Vishṇu-Māyā
Vishṇu-Māyā · vishṇu-māyā, “the veiling power of Vishṇu”
Vishṇu-māyā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Vishṇu-māyā.
Māyā is the power that makes the world appear as it does, hiding its true nature. Vishṇu-māyā is this power as it belongs to Bhagavān Vishṇu. By it the whole visible universe is spread out and kept going.
The Bhavishya Purāṇa shows this power to Nārada Muni in a whole life lived as a queen, and teaches that it has destroyed hundreds of cakravartins and thousands of Indras; yet Mudgala Ṛshi declares that one who takes refuge in Bhagavān Vishṇu removes it.
Chapter 124 of the Varāha Purāṇa gives a long teaching on Vishṇu-māyā. It uses more than thirty examples, taken from nature, from puzzles about the universe and from a story. It ends with what happened to the brāhmaṇa Somaśarmā, which shows māyā both as a law of the universe and as a tool of Bhagavān Vishṇu’s grace. The Bhavishya Purāṇa tells a similar story about Nārada Ṛshi. The Agni Purāṇa (Chapter 3) shows the power of Vishṇu-māyā at the churning of the ocean: when Bhagavān Śiva asked to see the woman’s form Bhagavān Vishṇu had taken, even he was drawn after it, until he knew it as māyā; and Bhagavān Vishṇu declared that Rudra alone has conquered his māyā.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa speaks of Vishṇu-māyā in every one of its twelve skandhas, from its opening invocation to its last chapters. Through its many tellers (Sūta, Śuka, Brahmā, Maitreya, Kapila, Nārada, the yogīśvaras who taught King Nimi, and Śrī Kṛshṇa himself teaching Uddhava) and in the stotras of devas, ṛshis and devotees, it teaches that māyā is Śrī Hari’s own śakti (power), made of the three guṇas sattva, rajas and tamas; that by it he creates, sustains and withdraws the world and takes his avatāras, while it never touches or deludes him; that it binds the jīva with the sense of “I” and “mine” and turns the wheel of saṃsāra; and that it is crossed only by his grace, through bhakti and the service of his devotees. It names the mahātmās who have known his māyā, and tells how its power was shown to Nārada, to Brahmā when he hid Śrī Kṛshṇa’s calves and companions, to Bhagavān Śiva before the Mohinī form, to Devakī, and to Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi, who asked to see it and wandered for ages in the ocean of pralaya.
The Teaching
In Chapter 124 of the Varāha Purāṇa, Bhagavān Varāha explains the nature of māyā to Bhūdevī, the devī of the earth. He uses a stream of examples from everyday life and from the workings of the universe. The aim is not just to explain an idea but to set the listener free. Understanding māyā dissolves the false sense of being separate, and opens the way to seeing Bhagavān Vishṇu as the only reality under all the variety that appears.
Examples of Māyā in Nature
The Purāṇa gives more than thirty examples of Vishṇu-māyā at work in the world. Among them:
Uneven rain. The same clouds bring plenty to one place and drought to another. This is not chance but Bhagavān Vishṇu‘s unseen arrangement. The rain seems random, but his rule is hidden behind it.
The waxing and waning moon. The moon grows for one fortnight and shrinks for the next. This round of seeming gain and loss is Bhagavān Vishṇu’s play within time.
Well water that turns with the seasons. In summer, water drawn from a well is warm; in winter, the same well water is cool. The text sees in this a reversal of what one expects, which shows the hidden rule behind what looks like nature’s ordinary logic.
The ocean becoming rain. The salt water of the ocean is lifted by the sun, made pure, and falls as sweet fresh rain. What was salt becomes fresh, and what seems fixed is always being changed.
Planets and seasons. The movements of the grahas (planets) rule the seasons, the rise and fall of fortune, and the unfolding destiny of each being. All this is under Bhagavān Vishṇu’s care, though it looks like independent natural law.
Birth and death. Beings are born, live and die. Forms dissolve and appear again in new shapes. The seeming finality of death and the freshness of birth are both māyā at play within Bhagavān Vishṇu’s one unbroken presence.
The Puzzle of Garuḍa
One of the most striking examples is Garuḍa, the great eagle who is Vishṇu‘s vāhana (mount). Garuḍa carries Bhagavān Vishṇu through the skies. Yet Garuḍa himself is a form of Vishṇu’s own śakti (power). So Vishṇu carries himself while being carried, and under the spell of māyā the line between carrier and carried disappears. This is true of all creation: everything that seems to act on Bhagavān Vishṇu is itself Bhagavān Vishṇu acting.
The Story of Somaśarmā
The fullest example of Vishṇu-māyā in this chapter is the story of the brāhmaṇa Somaśarmā.
Somaśarmā had worshipped Vishṇu for many years, but he wanted to see māyā for himself. Bhagavān Vishṇu sent him to Kubjāmraka to bathe in the Gaṅgā. As soon as he bathed, he was changed into a Nishāda woman (a woman of a forest-dwelling tribe). In this form he lived fifty years. He married, raised seven children and lived the whole of a life completely unlike his life as a brāhmaṇa. When he bathed in the Gaṅgā again, he was at once himself again. What he had lived as fifty years had been a single morning for the brāhmaṇas watching.
Bhagavān Vishṇu then explained that this had not only been a showing but a prāyaścitta, an atonement. Somaśarmā’s pāpa (wrongdoing) had been that he did not honour the Bhāgavatas, the bhaktas of Vishṇu, in spite of his own long devotion. By living as a Nishāda woman, without the privileges of a brāhmaṇa, he learned what it is to be passed over. Since no real wrong had been done, because the whole experience was māyā, the atonement was complete without any real suffering. Somaśarmā was freed from his pāpa and went to Śvetadvīpa in Bhagavān Vishṇu’s company.
Māyā as the Path to Moksha
The teaching ends with a freeing truth. All things are māyā, kept in being by Bhagavān Vishṇu‘s will and never apart from his nature. So nothing can in the end separate the bhakta from Bhagavān Vishṇu. The world that appears is not a wall to break through but a revelation to see into. To see Bhagavān Vishṇu as the ground of all seeming opposites (warm and cold, rain and drought, birth and death, carrier and carried) is itself the doorway to moksha (liberation).
The Root Wrongdoing
The teaching names disrespect towards Bhāgavatas as the most basic pāpa, deeper than any mistake in ritual. If Bhagavān Vishṇu is in all beings, and shows himself most of all through his bhaktas, then to dismiss a Bhāgavata is to dismiss Bhagavān Vishṇu himself. When understanding alone does not bring humility, māyā comes into play as an atonement. It gives the bhakta a correction he lives through, not one he only thinks about.
Vishṇu-Māyā in the Bhavishya Purāṇa: Nārada and Sundarī
The index of the Uttara Parva names this account as Nārada’s darśana of the Vaishṇavī Māyā (Uttara Parva, Chapter 208).
The Uttara Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa opens (Chapter 3) with a story that is the shortest and most dramatic picture of Vishṇu-māyā in any Purāṇa.
Nārada Maharshi asked Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa about the nature of māyā. He was sent to a holy lake in Śvetadvīpa (the White Island). As soon as he bathed in it, Nārada became a beautiful woman named Sundarī. His male form and his very sense of who he was were wiped away by the power of māyā. As Sundarī, he lived a whole life. She met and married King Tāladhvaja, bore many sons and daughters, and ruled a rich kingdom for fifty years, knowing the full pleasures of royal and household life. Then came crushing grief: she watched her husband, children and grandchildren all die in a single war. Sundarī was left a widow, without any family, weeping without comfort at the funeral pyre.
In that moment of utter loss, Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa appeared and said:
Nārada! Why do you weep? Who are these people whose loss you mourn? You are Nārada, my bhakta, the very joy of kīrtana (singing my names) in bodily form. This whole life you have lived (husband, children, grandchildren, kingdom) was not real. It was māyā, my power of illusion. In the time you think you spent as Sundarī, no more than an hour of Brahmaloka’s time has passed. You have lived in your own mind what all beings live through in saṃsāra (the round of birth and death).
