Mahābhārata

M. N. Dutt: I wish, O Kuru hero, to know what origin and what the end is of all creatures; what the nature of their meditation is and what their acts; what the divisions of time are, and what is the spare of human existence in the respective cycles.

M. N. Dutt: I wish also to know fully the truth about the genesis and the conduct of the world; the you. coming of creatures into the world and their exit. Indeed; whence their creation and destruction?

M. N. Dutt: O best of virtuous persons, if you wish to favour us, do tell this about which I ask

M. N. Dutt: Having heard before this the excellent discourse of Bhrigu to the twice-born sage Bharadvaja, which you did recite, my understanding, shorn of ignorance, has become greatly attached to yoga, and withdrawn from worldly objects rests upon heavenly purity. I ask you about the subject, therefore, once more. You should describe it to me fully.

M. N. Dutt: Bhishma said Regarding it I shall recite to you an old narrative of what the divine Vyasa said to his son Shuka when the latter had asked the former.

M. N. Dutt: Having studied the measureless Vedas with all their branches and the Upanishads, and desirous of leading a life of celibacy on account of his having acquired excellence of religious merit, Shuka put these very questions, about which his doubts had not been removed, to his father Dvipayana, who had removed (by study and contemplation) all doubt regarding true duties.

M. N. Dutt: Shuka said You should tell me who the Creator is of all beings, as fixed by a knowledge of time, and what the duties are of a Brahmana!

M. N. Dutt: Bhishma said The father, having a knowledge of both the past and the future, conversant with all duties and gifted with omniscience, thus described the subject to his son, who had questioned him.

M. N. Dutt: Vyasa said Only Brahma, who is without beginning without end, unborn, effulgent, above decay, immutable, indestructible, inconceivable and transcending knowledge, exists before the Creation.

M. N. Dutt: The Rishis, measuring time, have given particular names to particular portions. Five and ten winks of the eye make what is called a Kashtha: Thirty Kashthas make what is called a Kala. Thirty Kalas, with the tenth part of a Kala, make a Muhurta. Thirty Muhurtas make up one day and night. Thirty days and nights form a month, and twelve months form a year. Persons well-read in mathematical science say that a year is made up of two solar motions. viz., the northern and the southern.

M. N. Dutt: The sun makes the day and the night for men. The night is for the sleep of all living creatures, and the day is for work.

M. N. Dutt: A month of human beings is equal to a day and night of the departed manes. That division consists in this: the light half of the month is their day which is for work; and the dark fortnight is their night for sleep.

M. N. Dutt: A year (of men) is equal to a day and night to the gods. This division consists in this: the half year for which the sun travels from the vernal to the autumnal equinox is the day of the gods, and the half year for which the sun moves from the latter to the former is their night.

M. N. Dutt: Calculating by the days and nights of human beings about which I have told you, I shall speak of the day and night of Brahman and his years also.

M. N. Dutt: I shall, in their order, tell you the number of years, that are for different purposes calculated differently, in the Krita, the Treta, the Dvapara, and the Kali Yugas.

M. N. Dutt: Four thousand celestial years is the duration of the first or Krita age. The morning of that cycle consists of four hundred years and its evening is of four hundred years.

M. N. Dutt: Regarding the other cycles, the duration of each gradually decreases by a quarter in respect of both the principal period with the minor portion and the conjoining portion itself.

M. N. Dutt: These periods always keep up the neverending and eternal worlds. They who know Brahma, O child, regard this as Immutable Brahma.

M. N. Dutt: In the Krita age all the duties exist in full, along with Truth. Men of that age never acquired knowledge or object through unrighteous or forbidden means.

M. N. Dutt: In the other cycles duty, as laid down in the Vedas, is seen to gradually decline by a quarter in each. Sinfulness multiplies by theft, untruth, and deception.

M. N. Dutt: In the Krita age, all persons are free from disease and achieve their objects, and all live for four hundred years. In the Treta, the period of life decreases by a quarter.

M. N. Dutt: We have heard that, in the succeeding Yugas, the words of the Vedas, the periods of life, the blessings and the fruits of Vedic rites, all decrease gradually.

M. N. Dutt: The duties set down for the Krita Yuga are of one kind. Those for the Treta are otherwise. Those for the Dwapara are different. And those for the Kali are otherwise. This is in accordance with the decline which marks every succeeding cycle.

M. N. Dutt: In the Krita, Penance is the foremost. In the Treta, Knowledge is foremost. In Dvapara, Sacrifice has been said to be the foremost. In the Kali Yuga, only gift is sanctioned.

M. N. Dutt: The learned say that these twelve thousand celestial years from what is celled a cycle. A thousand such cycles form a single day of Brahman.

M. N. Dutt: The same is the duration of Brahman's night. With the beginning of Brahman's day the universe begins to come into being. During the period of universal dissolution the Creator sleeps, in Yoga-meditation. When the period of sleep expires, He awakes.

