundreds and the thousands. In Prahlada’s own line a daitya of a different kind was born, Nivatakavacha, who came by long and severe tapas to the knowledge of the self.
Kashyapa’s wife Tamra had six daughters of great power, Shuki, Shyeni, Bhasi, Sugrivi, Shuchi, and Gridhrika, and from each of them a whole order of living creatures descended. Shuki bore the parrots, the owls, and the owls’ adversaries the crows, with the birds of their kind. Shyeni bore the hawks, Bhasi the bhasa birds, Gridhrika the vultures, and Shuchi the birds that live on the water. From Sugrivi came the horses, the camels, and the donkeys, and this is what is known as the line of Tamra. Vinata’s two sons were Garuda and Aruna, and both won fame; Garuda, called Suparna, best of all birds, was terrible past measure, and he ate serpents. Serpents there were in plenty. Surasa bore them by the thousand, powerful, many-headed, huge of body, ranging where they pleased through the sky. Kadru bore thousands more, mighty, measurelessly brilliant, and many-headed too, and every one of them lived under Garuda’s control. The chief of Kadru’s sons were Shesha, Vasuki, Takshaka, Shankhashveta, Mahapadma, Kambala, Ashvatara, Elaputra, Naga, Karkotaka, and Dhananjaya, and behind them came a host of fierce, venomous, biting snakes. Krodhavasha’s children, the krodhavasha-gana, were all of one stamp, big-fanged, fearsome, eaters of raw flesh, some of them creatures of the water, some of the land, and some of them birds. From Krodha came the mighty pishachas. Surabhi bore the cows and the buffaloes; Ira bore the trees, the creepers, the vines, and every kind of grass; Khasa bore the yakshas and the rakshasas; Muni bore the apsaras; and Arishta bore the gandharvas, whose power was very great. All of these, the fixed and the moving, descend from Kashyapa, and their sons and grandsons were hundreds and thousands more. This, Parashara said, is what is called the creation of the Svarochisha manvantara.
Diti’s Hundred-Year Vow
At the beginning of the Vaivasvata manvantara a great Varuna yajna was held, and Brahma himself sat as its hota and called the gods down to the fire. The seven rishis who in the manvantara before had risen as Brahma’s mind-born sons, Brahma in this kalpa set as fathers to the gandharvas, the nagas, the gods, the danavas, and the rest, and out of that age Parashara drew one story. Diti had lost her sons. With them gone she set herself to please Kashyapa, and when he had been well served and well worshiped, that best of ascetics offered his wife a boon. She asked for a son: one of great might and great brilliance, with the power to slay Indra. Kashyapa gave her what she asked. The boon was a fierce one, and as he granted it he bound it with a condition. “If you carry this womb for a hundred years, intent on meditation on the Lord, in shaucha and self-restraint, your son will be the slayer of Indra.” Then the muni lay with her, and Diti began to carry that womb with a purity she guarded at every hour; Gita Press’s note on the verse gathers what such shaucha asked of a woman with child: no food at dusk, no lingering under a tree, no quarrel, no stretching of the limbs, no loose hair, no impurity of any kind, harm to no creature, no curse, no lie.
Indra learned what that womb held for him, and he came to Diti himself, with his pride put away, as a servant. He was there at all hours, attentive, sparing her every trouble, and he had a single purpose: to catch her in one lapse of shaucha. Through the better part of a hundred years he found none. Then, when the hundred years were only a little short, he saw it. One day Diti lay down on her bed without washing her feet, and sleep took her where she lay. Indra, vajra in hand, entered her womb and cut the great embryo into seven pieces. Pressed by the vajra, the child wept aloud. “Ma rodih,” Indra said to it, over and over, “do not weep,” and when the embryo, cut into seven, still would not die, his anger rose, and with that enemy-destroying vajra he cut each of the seven into seven more. These became the Maruts, gods of tremendous swiftness. Because Indra had said ma rodih to the child, they were called Maruts, and the forty-nine Marudgana became the gods who go with Indra, the bearer of the vajra, in everything he does. The son Diti had asked for to end him became the company at his shoulder.
Brahma’s Apportioning in Prithu’s Reign
From there Parashara turned to the vibhuti of Vishnu, the greatness that runs through every ruler the world has had, and he began with a coronation. In former times, when the maharshis anointed Prithu to the kingship, Brahma, grandsire of the worlds, apportioned the kingdoms in their order, so that nothing that lived or stood would be without a lord. He made Chandra king of the nakshatras, the grahas, the Brahmins, every plant that grows from the soil, and of yajna and tapas. Kubera, the son of Vishravas, he made lord of kings; Varuna, lord of the waters; Vishnu, lord of the Adityas; Agni, lord of the Vasus. Daksha he set over the prajapatis, Indra over the Maruts, the forty-nine who had come out of Diti’s womb, and Prahlada over the daityas and the danavas. Yama, the Dharmaraja, he made king of the pitris, and Airavata lord of all the great elephants. Garuda he set over the birds, Indra over the gods, Ucchaihshravas over the horses, and the bull over the cows. The lion he made king of the wild beasts, Shesha lord of the serpents, Himalaya lord of all that stands unmoving, Kapila lord of the munis, and the tiger king of every creature with claws and fangs. The plaksha he made king of the trees, and in the same way, kind by kind, Brahma settled who would stand at the head of each.