When Nārada bathed in the lake again, he was at once back in his own male form. He sat in wonder. He had known māyā as an idea; now he knew it in his bones. Nārāyaṇa then explained that māyā is not just an illusion to think about. It is the means by which the Paramātman (the Supreme Self) teaches. What cannot be grasped through philosophy is lived directly through the changing power of māyā. Nārada’s grief for Sundarī’s dead family was as full and real as any grief felt by any being anywhere in saṃsāra. And it vanished just as fully the moment Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa showed what it really was.
The Purāṇa says that this teaching is the rahasya (secret) of the Uttara Parva: that Vishṇu‘s māyā is both the world’s most convincing illusion and his most loving way of teaching. The story of Nārada and Sundarī came from Śvetadvīpa itself. It was first told in that holy realm, and later reached Yudhishṭhira through Kṛshṇa‘s telling.
The account of Uttara Parva, Chapter 3
The account is told in full under Nārada and Sundarī; here it is in brief.
Per Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 3, Yudhishṭhira asked Śrī Kṛshṇa what kind of thing is the Māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu that bewilders this moving and unmoving world, and Śrī Kṛshṇa told him of Nārada Muni. Nārada went to Śvetadvīpa for the darśana of Nārāyaṇa and asked to see his Māyā, and would take no other vara. Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa, holding him by the finger, set out with him, took the form of an old brāhmaṇa named Yajñaśarmā, and came to Vidiśā on the Vetravatī. There the vaiśya Sīrabhadra honoured them with a seat and arghya and offered them food, but they neither ate nor rested in his house, and Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa blessed him that his sons, his farming and his cattle might grow. On the bank of the Gaṅgā, in the village of Veṇikā, the poor brāhmaṇa Gosvāmī gave them bath, food and rest, and Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa said that his farming should bear no fruit and his progeny should not increase. When Nārada asked why, Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa answered that the pāpa of a year of catching fish equals that of one day of ploughing, that Sīrabhadra with his sons would go to naraka, and that he had blessed Gosvāmī so that, not caught in the net of the world, he might gain mukti.
Near Kānyakubja they came to a most lovely sarovara. Nārada bathed in it and came out as a divine maiden, as Lakshmī rose from the ocean, and Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa withdrew from sight. King Tāladhvaja found her and married her. In the thirteenth year a gourd was born of her, holding fifty small, strong boys, and she placed them in a vessel of ghee. Their sons and grandsons grew many, and out of greed for the kingdom they fought one another and all perished. As the queen wept, Bhagavān Vishṇu came in the form of a brāhmaṇa and taught her and the king:
- “This is the Māyā of Vishṇu. You weep in vain. Such is the end of all beings.”
- “Vishṇu-māyā is such that hundreds of cakravartins and thousands of Indras have been destroyed by it, as a fierce wind destroys a lamp.”
- Men with the power to dry the ocean, to grind the earth to powder and to lift mountains have also gone into the mouth of Kāla. Even Rāvaṇa perished, whose fort was Trikūṭa, whose moat was the ocean, whose warriors were rākshasas, whom Śukrācārya counselled.
- Into battle, into the desert, on a mountain, into fire, into a cave or into the ocean, go where one may, none escapes Kāla. What is to be will be.
- “One, overcome by grief, sheds tears; one weeps; one dances in great joy; one sings a charming song; one tries many means for wealth. This saṃsāra is a nāṭaka, and all beings are its characters.”
Then he had Nārada bathe in that same puṇya-tīrtha, and Nārada took his own form again, bearing daṇḍa, kamaṇḍalu and vīṇā. Bhagavān Vishṇu brought him through the sky to Śvetadvīpa and said: “Devarshi Nārada, you have seen my Māyā,” and withdrew from sight. Devarshi Nārada bowed to him and, with his leave, began to wander the three lokas. Śrī Kṛshṇa closed: “Mahārāja, I have told this Vishṇu-māyā in brief. By the power of this Māyā the jīvas of the world, attached to sons, wives, wealth and the like, weep and sing and make many kinds of effort.”
The chapter before says that munis of pure buddhi and clean heart see the world’s outer and inner form, or only the Māyā of the Paramātmā knows them.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 2–3
Mudgala Ṛshi on the māyā
Returning from naraka, Mudgala Ṛshi recalled the power of Bhagavān Vishṇu and the glory of the jala-dhenu dāna, and said:
- How wonderful and hard is the māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu, deluded by which a being does not recognise Parameśvara.
- For this reason jīvas wander through births as worm, louse, moth, tree, creeper, beast and bird, and make no effort for their own mukti.
- Though the māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu is most wonderful, one who takes refuge in Bhagavān Vishṇu removes that māyā.
- One who, even having obtained a human birth, does not worship Bhagavān Vishṇu is born as a man in vain. Even a little worship done with bhakti makes Bhagavān Vishṇu do him good in this world and the next.
- Bhagavān Vishṇu needs no wealth, cloth or ornaments; he wants only the bhakti of the heart and pure love.
- After thousands of births, whoever is born in this karmabhūmi in the rare human form and does not worship Śrī Vishṇu and give the jala-dhenu has a birth in vain, and remains in the net of māyā.
Then, both arms raised, Mudgala Ṛshi cried to all people to worship Śrī Vishṇu and give the jala-dhenu for their good in both worlds, for he had seen the torment of naraka with his own eyes.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 153
In the praise of Bhagavān Sūrya
Brahmā tells Dindi, in a teaching on the Saura dīkshā, that love for nāstikas and a leaning to hetu-vāda befall the wicked who have fallen into Vishṇu-māyā.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 63
Vishṇu-Māyā in the Agni Purāṇa: Rudra conquers the māyā
In Chapter 3 of the Agni Purāṇa, Agni tells Vasishṭha Maharshi of the Kūrma avatāra and the churning of the Kshīrābdhi, the Ocean of Milk. When the amṛta rose, the daityas led by Jambha took it, and Bhagavān Vishṇu took the form of a woman of great beauty. The daityas were bewildered by her and said, “Fair-faced one, be our wife. Take this amṛta and serve it to us.” Saying “So be it,” Hari took the amṛta from their hands and gave it to the devas to drink.
When the work was done and Bhagavān Vishṇu had laid that form aside and was among the devas, Bhagavān Śiva said to Hari, “Show me that woman’s form.” Bhagavān Śrī Mahāvishṇu showed Rudra the form. Then Bhagavān Śiva, under the power of Vishṇu-māyā, left Devī Pārvatī and followed that woman, without garment, and took hold of her braid of hair. She freed her hair and went on, and he followed after her. Wherever the vīrya of Īśvara fell upon the earth, those places all became kshetras (holy places) of golden liṅgas.
Then, knowing “this is all māyā,” Bhagavān Śiva returned to his own nature. And Bhagavān Vishṇu said to him: “Rudra, you have conquered my māyā. In this world no one but you can conquer my māyā.”
The devas then defeated in battle the daityas, who had failed to win the amṛta. The devas dwelt in svarga, and the daityas went to live in Pātāla. The Purāṇa says that one who reads this account of the devas’ victory attains svarga.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 3
Per Bhāgavata Purāṇa
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa returns to the māyā of Śrī Hari again and again. Its eleventh skandha has a chapter called “the way to cross over māyā”, and its twelfth tells how Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi saw it. The teaching comes through the Purāṇa’s nested tellers: Sūta to Śaunaka and the ṛshis at Naimishāraṇya, Śuka to Parīkshit, Brahmā to his son Nārada, Maitreya to Vidura, Kapila to his mother Devahūti, Nārada to Yudhishṭhira, the yogīśvaras to King Nimi, and Śrī Kṛshṇa to Uddhava. The Purāṇa calls it māyā, māyā-śakti (the power of māyā), deva-māyā, Vishṇu-māyā and, once, Māyādevī.