M. N. Dutt: What is Brahman's day covers a thousand such cycles. His night also covers a thousand similar cycles. They who know this are said to know the day and the night.

M. N. Dutt: On the expiry of His night, Brahman, waking up modifies the indestructible intelligence by causing it to be overlaid with ignorance. He then causes Consciousness to spring up, whence originates Mind which is at one with the Manifest.

M. N. Dutt: Vyasa said Brahma is the effulgent seed from which existing as it does by itself, has originated the entire universe consisting of two kinds of being, viz., the mobile and the immobile,

M. N. Dutt: At the dawn of His day, waking up, He creates with the aid of Avidya this universe. Mahat or the principle of Greatness at first springs up. That Mahat is speedily changed into Mind which is the soul of the Manifest.

M. N. Dutt: Overwhelming the Intelligence, which is effulgent, with Ignorance, Mind creates seven great entities. Urged by the desire of creating, Mind, which is far-reaching, which has many courses, and which had desire and doubt for its leading signs, beings to create various kinds of objects by modifications of itself. Ether first originates from it. Know that its property is Sound.

M. N. Dutt: From Ether, by modification, originates the bearer of all scents, viz., the pure, and powerful Wind. It is said to possess the property of Touch.

M. N. Dutt: From Wind also, by modification, originates Light endued with effulgence. Beautiful and called also Shukram, it is thus created, possessing the attribute of Form.

M. N. Dutt: From light, by modification, originates Water having taste for its attribute. From Water originates Earth having Scent for its attribute. These are said to represent primary creation.

M. N. Dutt: These, in succession, acquire the attributes of the immediately preceding ones from which they have originated. Each has not only its own special attribute but each succeeding one has the attributes of all the previous ones.

M. N. Dutt: If anybody, perceiving Scent in Water, were from ignorance to say that it belongs to Water, he would make a mistake, for Scent is the attribute of Earth though it may exist in Water and also Wind.

M. N. Dutt: These seven kinds of entities, possessing various kinds of energy, at first existed separately from one another. They could not create objects without all of them acting in a body.

M. N. Dutt: All these great entities coming together, and mixing with one another, form the constituent parts of the body which are called limbs.

M. N. Dutt: On account of the combination of those limbs,-the sum-total, invested with form and having sixteen constituent parts, becomes what is called the body, (When the gross body is thus forined), the subtile principle of greatness, with the unexhausted remnant of acts, then enters that combination called the gross body.

M. N. Dutt: The original Creator of all beings, then having by His Maya divided Himself, enters that subtile form for overloO king everything. And because he is the original Creator of all beings he is called the lord of all beings.

Corresponding verse not found in M. N. Dutt's version.

M. N. Dutt: It is he who creates all beings mobile and immobile. After having thus assumed the form the Brahman, he creates the worlds of the gods, the Rishis, the Pitris, and men; the rivers, the Seas and the oceans, the cardinal points, countries and provinces, hills and mountains, and large trees, human beings, Kinnaras, Rakshasas, birds, animals domestic and wild, and snakes.

M. N. Dutt: It is he who creates all beings mobile and immobile. After having thus assumed the form the Brahman, he creates the worlds of the gods, the Rishis, the Pitris, and men; the rivers, the Seas and the oceans, the cardinal points, countries and provinces, hills and mountains, and large trees, human beings, Kinnaras, Rakshasas, birds, animals domestic and wild, and snakes. He creates both kinds of mobile and immobile; and those that are destructible and those that are indestructible. Of theses created objects each gets those attributes which it had during the previous Creation; and each obtains repeatedly the attributes at every subsequent Creation. Having a formed character by either injuriousness peacefulness, mildness fierceness, righteousness or unrighteousness, truthfulness, or untruthfulness, each creature, at every new creation, gets that particular attribute which it had got before. For this the particular attribute attaches to it. same or or

M. N. Dutt: It is the Ordained himself who attaches variety to the great entities to the objects of the senses and to size or bulk of existent matter, and settles the relations of creatures with those various entities.

M. N. Dutt: Of men who had devoted themselves to the science of things, there are some who say that, in the production of effects, Exertion is supreme. Some learned persons hold that Destiny is supreme, and some that it is Nature which is the agent.

M. N. Dutt: Others hold that Acts flowing from Exertion and Destiny, produce effects, helped by Nature. Instead of considering any of these as alone powerful for the production of effects, they say that it is the union of all three that produces all effects.

M. N. Dutt: About this subject, some say that such is the case; some, that such is not the case; some, that both of these are not the case; and some that it is not that the reverse of both are not. These, of course, are the contentions of those who depend on Acts, with reference to objects. They, however, whose see the truth consider Brahma as the causes.

M. N. Dutt: Penance is the greatest good for living creatures. The roots of penance are tranquillity and self-control. By penance one acquires all things that he longs for in his mind.