When the kingdoms were divided, Brahma, lord of the prajapatis, set guardians over the quarters of the sky. In the east he anointed King Sudhanva, son of the prajapati Vairaja. In the south he appointed King Shankhapada, son of the prajapati Kardama. In the west he set the great-souled Ketuman, son of Rajas, who never falls from his place. In the north he anointed King Hiranyaroma, son of the prajapati Parjanya, whom no enemy finds easy to assail. To this day these four rule with dharma, each within his own division, the whole of this earth with its seven dvipas and its many cities.
All of It a Portion of Vishnu
These kings, Parashara said, and every other king who has ever labored to protect the world, are vibhutis of the Supreme Self, Shri Vishnu. The lords of beings who have been and the lords who are yet to come are all portions, amshas, of Vishnu, who is every being. Whatever lord there is of the gods, the daityas, the danavas, the eaters of flesh, the beasts, the birds, men, the serpents and the nagas, the trees, the mountains, and the grahas, in the past, in the future, and now, every one of them arises from a portion of the all-being Lord Vishnu. Shri Hari alone, lord of all, is engaged in the work of sustaining creation, and apart from him no one has the power to sustain anything at all; take him out of the arrangement and the lion could not hold the forest for an hour. Resorting to rajas and to sattva, that eternal Lord creates at the creation and sustains through the long continuance, and at the end, as Kala, he destroys.
Janardana does all this in four divisions at every stage: four in creation, four in continuance, and four forms in the pralaya. At the creation, with rajas foremost in him, he is by one portion Brahma, whose nature is the unmanifest; by the second, the prajapatis beginning with Marichi; the third portion is Kala, and the fourth is all beings. Then, resorting to sattva, Purushottama sustains the world: by one portion he is Vishnu, who protects; by the second he becomes Manu and the Manus after him; by the third he is Kala; by the fourth he dwells in every being. At the end, resorting to tamas, the unborn Lord is by one portion Rudra, by the second Agni and Antaka and their kind, by the third Kala, and by the fourth all beings, and this fourfold division of his for destruction is called the all-time division. So Brahma, Daksha and the other prajapatis, Kala, and all beings are the vibhutis of Shri Hari that cause the world to arise; Vishnu, Manu and the rest, Kala, and all beings are the vibhutis that keep it standing; and Rudra, Kala, Antaka and the rest, and all beings are the four vibhutis of Janardana for the pralaya. Creation itself runs as a chain. At its start Brahma creates; then Marichi and the prajapatis beget offspring; then all beings beget progeny, moment by moment, down to this hour. Without Kala neither Brahma nor the prajapatis nor any other creature could create at all, and so Vishnu in his form of Kala stands behind every birth there is. Whatever any being creates, the body of Shri Hari is the whole cause of its arising; and whoever destroys any being, moving or fixed, that destroyer too is Janardana in his fierce and ending form. He is the creator, the sustainer, and the destroyer of the whole world, and he is the world itself. At the world’s beginning, its middle, and its end he works this way through the impulse of the three gunas, and all the while his supreme abode, his parama pada, stands apart from them, great and nirguna. That form of the Paramatma is made of knowledge, pervading, self-luminous, and peerless, and it too is of four kinds.