What māyā is
The Purāṇa opens with a maṅgala to the Parabrahman from whom the world is born, in whom it stays and into whom it dissolves, and it says at once that the faults of māyā do not touch that Parameśvara, whose nature is consciousness. Sūta then tells the ṛshis that sattva, rajas and tamas are the guṇas of Īśvara’s māyā-śakti. Parameśvara, beyond prakṛti, one without a second and full, joined with these guṇas, takes the names Brahmā, Vishṇu and Rudra for the creation, sustenance and dissolution of the world. Though beyond the guṇas, at the beginning he created the world by his māyā-śakti, which is cause and effect in nature; entering the guṇas, the play of that māyā-śakti, he pervades all with the power of consciousness and shines everywhere as though he had guṇas. The tattva-knowers say that when this māyā-śakti turns into vidyā (knowledge) and withdraws, the jīva attains his own Brahman-nature and shines in supreme bliss.
Brahmā tells Nārada that Nārāyaṇa, nirguṇa by nature, accepts the upādhi (adjunct) of māyā for the work of creation, and the world he creates is established in him alone. As ākāśa does not know its own end, so his māyā is so vast that even Śrī Hari does not know its extent; how then could others know it? “Neither I, nor you, nor Rudra know the true form of that Parameśvara.” Kāla, māyā, effect and cause, the mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra, the five elements, the three guṇas, the senses, the body of the brahmāṇḍa and its abhimānī, and all moving and unmoving beings are forms of Parabrahma. All the glories of creation (tapas, Brahmā, the nine maharshis from Marīci, the prajāpatis from Daksha), of sustenance (dharma, Vishṇu, Manu, the devas and kings) and of dissolution (adharma, Rudra, the Krodhavaśa serpents, the rākshasas) are vibhūtis of his māyā. The māyā that causes creation, sustenance and dissolution is Śrī Hari’s śakti, and neither Brahmā nor the maharshis from Marīci know its end.
Maitreya tells Vidura: “Māyā is the very śakti of this Parameśvara, whose nature is eternal seeing. It is the cause and it is the effect. Because it is of the form of bhāva and abhāva, it is anirvacanīya (not to be defined).” When this māyā-śakti, at the root of creation, merges into him, only the Paramātmā, pure consciousness, remains; his jñāna never sleeps, and only his māyā-śakti sleeps, merged in him. The abhimāni devatās say that he has no birth, and the māyā-śakti too has no birth. Maitreya adds that the māyā of Śrī Hari bewilders even the masters of māyā, for even Śrī Hari does not himself know the full course of his own māyā. The root of the tree of the world is the māyā-śakti called avyakta (the unmanifest), and like the tap-root of a tree it is not seen.
Kapila teaches Devahūti that the all-pervading Purusha, by his own will alone, took up in līlā his māyā-śakti; made of sattva, rajas and tamas, it is subtle because it is the cause of the world, and through its veiling power (āvaraṇa-śakti) the Purusha who looks upon prakṛti forgets his own nature. Prakṛti is the māyā-śakti of Bhagavān Vishṇu, which turns into cause and effect and deludes the jīva. Kāla is the name of Śrī Hari’s wondrous power that makes his māyā-śakti rise as the universe of many forms.
Kubera tells Dhruva that though Śrī Hari takes the upādhi of māyā-śakti for creation, sustenance and dissolution, in his own nature there is no second thing at all, not even māyā-śakti. In the gīta Rudra taught the Pracetas, he sings that the many-formed māyā-śakti cannot delude Śrī Hari: without any change in himself he creates, sustains and withdraws the world by it, and it is only by its power that the jīvas hold the difference seen as the world to be real; he is beyond it, independent. In pralaya the māyā-śakti stays merged in him. Nārada tells the Pracetas that as clouds, darkness and light appear in the sky at their times and vanish again, so the māyā-śakti of sattva, rajas and tamas appears in Śrī Hari at creation and merges in him at pralaya, and by it the stream of the world flows on.
In the stotras of the devotees the same truth is sung. Hiraṇyakaśipu, praising Brahmā, says that the one he praises is the support both of knowledge, the conscious śakti, and of māyā, the inert śakti. Varuṇa tells Śrī Kṛshṇa that the śruti declares the māyā-śakti, support of the imaginings that are the creation of the worlds, is not something different from him. The Māheśvara-jvara says that kāla, adṛshṭa, karma, the jīva, ajñāna, substance, the body, the life-force (sūtrātmā), ahaṅkāra, the senses, the five elements and the liṅga-deha are his māyā, and so is the stream of body and karma that runs like seed and sprout; yet in his own nature there is no māyā at all. Śrutadeva says that the mahat-tattva and the other causal principles and the unmanifest māyā-śakti are his upādhis; māyā does not cover him, but it covers the sight of those in saṃsāra. The śrutis, waking the Paramātmā at the end of pralaya, say that the beginningless māyā took on the guṇas only to cover the true nature of the jīva, and that he casts off māyā as a snake its slough. Aṁśumān says that in Bhagavān Kapila, free of puṇya and pāpa, there is no māyā-śakti, no guṇas and no karma bound up with them.
At the end Sūta teaches Śaunaka that this māyā of Śrī Hari is beyond imagining and cannot be escaped. The jīvas, who are portions of Śrī Hari, through it take the body to be the self by the workings of desire and anger, and fall into delusion. Māyā is the infatuation felt again and again in the buddhi as “this person is deceitful”; when those who enquire into the ātmā enquire, māyā is not found resting in Śrī Hari’s nature, the disputes that rest on māyā are not in his nature, and in the Paramātmā without attributes even the mind does not move.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 1–3; Skandha 2, Chapters 6–7; Skandha 3, Chapters 5–6, 8, 26, 28–29; Skandha 4, Chapters 12, 24, 31; Skandha 7, Chapter 3; Skandha 9, Chapter 8; Skandha 10, Chapters 28, 63, 86–87; Skandha 12, Chapter 6
Māyā in the form of Śrī Hari
The mahātmas, Śuka tells Parīkshit, see the whole world as the body of Ananta Śrī Mahāvishṇu: the māyā-śakti that deludes people is his smile, and this boundless creation is only the side-glance of that māyā-śakti. When Bali saw the Viśvarūpa of Bhagavān Vāmana, he saw the power of māyā in his laughter. Sūta tells Śaunaka that in the Virāṭ Purusha the deluding māyā-śakti is his smile, and that Śrī Hari wears the māyā-śakti of sattva, rajas and tamas as his vanamālā, the forest garland, as he wears the Veda as his pītāmbara and the Oṃkāra as his sacred thread. The Virāṭ is made of nine tattvas: the māyā-śakti, the mahat-tattva, the sūtrātmā, ahaṅkāra and the five tanmātras. Kapila teaches that one should meditate that Śrī Hari formed the curve of his brows by his māyā, to bewilder Manmatha and to bring welfare to the maharshis.
Śrī Hari names the Māyā-śakti among his own forms, which the devotee who rises before dawn and remembers them with a pure and one-pointed mind is freed from all pāpa: Gajendra, the lake, the mountain, the Śrīvatsa, the Kaustubha, the Sudarśana cakra, Lakshmī Devī, Brahmā, Śiva, the Oṃkāra, truthful speech, the Māyā-śakti, the cows and the rest. When Brahmā saw the calves and the gopa boys become four-armed forms of Śrī Kṛshṇa, the māyā-śakti, kriyā-śakti and the other śaktis stood around them in embodied form. In Akrūra‘s vision in the Yamunā, twelve śaktis served Śrī Hari in embodied form: Sampad, Pushṭi, Vāk, Kānti, Kīrti, Tushṭi, Bhūmi, Ūrjā, Vidyā, Avidyā, Cicchakti and Māyā-śakti. When Śrī Kṛshṇa and Arjuna passed beyond the darkness to the Purushottama seated on Ananta, the śaktis Pushṭi, Śrī, Kīrti and Māyā served him in embodied form, with the pārshadas Sunanda and Nanda, the cakra, the gadā and the eight siddhis.