M. N. Dutt: By penance one attains to that Being who creates the universe. He who thus succeeds in attaining to that Being becomes the powerful lord of all beings.

M. N. Dutt: it is by penance that the Rishis can read the Vedas without interruption. In the beginning the self-create caused those excellent Vedic sounds, that are embodiments of knowledge and that have neither beginning nor end. From those sounds have sprung all sorts of actions.

Corresponding verse not found in M. N. Dutt's version.

M. N. Dutt: The names of the Rishis, all things that have been created, the varieties of form seen in things, and the course of all actions, have all originated from the Vedas.

M. N. Dutt: Indeed, in the beginning the Supreme Lord of all beings, ceated all things from the words of the Vedas. Truly, the names of the Rishis, and all else that has been created, are seen in the Vedas. Upon the expiration of his night, the Increate Brahman creates, from models that existed before, all things which are, of course, weil-made by Him.

M. N. Dutt: in the Vedas has been described the subject of the Soul's Liberation, along with the ten means formed by study of the Vedas, adoption of the domestic mode of life. penances, observance of all duties, common to all the modes of life, sacrifices, performance of all acts leading to pure fame meditation which is of three kinds, and that kind of Liberation called success (Siddhi) attainable in this life.

M. N. Dutt: That incomprehensible Brahma which has been described in the words of the Vedas, and which has been described more clearly in the Upanishads by those who have an insight into the Vedas, can be realised by gradually following the practices referred to above.

M. N. Dutt: This consciousness of duality, fraught again with that of pairs opposites, is born only of acts in which he is engaged to a person who thinks he has a body. That person, however, who has attained to Liberation aided by his knowledge, drives off by force that consciousness of duality.

M. N. Dutt: Two Brahmas should be known viz., the Brahma represented by the Vedas and that which is beyond the Vedas and is supreme. One who is conversant with Brahma represented by sound succeeds in attaining to Brahma that is Supreme.

M. N. Dutt: The destruction of animals is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Kshatriyas. The growing of corn is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Vaisshyas. Serving the three other orders is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Shudras. Penance is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Brahmanas.

M. N. Dutt: In the Krita age the perforinance of sacrifices was not required. Such performance became necessary in the Treta age. In the Dvapara, sacrifices have begun to fall off. In the Kali, the same is the case with them,

M. N. Dutt: In the Krita age, worshipping only one Brahma, men regarded the Richs, the Samans, the Yajushas, and the rites and sacrifices that are performed from motives of advantage, as all different from the object of their worship, and practised only Yoga by means of penances.

M. N. Dutt: In the Treta age, many powerful men flourished who governed all mobile and immobile objects.

M. N. Dutt: Accordingly, in that age, the Vedas, and sacrifices, and the distinctions between the several orders, and the four modes of life, existed in a body. On account, however, of the decrease in the period of life in Dvapara, all these, it that age, fall off from that compact condition.

M. N. Dutt: In the Kali age, all the Vedas become so scarce that they are not seen by men. Afflicted by iniquity, they become extinct along with the rites and sacrifices laid down in them.

M. N. Dutt: The righteousness which is seen in the Krita age is now seen in such Brahmanas as are of purified souls and as are devoted to penances and the study of the scriptures.

M. N. Dutt: As regards the other cycles, it is seen that without at once giving up the duties and acts that are consistent with righteousness, men, observing the practices of their respective orders, and conversant with the ordinances of the Vedas, are led, by the authority of the scriptures, and from motives of advantage and interest to perform sacrifices and vows and sojourns to sacred waters and places.

M. N. Dutt: As in the rainy reason a large variety of new objets of the immobile order are caused to come into being by the showers that fall from the clouds, so many new kinds of duty or religious observances are brought about in each new cycle.

M. N. Dutt: As the same phenomena reappear with the reappearance of the seasons, so, at each new Creation of the same attributes appear in each new Brahman and Hara.

M. N. Dutt: I have, before this, spoken to you of Time which is without beginning and without end, which ordains this variety in the universe. It is that Time which creates and destroys all creatures.

M. N. Dutt: All the numberless creatures which exist subject to pairs of opposites and according to their respective natures, have Time for their refuge. It is Time that puts on those forms and it is Time which upholds them.]

M. N. Dutt: I have thus described to you, O son, the topics about which you had asked, viz., Creation, Time, Sacrifices and other rites, the Vedas, the real actor in the universe, action, and the results of action.

M. N. Dutt: Vyasa said I shall now tell you how, when his day is gone and his night comes, he withdraws ali things to himself, or how the Supreme Master, making this gross universe exceedingly subtile, inerges every thing into his Soul.

M. N. Dutt: When the time for universal dissolution comes twelve Suns, and Agni with his seven flames, begin to burn. Wrapt by those flames, the entire universe begins to blaze forth in a huge fire.