51 - Agastyagita I

Varaha said:

1-2. After hearing the account of Dharanivrata from sage Durvasas, Satyatapas went to a slope of Himalaya mountain where the river there was Pushpabhadra (beautiful with flowers) the stone Chitrashila (beautifully shaped) and the banyan tree Bhadravata (particularly attractive), and building a hermitage there, spent the rest of his life in contemplation.

Earth said:

3. Thousands of aeons have elapsed since I performed this Vrata, and now I have forgotten all about it.

4-5. By your blessing I now begin to get a recollection of all that. I am, therefore, anxious to know more.

6. Therefore, kindly tell me what Agastya did after returning to the residence of Bhadrashva.

Varaha said:

7. When the sage returned, Bhadrashva asked him about Mokshadharma.

Bhadrashva said:

8. O sage, by what means is the bondage of worldly existence snapped, and by what means the sorrows in life can be got over?

Agastya said:

9. O king, listen well to this story relating to what is distant and what is near and based on the division into the seen and the unseen.

10. At the time when there was no day, no night, no direction, no heaven, no gods and no sun, a king named Pašhupäla was looking after numerous beasts.

11. He once went to sec the eastern ocean, and there, on the shore of that limitless expanse of water, saw a forest full of snakes.

12. There were eight trees and a freely. flowing river. Five important persons were there moving horizontally and upwards. One of them was holding an effulgent woman.

 13. The woman was holding on her chest a person having the splendour of a thousand suns and with three colours and three divisions.

14. Seeing the king, all of them became silent and still, and as soon as the king entered the forest, became combined into a single being.

15. The king was then encircled by the serpents, and he began to think about how he could kill them and effect his escape.

16. When he was thus thinking, another person having the three colours, white, red and yellow, came out of his body. 

17. He asked by gesticulation where he should go. Just then there arose Mahat.

18. The king was covered by that and asked to be alert in mind. He was then confronted by the woman (who was really Mäyä)

19. He was thus engulfed by Mäyä. Then the lord of all beings caught him in his possession.

20. Then five other persons came there and surrounded him.

21. All these hid themselves within the king’s person when the serpents came united to attack.

22. The king then appeared highly resplendent and his all sins disappeared.

23. In him were unified earth, water, fire, air and ether and all their qualities.

24. Thus Pašhupäla unified all these that stood around him.

25. Seeing the king then, the tri-coloured person said to him:

26-27. “O king, I am your son, please command me to do what you Wish. We decided to bind you, but we were defeated and bound by you, and we now remain hidden in your body. When I have become your son, everything else will arise of its own”.

28. Told thus, the king spoke to the man.

29. “You (say you) are my son, and as a result other things arise. But I don’t desire to have attachment to any of the pleasures men may have”

30. So saying he released the son, and with him others also. And freed from them, he stood alone.