The devotees also see māyā in the forms Śrī Hari takes. Brahmā, praising Śiva after Daksha‘s yajña, says that the upādāna (material cause) of the jagat is the māyā-śakti and the nimitta (efficient cause) is Śiva, so that Śakti and Śiva are the mother and father of the world, and Śiva is the Parabrahman beyond both. Kaśyapa tells Diti that the māyā-śakti moves at Rudra’s command, and that what others seek with vratas, his māyā-śakti, he has enjoyed and set far away at his feet. The bards praise Pṛthu as Śrī Hari who has come down with his māyā-śakti, his queen Arcis. Akrūra says that Balarāma is the māyā-śakti, the material cause of the world, and Śrī Kṛshṇa the Parabrahma, its efficient cause. Vasudeva tells Śrī Kṛshṇa and Balarāma that the two of them are the māyā-śakti and the pūrṇa Brahma that are the cause of the world, and that the māyā-śakti is an aṃśa of Śrī Kṛshṇa, the guṇas an aṃśa of that śakti, and from a small aṃśa of the guṇas the world is created, sustained and dissolved.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 1; Skandha 3, Chapters 14, 28; Skandha 4, Chapters 6, 16; Skandha 8, Chapters 4, 20; Skandha 10, Chapters 13, 39, 48, 85, 89; Skandha 12, Chapter 11
Māyā in creation, sustenance and dissolution
Brahmā prays to Śrī Hari as the spider that weaves its web from itself: taking the upādhi of his māyā-śakti, he creates, sustains and withdraws the world of twenty-five tattvas, and plays in it. Śrī Hari shows him the example of the two moons and Rāhu: one who presses a finger to the eye sees two moons though there is one, and Rāhu is present among the grahas yet unseen; so the world, though not truly in Brahman, is seen, and Brahman is not seen. “This is my māyā.” Śuka tells Parīkshit that Nārāyaṇa rose from yoga-nidrā, resolved to become many, and by the power of māyā divided his creative power into adhyātma, adhibhūta and adhidaiva; that the gross and subtle forms of Bhagavān Vishṇu are fashioned by his māyā, so the jñānīs do not take them as the final truth; that Śrī Hari, actionless in truth, through māyā takes the form of Brahmā, becomes active and creates names, forms and actions; and that the Veda‘s account of creation is not meant to set up doership in Parameśvara, for the world is superimposed on him by māyā. Parīkshit asks where the Supreme Person lies when he lays aside the upādhi of māyā, and how in pralaya he remains the witness.
Maitreya tells Vidura how the world came forth. By the impulse of Kāla, movement arose in the māyā-śakti of three guṇas, presided over by consciousness; Parameśvara placed in it the seed called cidābhāsa, the reflection of consciousness, his own aṃśa; and from the undifferentiated māyā-śakti the mahat-tattva arose, leaving the dark unmanifest state. By the union of Kāla, the māyā-śakti and the cidābhāsa, under his overseeing, ākāśa and then the other elements were born. Vikshepa, the becoming many, is the mark of māyā. The māyā-śakti shows itself as jñāna-śakti and kriyā-śakti in Hiraṇyagarbha. Brahmā, his mind coloured by rajas, was drawn into the play of the māyā-śakti and wished to create. In his stuti Brahmā says that Śrī Hari alone shines in many forms through the stirring in his māyā-śakti; that he divides it by the guṇas and bears the three mūrtis Brahmā, Vishṇu and Rudra, so that he stands as the tree of the world with the three mūrtis as its trunks and the prajāpatis as its branches; and that the play of his māyā-śakti is his own krīḍā (sport). Maitreya gives three causes for the first imbalance in the māyā-śakti: the course of karma, the Purusha who presides over prakṛti, and Kāla. The earth was raised by Śrī Hari in the form of Varāha, a form made of māyā, and the munis praised him: “You created this most wondrous jagat by your māyā-śakti.”
Śrī Hari tells Daksha: “Keeping my māyā of three guṇas under my control and taking it as my upādhi, I create, protect and withdraw the world, and for these three works I alone bear the three names Brahmā, Vishṇu and Rudra.” The yogeśvaras say that the world is born of the māyā-śakti of Parameśvara, sustained by him and dissolved in him, and that the mixture of its guṇas appears differently in each being according to prārabdha karma. Dhruva sings that Śrī Hari’s śakti is called māyā; with it he creates the tattvas from the mahat-tattva down to the gross elements, and he alone shines in the many-formed world like fire in pieces of wood. Svāyambhuva Manu tells Dhruva that by the māyā of Parameśvara bodies are born, live and perish, and that Īśvara, joined with his māyā-śakti, creates, sustains and withdraws all beings. Bhūdevī tells Pṛthu that Parabrahman takes many bodies by the māyā-śakti yet is ever established in his own nature; that by that same māyā-śakti he created the world and has now become Pṛthu to protect it; and that from the māyā-śakti come the mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra, the subtle elements and the senses with their devatās. Pṛthu teaches that the māyā-śakti of Īśvara, Kāla which stirs it, the vāsanās of the jīva and his prārabdha karma together make the body arise. Rudra’s gīta says that by his māyā-śakti Parabrahma created the four kinds of beings, born from the womb, from eggs, from moisture and from the earth, and entered them as the Purusha; and that he, whose māyā-śakti has fierce speed, withdraws the worlds at pralaya as a wind scatters the clouds.
Jaḍabharata tells Rahūgaṇa that the māyā-śakti, taking the names of the five elements, the natures of beings, their saṃskāras, Time and the fruit of karma, imagines all this manifoldness. Bhagavān Śiva, in his stuti to Saṅkarshaṇa, says that the first effect of the threefold māyā-śakti is the mahat-tattva, and that the mind-states born of its guṇas cannot stain the witness-consciousness in the least. Śuka says that even with the lifespan of the devas no human could describe or imagine the limit of the greatness of the guṇas of the māyā-śakti; that some describe the circle of the nakshatras as held in the form of a śiśumāra by the māyā-śakti of Bhagavān Vāsudeva; that the guṇas of māyā create, sustain and withdraw the world only by the saṅkalpa (will) of Parabrahman; and that the brahmāṇḍa is the transformation of the three guṇas of Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa’s māyā-śakti.
Daksha, in the Haṃsaguhya stotra, says that from the unfailing caitanya-śakti of Parameśvara the māyā of three guṇas became manifest, that he controls both the māyā-śakti and the jīvas, and that the disputes of debaters and their opponents come from his māyā-śaktis; Śrī Hari tells him that Brahmā appeared within the brahmāṇḍa when it became manifest through the māyā-śakti, and that by his māyā all beings will now be formed in pairs. The devas say that Śrī Hari created them by his māyā, and that saguṇa and nirguṇa, doer and non-doer agree in him once the māyā-śakti is placed between them. Vṛtra teaches Indra that Parabrahma reflected in the māyā-śakti is Īśvara, and that the māyā-śakti becomes the mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra, the elements, the senses and the inner instruments, by whose working the world is created and sustained only by his grace; sattva, rajas and tamas belong to the māyā-śakti, not to the ātmā. Aṅgiras and Nārada tell Citraketu that as grains come from grains and perish, jīvas impelled by Īśvara’s māyā-śakti are born of other jīvas and die. Citraketu says that Bhagavān Vishṇu, without doership or enjoyership, by his māyā-śakti creates beings, their bondage and release, and their joy and sorrow.