Maitreya asked how a supreme abode could be of four kinds, and Parashara began with a distinction. Whatever is the cause of a thing is its sadhana, the means; whatever one sets out to accomplish is the sadhya, the end. For yogis who long for liberation, pranayama and the practices beside it are the sadhana, and the sadhya is Parabrahma, from which there is no return. The knowledge that rests on the means, the sadhanalambana-jnana, is the first division of that abode whose being is Brahman. The knowledge of the Brahman that the practitioner of yoga yokes himself to as his goal, so that the bondage of the kleshas falls away, is the second, the alambana-vijnana. The knowledge that the two, the sadhya and the sadhana, are one and the same, the advaitamaya jnana, is the third. And when the distinctions of those three are removed, what remains is the fourth: the knowledge of Bhagavan Vishnu that is known only in experience, like the self’s own nature, beyond words and unutterable, mere pervasion, peerless, self-aware, mere being, unmarked, calm, fearless, pure, beyond imagining, resting on nothing; and this fourth division bears the name Brahman. The yogis who restrain the other three knowledges and dissolve into this one become seedless within the field of samsara; they go on acting for the good of the world, and no fruit of merit or of sin fastens to anything they do. Of this kind is that stainless, eternal, all-pervading, imperishable supreme abode named Vishnu, free of every faulty guna, and when merit and sin have waned and the kleshas have ceased, the yogi, utterly pure, takes refuge in that Parabrahma, and from it there is no return. That Brahman has two forms, the murta and the amurta, the embodied and the unembodied, the kshara and the akshara, and it abides in every being. The akshara is Parabrahma itself; the kshara is the whole world. As the light of a fire set in one place spreads everywhere, so this whole world is the shakti of Parabrahma; and as that light is stronger or fainter with nearness and distance, so there is a gradation in the power of Brahman. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are its chief powers; below them the gods; after them Daksha and the prajapatis; below them men, beasts, birds, deer, and reptiles; and lower still the trees, the shrubs, and the creepers. So, though it is subject to appearing and vanishing, to birth and death and every kind of change, this whole world is in truth eternal and imperishable.
Vishnu’s Ornaments and Weapons
The all-powerful Vishnu is the para form of Brahman, and he is also its murta form, the form with a body, which yogis contemplate first when they begin their yoga. Those who fix the mind rightly on it and keep it fixed gain the mahayoga that still has a support and a seed; and among all the powers of Brahman that all-Brahman Shri Vishnu is the chief and the nearest, Brahman in embodied form. In him the whole world is woven, warp and weft; from him it arose, in him it stands, and he himself is all of it. That Ishvara Vishnu, who is both the kshara and the akshara, the effect and the cause, holds this whole world of purusha and prakriti as his ornaments and his weapons. Maitreya asked how. Parashara bowed to the immeasurable and mighty Vishnu and answered as Vasishtha had once answered him. The untainted, nirguna, stainless soul of this world, the pure kshetrajna, Shri Hari bears as the Kaustubha gem. Pradhana, Shri Ananta has given shelter in the form of the Shrivatsa. Buddhi abides in Shri Madhava as his mace. The two ahankaras, the tamasa, which is the cause of the elements, and the rajasa, which is the cause of the senses, the Lord holds as his conch and his Sharnga bow. The sattvika ahankara, the mind, so restless that it outruns the wind, is the chakra in Shri Vishnu’s lotus hand. The Vaijayanti garland of the mace-bearer, strung in five kinds, pearl, ruby, emerald, sapphire, and diamond, is the aggregate of the five tanmatras and the five elements. The senses of knowledge and of action Janardana holds as his arrows. And the very pure sword in Achyuta’s hand is knowledge made of vidya, sheathed in the scabbard of avidya.
So purusha and pradhana, buddhi and ahankara, the five elements, the mind, the senses, and vidya and avidya together, all rest in Shri Hrishikesha. Shri Hari has no form, and he bears all of these as weapons and ornaments in his maya-form for the good of living beings; the lotus-eyed Lord holds pradhana, with its changes and without them, and purusha, and the whole world. Whatever is vidya and whatever is avidya, sat and asat, and the imperishable itself, all rest in Shri Madhusudana, who is every being. He is Kala too: the kala, the kashtha, the nimesha, the day, the season, the ayana, and the year are the stainless, imperishable Shri Hari abiding in the form of time. Bhurloka, Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, Mahar, Jana, Tapa, and Satya, all seven worlds are the all-pervading Lord himself, the elder of all elders and the base of every knowledge, who abides in the form of the worlds. The formless lord of all, Shri Ananta, being the self of the elements, stands in many forms as god, as man, and as beast. The Rik, the Yajus, the Sama, and the Atharva; the itihasas and the upavedas; the sayings of the Vedanta and all the Vedangas; the dharmashastras that Manu and the others spoke; every shastra beginning with the Puranas, every akhyana and anuvaka, all poetry and all discussion, every raga and ragini: all of this is the body of the Paramatma Vishnu, who bears the form of sound. And in this world or any other, whatever objects exist, with form and without, all of them are his body. Then Parashara gave Maitreya the one sentence to hold. “I and this whole world are Janardana, Shri Hari; there is nothing apart from him, no cause and no effect.” The man in whose mind that feeling has settled is never again caught by the disease of the dvandvas, raga and dvesha and the other pairs born of the body. With that the first amsha of the Purana was told, as it is, and Parashara named its fruit: a man who hears it is freed of all his sins; what a man gains by bathing at Pushkara through the month of Kartika for twelve years, he gains by hearing this; and to the one who hears here of the origin of the gods, the rishis, the gandharvas, the pitris, the yakshas, and the rest, those very gods and the rest become givers of boons.
Source: Vishnu Purana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)