Śuka tells Parīkshit that Bhagavān Vishṇu is beyond the māyā-śakti and nirguṇa, without birth, body or senses, yet because he is the ground of its guṇas, the strife of devas and rākshasas is attributed to him; sattva, rajas and tamas are guṇas of the māyā-śakti, not of the ātmā. Prahlāda sings to Bhagavān Narasiṃha that by the assent of the Purushottama a disturbance arose in the guṇas of the māyā-śakti impelled by Kāla, and so the liṅga-śarīra of karma-vāsanās was made; that by his māyā-śakti he creates the world, enters it and shines as many; and that Brahmā saw the Parabrahma become manifest by his own māyā-śakti as the great Virāṭ Purusha. Brahmā sings that the beginningless māyā-śakti turns the wheel of saṃsāra: its fifteen spokes are the karmendriyas, the jñānendriyas and the five prāṇas; its three naves are sattva, rajas and tamas; its eight felloes are the five elements, the mind, buddhi and ahaṅkāra; and its axle is Īśvara. The five elements, time, the fruit of karma, the guṇas and the particulars have the Virāṭ Purusha’s māyā-śakti as their material cause; by it he created the world and entered it, and the discerning see him, nirguṇa, as its ground. Śrī Hari tells Rudra that as Kāla he takes the māyā-śakti, with the three guṇas as its parts, as his upādhi for creation, sustenance and dissolution. Aditi sings that taking the guṇas of his great māyā-śakti as upādhi he becomes the cause of all three works and shines as the world, yet abides beyond place, time and tamas.
Vasudeva sings to the newborn Śrī Kṛshṇa that by his māyā-śakti he created the world of the three guṇas, and that the śrutis speak of him as entering it though he did not truly enter; that by it he takes the form of Vishṇu, full of sattva, to protect, the form of Prajāpati, full of rajas, to create, and the form of Rudra, full of tamas, to withdraw, and that white, red and black are the marks of sattva, rajas and tamas. Devakī says that when Brahmā’s two parārdhas end, the brahmāṇḍa dissolves into the elements, they into the mahat-tattva and that into the māyā-śakti, and he alone remains, and so he is called Śesha, “the one who remains”. Nārada sings that Śrī Kṛshṇa by his own māyā-śakti first created the three guṇas and with them creates, sustains and withdraws the world. Akrūra sings that the five elements, ahaṅkāra, the mahat-tattva, the unborn Māyā-śakti, the Purusha joined with it, the mind, the senses and their objects and devatās all came forth from Śrī Kṛshṇa’s own nature; that these, being objects, cannot know him; and that all beings from Brahmā to the shrubs, identified with bodies born of the Māyā-śakti, are bound by its guṇas. Śrī Kṛshṇa tells the gopīs through Uddhava that by his māyā-śakti he creates himself in himself as the elements, the senses and the guṇas, and sustains and withdraws them; māyā shows itself as waking, dream and deep sleep, and the ātmā is their witness. Dhṛtarāshṭra says that the way of Parameśvara’s māyā-śakti is beyond thought: he creates the world by it, enters it as the antaryāmī and makes its variety by mixing the guṇas. Śuka says that by Śrī Hari’s māyā-śakti of three guṇas three kinds of beings were made: the rākshasas, cruel and tāmasa; the asuras, given to enjoyment and rājasa; and the devatās, sāttvika.
The yogīśvara Antariksha, answering King Nimi’s question “What is the māyā of Śrī Hari?”, says that at the mahāpralaya Kāla, without beginning or end, dissolves the world of name and form into the māyā-śakti, and that this māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu, with sattva (white), rajas (red) and tamas (black), brings about creation, sustenance and dissolution. Pippalāyana says that before creation there was only the māyā-śakti of the three guṇas; from it came the mahat-tattva, and the jīva-tattva with that upādhi is Hiraṇyagarbha. The devatās sing that Hiraṇyagarbha received śakti from Śrī Kṛshṇa and created the brahmāṇḍa. Dattātreya teaches King Yadu that Nārāyaṇa creates the world by his māyā-śakti at the beginning of the kalpa and withdraws it by his śakti called Kāla at its end; that the one Paramātmā stirs the māyā-śakti by Kāla and creates Hiraṇyagarbha; and that by his beginningless māyā-śakti he created trees, creeping beings, cattle, birds and fish, and at last the human body, fit for the realisation of Parabrahma, and attained ānanda in it. Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that before manifestation there was no second besides Īśvara: embracing his māyā-śakti he becomes the cause of the world and, by its division, shines in many forms, as seeds sown in a field become a crop. He gives nine tattvas: the Paramātmā, the māyā-śakti, the mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra and the five subtle elements; and all that is seen, heard or conceived has the purusha and the māyā-śakti as its ground.
In the last skandha Śuka describes the prākṛtika pralaya: the guṇas, moved by time, dissolve into the māyā-śakti and come to balance. In that state the māyā-śakti has no change by hours or days; it is beginningless and endless, beyond the senses, beyond time, imperishable, the cause of the world. In it there are no words, no mind, no imbalance of the guṇas, no tattvas, prāṇas, buddhi, senses or their devatās, and no shape like the lokas; there is no waking, dream or sleep, no five elements, no Sūrya and no Candra. It is like deep sleep, like emptiness, beyond thought, and the mahātmās call it the cause of the world. Sūta tells Śaunaka that sarga is the arising of the mahat-tattva from the disturbance in the guṇas of the māyā-śakti, and that for this world born of māyā there are four pralayas: naimittika, prākṛtika, nitya and ātyantika. The beginningless māyā-śakti of Śrī Hari made the Sūrya-maṇḍala, and by beginningless māyā the one Śrī Hari is made into nine forms: time, place, action, the doer, the instrument, the rite, the Veda mantra, the substance offered and the fruit.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapters 8–10; Skandha 3, Chapters 5–9, 13, 20; Skandha 4, Chapters 7, 9, 11, 17, 21, 24; Skandha 5, Chapters 12, 16–17, 23, 25–26; Skandha 6, Chapters 4, 9, 12, 15, 17; Skandha 7, Chapters 1, 9; Skandha 8, Chapters 5–6, 12, 17; Skandha 10, Chapters 3, 37, 40, 47, 49, 89; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 6, 9, 12, 22, 25; Skandha 12, Chapters 4, 7, 11
Māyā and the avatāras
The ṛshis at Naimisha ask Sūta to tell the līlās that Śrī Mahāvishṇu reveals by his māyā-śakti as he wills, and how, taking a māyā-human form and remaining hidden, he did with Balarāma deeds impossible for men. The learned, Sūta says, have described the births and karmas of Parameśvara, who is no doer and unborn, which come about through connection with māyā. Kuntī tells Śrī Kṛshṇa that he is beyond the māyā-śakti, and yet covered by the curtain of māyā, so that a mind deluded by the body cannot know him, as a fool does not know an actor in costume; when she had praised him, he smiled gently, as though enchanting her with his māyā. Bhīshma knew that Śrī Kṛshṇa, Jagannātha, had taken a human body by his māyā-śakti and moved hidden in the Yadu line, deluding the world; the one ever in the bliss of the Paramātmā takes up māyā-śakti for play, and from it flows the stream of the world. The women of Hastināpura say that he creates, sustains and withdraws the world by his māyā-śakti with no doership and no attachment or aversion.
Devahūti praises Kapila as the one who at the end of the kalpa becomes the child of māyā, lying on a banyan leaf with his toe in his mouth. Śrī Hari by his māyā-śakti took the form of Vāmana and measured the three worlds; the Nārāyaṇa Kavaca prays to Vāmana, who by his māyā took the form of a short brahmacārī. The devas tell Śrī Hari that by the māyā-śakti inherent in his form he took avatāra as a deva (Vāmana), a human (Śrī Rāma), an animal (Varāha), as Narasiṃha and as Matsya, and that by his māyā he bears ornaments, weapons, forms, names and powers, though for the knower of the ātmā there is no difference in him. The Purushottama took a body in Aditi‘s womb by his māyā-śakti of three guṇas. Nārada tells Yudhishṭhira that Śrī Kṛshṇa is Parameśvara who by māyā took a human form, and Sūta tells Śaunaka that Śrī Hari descended through Parāśara in Satyavatī as Vyāsa, with a portion of sattva, itself a portion of the māyā-śakti, to divide the Veda.
Parīkshit asks Śuka to tell the deeds of Śrī Hari when by his own māyā-śakti he took avatāra as a man. The devas, praising Śrī Hari in Devakī‘s womb, say that the tree of saṃsāra, with its two fruits, three roots and the rest, rests on his māyā-śakti alone, and that those whose discernment is covered by his māyā see difference in him. After granting darśana to Vasudeva and Devakī in his four-armed form, Śrī Kṛshṇa fell silent and by his māyā-śakti became an ordinary child as they watched; he had told them that, deluded by his māyā, they had not asked him for moksha. The Parabrahma who created all, from Brahmā to the shrubs, descended as a human boy by his māyā-śakti. By māyā-śakti Balarāma and Kṛshṇa sported in Gokula in the guise of gopālakas; the beauty of the rains was made to flourish by Śrī Kṛshṇa’s own māyā-śakti, and he admired it. When Indra sent his clouds against Gokula, Śrī Kṛshṇa resolved by his māyā-śakti to remove the pride and ajñāna of those who thought themselves lokapālas, and to protect Gokula, his own family, by it; Indra, seeing the greatness of his yogamāyā, was humbled. Indra then said that saṃsāra, the stream of the three guṇas, is a conjurer’s show, the work of the māyā-śakti, known only through ignorance of the ātmā, and that it does not bind Śrī Kṛshṇa.
Śrī Kṛshṇa had seen the whole Yādava race destroyed by the power of his own māyā-śakti. At Prabhāsa the Yādavas, drunk and bewildered by his māyā and proud, fell into a great quarrel, and the anger born of their hatred, their minds seized by the brāhmaṇas’ śāpa and by his māyā, ended the Yādava vaṃśa. He told Dāruka to know all this as the play of his māyā and be at peace. When Śrī Kṛshṇa entered his own dhāma, Brahmā, Rudra and the others praised the glory of his yogamāyā, and Śuka tells Parīkshit that the Paramātmā’s birth, departure and līlās among embodied beings are only an imitation by māyā, like an actor’s: he creates the world out of himself, enters it, sports in it, withdraws it, and remains in his undivided Being.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 1, 3, 8–10; Skandha 3, Chapters 4, 33; Skandha 6, Chapters 8–9, 18; Skandha 7, Chapter 1; Skandha 8, Chapter 18; Skandha 10, Chapters 1–3, 12, 18, 20, 25, 27; Skandha 11, Chapters 30–31; Skandha 12, Chapter 6
How māyā binds the jīva
Vyāsa, his mind made pure by bhakti-yoga, saw the Ādi-purusha and the māyā-śakti resting on him, and saw that the jīva, though Para-brahma by nature, is deluded by that māyā, thinks himself made of the guṇas, and suffers saṃsāra; while Śrī Kṛshṇa, by his power of consciousness, sets māyā aside and abides in his non-dual nature. Śuka tells Parīkshit that through the māyā of the Paramātmā the ātmā comes to be joined to the body; the māyā-śakti shows itself as devatās, humans, childhood, youth and other forms, and the jīva, delighting in the body made of the guṇas of this Māyādevī, falls into the delusion of “I” and “mine”. In Vaikuṇṭha there is no māyā, and so none of its effects, attachment, greed and the rest.
Maitreya tells Vidura that for the ever-free Īśvara to be bound as a jīva is against reason, and is only the māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu; Vidura answers that the kleśas in a man are caused by Śrī Hari’s māyā, and the jīva’s ignorance makes the world seem other than the ātmā and real. Brahmā sings that Bhagavān Vishṇu’s māyā spreads out in the jīva as the senses and in the world as sound, form, taste, touch and smell, and binds him. Kapila teaches that the jīva deluded by Śrī Hari’s māyā grows fond even of the little happiness of naraka; that by Parameśvara’s māyā he forgets his own nature, and only Parameśvara’s grace can restore it; and the jīva in the womb prays that he does not wish to go out, for outside Vishṇu-māyā will cover him, false pride will seize him and the wheel of saṃsāra will turn. Kapila speaks of “the power of my māyā in the form of woman”, who brings even conquerors of the directions to her feet with a bend of her brows; in all creation, he says, only Nārāyaṇa Maharshi is not deluded by it. The devotee should know māyā in the form of a bad woman as harmful, like a well covered with grass; and a jīva born a woman should know the husband who gave her wealth, children and house as “my māyā in the form of a man”, and husband, children and house as death arranged by daiva, as the hunter’s song is death to the deer. Kaśyapa lamented, after yielding to Diti, that māyā in the form of a woman had taken his mind under its control. Dattātreya teaches that a young woman, gold, ornaments, clothes and tasty food are made by Īśvara’s māyā-śakti, and the fool lured by them perishes like a moth in fire.
Śiva says that Daksha and the others had lost their discernment, deluded by the māyā of Īśvara. Brahmā had prayed that the mahātmās forgive those whose understanding is deluded by the hard-to-cross māyā of Padmanābha, and said that Bhagavān Vishṇu’s māyā had not touched Śiva’s understanding. Bhṛgu says that Brahmā and all embodied beings, deluded by Śrī Hari’s uncrossable māyā, do not know their own nature and in the sleep of ignorance do not recognise him as the ātmā; the vidyādharas say that one deluded by his māyā takes the body to be himself and clings to harmful pleasures. Dhruva sings that some, their minds deluded by Śrī Hari’s māyā, worship him for pleasures that are found even in naraka; later he lamented that, deluded by Śrī Hari’s māyā, he had seen his brother as his enemy, as a dreamer sees a second where there is none. Pṛthu prays that ignorant man, deluded by Śrī Hari’s māyā, desires things other than him. In Nārada‘s account of Purañjana, the friend Avijñāta, speaking as Īśvara, tells the widowed queen: “I created this māyā. By it you thought you were the man Purañjana, and now a virtuous woman; you are neither. We two are haṃsas”; as a face looks one way in a mirror and another in another’s eye, the one Parabrahman appears as Īśvara and as jīva, and the difference that is not there appears through māyā.
Jaḍabharata teaches that the inner instrument and the mind are products of the māyā-śakti; identifying with them the jīva is deceived and turns in the wheel of saṃsāra. Śiva says that one who identifies with the body cannot easily know māyā or the way to cross it. Yama tells his dūtas that a great scholar, his buddhi deluded by the māyā-śakti, is drawn to the yajñas of the Veda and does not come to know the Bhāgavata dharma, and that the bhakta of Śrī Kṛshṇa gives up the enjoyments born of the guṇas of māyā. Prahlāda tells his gurus that the clinging to “mine” and “another’s” appears in men deluded by Bhagavān Vishṇu’s māyā and is not real, and bows to Bhagavān Vishṇu, the master of māyā; he tells the daitya boys that the māyā-śakti, appearing as the world of three guṇas, covers the lordship of Sarveśvara, and when the world of names and forms is set aside, Īśvara is realised as one’s own ātmā. People deluded by the māyā of name and form praise Bhagavān Vishṇu in many śāstras yet do not see his tattva. Kaśyapa, smiling, told Aditi that the power of Vishṇu’s māyā is wonderful, for the world is bound by attachment. Saubhari said that his discernment was stolen by the three guṇas of the māyā-śakti, so he had not reached the end of desire. Aṁśumān sings that the world is made by Bhagavān Kapila’s māyā, and people confused by desire, greed, envy and delusion think house and wealth permanent.
The serpent Kāliya says that serpents have great anger from birth, and that Śrī Kṛshṇa’s māyā is so hard to cross that they cannot cross it by themselves; his wives sing that from Śrī Kṛshṇa, sporting in the māyā-śakti, all names and forms arise. The brāhmaṇas of the yajña say that Śrī Hari’s māyā bewilders even yogīs, and that bewildered by it they had wandered in the paths of desire-driven karma. Akrūra says that the mass of jīvas, bewildered by Śrī Kṛshṇa’s māyā, wanders in the paths of kāmya-karma, and that by his māyā delusion arises for children, wife, wealth, kin, house and body. Mucukunda sings that men and women deluded by his māyā look to saṃsāra and cling to household affairs, the home of sorrow, instead of worshipping him. Balarāma teaches Rukmiṇī that Vishṇu-māyā makes those who take the body as the ātmā see friend, enemy and neutral. Akrūra says that those deluded by Śrī Kṛshṇa’s māyā cannot know his līlā. Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Rukmiṇī that those who do tapas and vratas and serve him for the pleasures of married life are deluded by his māyā. Rudra tells Śrī Kṛshṇa that people deluded by Parameśvara’s māyā, caught in children, wife, house and wealth, rise once in the ocean of sorrow and sink again. The freed kings say that a king deluded by his māyā thinks impermanent wealth permanent, and Vasudeva grieves that, caught in self-interest by his māyā, his life had passed.
Uddhava says that the body is built by Śrī Kṛshṇa’s māyā. Dattātreya tells of the pigeons, whom the māyā of Śrī Hari bound with such love for their young that the mother pigeon, seeing her chicks in the net, fell into it herself. Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches that the māyā-śakti of three guṇas builds the jīva’s bodies and through ajñāna the jīva is bound to them, so ātma-jñāna ends saṃsāra. As Haṃsa he tells the Sanakādis that the states of waking and the rest are imagined in the mind by his māyā of three guṇas, and that with the sword of discrimination, sharpened by hearing the good, they should cut every doubt and worship him in the heart. People’s understandings are bewildered by his māyā, so they speak of śreyas in many ways. The Veda, taking him as the ground, restates the world of difference and at the end denies it as māyā. Those who speak by taking up his māyā can say anything, for nothing exists that māyā does not bring about; people quarrel “mine is true, yours is not” because of his uncrossable māyā-śakti, and when mind and senses are restrained the dispute ends. Śabda and the other objects are only māyā, and the visible world is mithyā. Mārkaṇḍeya sings to Nara-Nārāyaṇa that the māyā of Śrī Hari covers a person’s understanding so that he does not know him in his own senses and heart, until through the Veda he realises him.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 7; Skandha 2, Chapter 9; Skandha 3, Chapters 7, 9, 30–31; Skandha 4, Chapters 6–7, 9, 20, 28; Skandha 5, Chapters 11, 17; Skandha 6, Chapters 3, 18; Skandha 7, Chapters 5–6; Skandha 8, Chapters 14, 16; Skandha 9, Chapters 6, 8; Skandha 10, Chapters 16, 23, 40, 48, 51, 54, 57, 60, 63, 73, 85; Skandha 11, Chapters 7–8, 10, 13–14, 21–22, 26; Skandha 12, Chapter 8
Even the great are covered by it
Parīkshit tells Dharma, who stood before him as a bull, that the working of Parameśvara’s māyā-śakti, whom it favours and whom it afflicts, is beyond the buddhi and words of beings. Yama names those of sattva who still cannot know the līlās of Śrī Hari, coming under his māyā: himself, Mahendra, Nirṛti, Varuṇa, Candra, Agni, Śiva, Vāyu, Sūrya, Brahmā, the twelve Ādityas, the Viśvedevas, the Vasus, the Sādhyas, the Maruts, the Rudras, the Siddhas, Bhṛgu and the other prajāpatis, and the other leaders of the devas. Śiva tells Durvāsa Maharshi, who came to him on Kailāsa scorched by the cakra of Vishṇu, that he himself, Sanatkumāra, Nārada, Brahmā, Kapila, Apāntaratama (Vyāsa), Devala, Dharma, Āsuri, Marīci and the other all-knowing siddheśvaras are covered by the māyā of the Paramātmā and cannot know it. Śiva says in his stuti to Śrī Hari that neither he, nor Brahmā of two parārdhas, nor the maharshis from Marīci know the secret of his creation, and still less those whose discernment is stolen by his māyā. Nimi says that Śrī Hari’s māyā deludes even Indra and the devatās, who themselves work māyā. Jara the hunter tells Śrī Kṛshṇa that not even Brahmā, his sons Rudra and the prajāpatis, or the maharshis to whom the mantras were revealed know the play of the māyā-śakti that serves him. Mārkaṇḍeya says that by Śrī Hari’s māyā, which shines like jñāna, even the devatās fall into delusion.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 17; Skandha 6, Chapter 3; Skandha 8, Chapter 12; Skandha 9, Chapter 4; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 30; Skandha 12, Chapter 10
Those who have known his māyā
Brahmā tells Nārada that those who take refuge in the feet of Ananta without deceit cross the deva-māyā, so hard to cross, and lose the delusion of “this is mine, this is I” in the body. Then he names those who have known the māyā of Śrī Hari, in this order: Brahmā himself; Nārada; Nārada’s elder brothers, Sanaka and the others; Bhagavān Śiva; Prahlāda; Svāyambhuva Manu and his wife Śatarūpā; their sons Priyavrata and Uttānapāda; their daughter Devahūti; the prajāpati Prācīnabarhis; the siddha Ṛbhu; Aṅga; Dhruva; Ikshvāku; Purūravā, son of Ilā; Mucukunda; Janaka; Gādhi; Raghu; Ambarīsha; Sagara; Gaya; Yayāti, son of Nahusha; Māndhātā; Alarka; Śatadhanvā; Anu; Rantideva; Bhīshma Pitāmaha; Bali Cakravarti; Dilīpa; Saubhari; Uttaṅka; Śibi Cakravarti; Devala Maharshi; Pippalāda; Sārasvata; Uddhava; Parāśara; Bhūrisheṇa; Vibhīshaṇa; Hanumān; Śukadeva; Arjuna; Ārshṭisheṇa; Śrutadeva; and many other mahātmās. Not only women, śūdras, Hūṇas and Bhillas, Brahmā says, but even those whose life is given to pāpa, and animals such as elephants, if they serve the devotees of Śrī Hari and learn from them to meditate on him, come to know the deva-māyā and cross it; what then of those who know the Vedas? Before this ātma-jñāna Māyādevī is ashamed and moves far away: for the knower of the ātmā there is no bond of saṃsāra.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 7
How māyā is crossed
Some sādhakas, the abhimāni devatās say, conquer the mighty māyā by restraining the movements of the mind, but their labour is great; for those who serve Śrī Hari, moksha is easy. Śrī Hari tells Pṛthu that desireless love for him is the understanding by which one crosses his māyā, which cannot otherwise be crossed. The ṛtvijas of Nābhi‘s yajña sing that his māyā cannot be crossed or defined, and that without serving the feet of mahātmās no one escapes it. The Pracetas ask as their vara that, as long as they wander in saṃsāra covered by his māyā, they may have the company of his devotees birth after birth. Indra tells Vṛtra that he has surely crossed the Vaishṇava māyā that deludes people, for he has taken on the marks of the great. Dattātreya teaches Prahlāda the sādhana of laya: dissolve manifoldness into the movement of the mind, that into the mind, the mind into ahaṅkāra and that into the māyā-śakti; then dissolve the māyā-śakti into the experience of the ātmā, and, steady in the ātmā, cease from the path of outgoing action. Brahmā sings that no one crosses Īśvara’s māyā except by his grace.
Prabuddha answers King Nimi’s second question, how people cross this māyā: the sādhaka for whom Nārāyaṇa alone is the supreme goal practises the bhāgavata dharmas, grows in bhakti, and by that bhakti easily crosses the māyā that cannot otherwise be crossed. The devatās tell Śrī Kṛshṇa that seekers who wish to know the māyā that covers the ātmā meditate on his lotus foot alone; Uddhava says that eating what is left after Śrī Kṛshṇa has eaten, and wearing the garlands and garments he has used, his servants will surely conquer māyā. Uddhava says that knowledge comes by Śrī Kṛshṇa’s grace and its loss by his māyā, and that he alone knows his māyā; that his māyā torments with obstacles those proud sādhakas who do not serve his feet; and he gives thanks that Śrī Kṛshṇa has given back the lamp of vijñāna that his own māyā had taken away: who would leave the root of his feet for another refuge?
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 5; Skandha 4, Chapters 20, 30; Skandha 5, Chapter 3; Skandha 6, Chapter 12; Skandha 7, Chapter 13; Skandha 8, Chapter 5; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 6, 22, 29
Showings of his māyā
Nārada. Nārada tells Vyāsa that by the secret teaching he received, as a boy in his former life, from the maharshis he served, he came to know the power of the māyā of Bhagavān Vāsudeva, and those who know it reach his dhāma. Wishing to know the māyā of Śrī Hari, Nārada served his father Brahmā with good conduct, humility and control of the senses, and pleased him. (Skandha 1, Chapter 5; Skandha 2, Chapter 9)
Uttarā‘s womb. When the astra released by Aśvatthāmā to end the Pāṇḍava line threatened the last child of the Kuru line, Śrī Kṛshṇa entered the womb of Uttarā and covered it with his māyā-śakti; Sūta says it is no wonder that he calmed the brahmāstra, for the unborn one creates, sustains and withdraws the world by that same śakti. (Skandha 1, Chapter 8)
Brahmā and the calves. Śuka tells Parīkshit that Brahmā, wishing to see another glory of Parameśvara, who had come down as a human boy by his māyā-śakti, carried off the calves and the gopa boys and laid them asleep on a bed made by his own māyā. Śrī Kṛshṇa himself became all of them. When love for these children and calves grew in Gokula as never before, Balarāma asked whose māyā this was, of devas, men or rākshasas, and knew it could only be his master Śrī Hari’s. Brahmā, returning, saw that those lying senseless by his māyā were one set, and just as many again were playing with Śrī Kṛshṇa. Śuka says that Brahmā, trying to delude Śrī Kṛshṇa with his māyā, was himself deluded: as the darkness of mist merges into the darkness of night and a firefly’s glow is lost in sunlight, so māyā worked on the Mahāpurusha destroys the power of the one who works it. As Brahmā stood bewildered, Śrī Kṛshṇa drew aside the curtain called māyā, and Brahmā rose like one waking from death and saw himself and the world. In his stuti Brahmā calls Śrī Kṛshṇa the māyāvī of the māyāvīs, before whom he is a spark in a fire; born of rajas, through beginningless māyā he had thought himself a master apart from Śrī Kṛshṇa, and he asks to be shown mercy. He says that Śrī Kṛshṇa showed his mother the whole world in his belly and so declared the world his māyā, and that today he had proved to Brahmā that the world is fashioned by māyā and that he alone is its ground. The gopa boys, bewildered by his māyā, thought the year had been half a moment; and Śuka says that those whose minds are bewildered by māyā forget everything, as the world has forgotten its own ātmā again and again. (Skandha 10, Chapters 13–14)
Mohinī and Bhagavān Śiva. Śuka tells Parīkshit that Bhagavān Śiva, with Devī Pārvatī, asked Śrī Hari to show him the woman’s form he had taken to enchant the rākshasas over the pot of amṛta. Śrī Hari withdrew from sight, and Śiva saw a young woman playing with a ball in a garden, a māyā made by Śrī Hari; Śiva followed her, and she freed herself from his arms and ran, and as he followed his unfailing seed fell. As soon as it was spent, Rudra knew that Vishṇu‘s māyā had made him senseless, and at once he withdrew from that enchantment. Śrī Hari told him: “You are the best of the devatās. Though you were enchanted by my māyā while I was in a woman’s form of my own will, it is most auspicious that you have of yourself returned to your own nature. My māyā shows many graces and moods; those who have not conquered the mind cannot cross it, and who that is attached to enjoyment could overcome it? But you have overcome it. This māyā will not enchant you.” Then, as the maharshis praised him, Bhagavān Śiva joyfully told Devī Pārvatī: “Did you see the māyā of the Purushottama, the unborn? Among the aṃśas of Śrī Hari I am the foremost; if even I was enchanted by that māyā, what of others who are slaves of the senses?” (Skandha 8, Chapter 12)
Devakī‘s sons. When Śrī Kṛshṇa and Balarāma brought back from Sutala Devakī’s six sons who had been slain by Kaṃsa, milk flowed from her breasts; deluded by Vishṇu-māyā, she fed them, and the text says that the world goes on only by Vishṇu-māyā. When the children went to svarga, she thought it a māyā made by Śrī Kṛshṇa. (Skandha 10, Chapter 85)
Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi. Sūta tells Śaunaka that Mārkaṇḍeya asked Nārāyaṇa to show him the māyā by which the world and its lokapālas see difference in Brahman. He lived on in his āśrama, thinking only of this, meditating on Śrī Hari in fire, sun, moon, water, earth, air, space and the ātmā, and at times forgot his mānasa pūjā in the flood of prema. Then, as he worshipped at sandhyā on the bank of the Pushpabhadrā, a great wind, clouds and rain arose, and the four oceans drowned the earth and the three worlds; he alone remained, and covered by Vishṇu-māyā he wandered in that ocean while tens, hundreds and thousands of crores of years passed, until he saw on a banyan the infant Śrī Hari lying on a leaf, and entered his belly. Having seen the splendour of Nārāyaṇa’s māyā of three guṇas, he took refuge in Nārāyaṇa. Bhagavān Śiva, with Devī Pārvatī, came to him; Vishṇu-māyā had long deluded him, whirled him about and worn him down, and the amṛta of Śiva’s words drove away all his afflictions. Śiva told Pārvatī of the ṛshi’s experience of the māyā-śakti. Sūta says that Mārkaṇḍeya so realised the splendour of Bhagavān Vishṇu’s wondrous māyā-śakti, that the experience shone forth only at that time, and that those who do not know this say he truly lived through many kalpas; the stream of birth and death that human beings know is only the māyā of the Paramātmā. (Skandha 12, Chapters 9–10)
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 5, 8; Skandha 2, Chapter 9; Skandha 8, Chapter 12; Skandha 10, Chapters 13–14, 85; Skandha 12, Chapters 9–10
Lesser māyās
The Purāṇa also speaks of māyās worked by others, which fall away before Śrī Hari’s power. When Dhruva fitted the Nārāyaṇāstra in his battle with the yakshas, all the māyā they had made vanished, as the impurities of the mind vanish when ātma-jñāna arises. When the beings milked the earth in Pṛthu‘s time, the kiṃpurushas and other masters of māyā made Maya Asura the calf and drew the power to vanish and take strange forms. Brahmā warned Pṛthu that through Indra‘s māyā many were becoming of bad conduct and pākhaṇḍas. Hiraṇyakaśipu spread māyās to kill Prahlāda, and every attempt failed. Vyoma, son of Maya, a great māyāvī, hid the gopa boys in mountain caves, and Śrī Kṛshṇa seized him and freed them. And Brahmā learned, as Śuka says, that the lesser māyā worked on the Mahāpurusha destroys the power of the one who works it.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 7; Skandha 4, Chapters 11, 18–19; Skandha 7, Chapter 5; Skandha 10, Chapters 13, 37
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 3
- Varāha Purāṇa, Chapter 124
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 63; Uttara Parva, Chapters 2–3, 153
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 1–3, 5, 7–10, 17; Skandha 2, Chapters 1, 6–10; Skandha 3, Chapters 4–9, 13–14, 20, 26, 28–31, 33; Skandha 4, Chapters 6–7, 9, 11–12, 16–21, 24, 28, 30–31; Skandha 5, Chapters 3, 11–12, 16–17, 23, 25–26; Skandha 6, Chapters 3–4, 8–9, 12, 15, 17–18; Skandha 7, Chapters 1, 3, 5–6, 9, 13; Skandha 8, Chapters 4–6, 12, 14, 16–18, 20; Skandha 9, Chapters 4, 6, 8; Skandha 10, Chapters 1–3, 12–14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27–28, 37, 39–40, 47–49, 51, 54, 57, 60, 63, 73, 85–87, 89; Skandha 11, Chapters 3, 6–10, 12–14, 21–22, 25–26, 29–31; Skandha 12, Chapters 4, 6–11