Stories of the Great Bharata - A Retelling

Arc 6 - Markandeya-Samasya Parva Chapter 2 - Manu and the Fish

Vaiśampāyana said:

Then Yudhiṣṭhira, son of Dharma, spoke to the aged Mārkaṇḍeya:

“O Brāhmaṇa of great austerity, narrate unto us the holy history of Vaivasvata Manu, the lord of men, so that we may hear of the ancient creation.”

Mārkaṇḍeya replied:

“O King, hear then of Manu, son of Vivasvān, radiant as Brahmā himself. Excelling even his sire in power, fortune, and ascetic might, he performed severe penance in the jujube forest of Viśālā. For ten thousand years he stood on one leg, arms uplifted, head downward, eyes fixed in steadfast meditation.

One day, clad in wet garments, hair matted, he stood absorbed in tapas upon the banks of the river Ciraṇī. Then came a tiny fish, glistening like moonlight, and addressed him with plaintive words:

“Protect me, lord, from dangers deep,

For mighty fishes on me creep;

The strong devour, the weak must die,

Save me, O sage, in mercy’s eye!”

Moved by compassion, Manu lifted the small fish in his hands and placed it in a vessel of water. He tended it as one would a child, but soon it grew beyond the vessel’s bounds.

Again the fish spoke: “Provide for me a larger dwelling, O protector, for I cannot move within this pot.” Then Manu placed it in a great tank. There too it grew, until even two yojanas of length and one of breadth were too narrow.

The fish spoke once more: “Take me to the Ganga, spouse of the Ocean. There shall I dwell with ease.” Manu bore it to the river with reverence. But soon the Ganga too could not contain it. Then the fish said: “O righteous one, now place me in the sea. By thy care I have grown; I shall serve thee in return.”

Thus Manu consigned the wondrous fish to the Ocean, and even as he did so, its body seemed fragrant and pleasing, its form radiant like a moving mountain.

Then it spoke with a smile:

“O Manu, dissolution draws near. The end of all creatures, moving and unmoving, is at hand. Build thou a mighty ark, strong and well-furnished with a rope. Enter it with the seven Ṛṣis, and carry with thee the seeds of all beings. When the flood rises, I shall come unto thee in a horned form. Cast the noose upon my head, and by my strength thou shalt be borne to safety.”

“When waters swallow earth and sky,

And all the worlds in deluge lie,

Then shall I come, horned, vast, divine—

To save thee by my strength benign.”

Manu, bowing low, replied: “So shall it be, O Lord.” Thereafter he gathered the seeds of all creatures, as instructed by the fish, and built a noble vessel. When the cataclysm came, the seas swelled, waves roared, and the heavens themselves were veiled in water. Neither earth, nor quarters, nor stars could be seen—only the ark, the Ṛṣis, Manu, and the horned fish.

Manu remembered the promise, and lo! the fish arose from the waters like a rock with gleaming horns. Manu cast the rope, and the fish drew the vessel across the billowing, storm-tossed ocean. For long years it bore them through the endless flood, until it reached the highest peak of the Himavat.

There the fish bade them bind the ark to the mountain, and that peak is still called Naubandhana—the harbour of the ship.

Then the fish revealed its true form, saying:

“I am Brahmā, Lord of creatures. None is higher than I. Assuming the form of a fish, I have saved you from destruction. Manu, by tapas and my blessing, shall recreate the worlds—gods, Asuras, men, and all beings of movement and stillness. No illusion shall hinder him.”

“From flood to mountain’s height I bore,

The seeds of life, the Vedas’ lore;

Through Manu’s hand the worlds shall rise,

New-born beneath the eternal skies.”

So saying, the fish vanished. Manu, purified by tapas, began the work of creation anew, establishing all beings in their proper order.

This is the holy tale of the fish—Matsya-kathā, primeval and sin-destroying. He who hears it with devotion, O King, attains happiness, fulfilment of desire, and at last heaven itself.”

Vaiśampāyana said:

When the virtuous king Yudhiṣṭhira had heard the tale of Manu, he bowed again to Mārkaṇḍeya and said, “O great ṛṣi, thou hast seen thousands of ages pass—none in this world is so long-lived as thou! Except the high-minded Brahmā in his exalted seat, there is none thy equal in years. At the universal dissolutions, when sky and gods and dānavas are not, thou worshippest the Grandsire; and when the cataclysm ceases and the Lord awakens, thou alone beholdest him re-create the four orders of beings, filling the quarters with air and setting the waters in their place. Thou hast many times witnessed the primal acts of creation; in austerity thou hast surpassed the Prajāpatis; nearest to Nārāyaṇa art thou in the next world. Therefore, O Brāhmaṇa, tell us the causes of things!”

Mārkaṇḍeya replied:

“First I bow to the Self-existent, Primordial Being—eternal, undeteriorating, inconceivable—who is at once with attributes and beyond them. This Janārdana in yellow robes is the mover and maker of all, soul and frame of all, lord of all: the Great, the Incomprehensible, the Immaculate; beginningless and endless, pervading the worlds, unchanging, the cause of all powers. After dissolutions, this wondrous creation arises again by his will.

Unborn, yet birthing world on world,

Formless, in forms through space unfurled;

The One who wakes when cycles sleep—

In him the seeds of ages keep.

“Hear now, O king, of time measured by the yugas. The Kṛta endures four thousand years, with a dawn of four hundred and an eve of four hundred. The Tretā is three thousand, with dawn and eve of three hundred each. The Dvāpara is two thousand, with two hundred and two hundred. The Kali is one thousand, with hundred and hundred. The dawn equals the eve in each. When Kali ends, Kṛta returns; thus twelve thousand years make one full cycle. A thousand such cycles make a day of Brahmā. When all is withdrawn into the Creator, that drawing in is called the Universal Destruction.

Four yugas wheel—Kṛta, Tretā,

Dvāpara, Kali—night and day;

When thousand rounds to Brahmā’s morn,

Worlds fade to sleep, then wake reborn.

“As the last sands of the thousand-year remnant run out, men cling to falsehood. Sacrifices and gifts are left to proxies; stations of life are confused. Brāhmaṇas neglect Veda and staff and prayer, while Śūdras take to vows and meditations; Kṣatriyas turn to rites, Vaiśyas and others forsake their proper ways. These inversions foretell the end. Mleccha kings, untruthful and harsh, rule the earth; Andhas, Śakas, Pulindas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Bālhikas, and Ābhīras wax in power. Men grow short-lived, weak in strength and courage, scant of truth. Populations thin; beasts and predators spread. Words of Brahman are uttered emptily. Titles of respect invert. Perfumes lose their sweetness; tastes grow dull. Women bear many but virtue wanes; households decay; famine prowls the thresholds; modesty is forgotten. Cows yield little; trees fruit not; crows cloak the branches. The twice-born, stained by greed, accept gifts from false-speaking kings; they wear the signs of religion while wandering for alms in covetousness. Householders, burdened by taxes, grow deceitful; traders cheat by weight and measure; virtue withers while sin prospers. Youths age too soon; the old chase youthful follies. Even āśramas fill with the undisciplined who praise dependence. Indra withholds timely rain; seeds do not sprout; minds delight in envy; earth is heavy with adharma. The virtuous do not thrive, and the sinful flourish.

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When truth is sold and dharma wanes,

And law is masked by greed for gains;

When rites are husks and hearts are dry—

Know then the Kali’s evening sky.

“At the exhausted end of the four yugas, a drought of many years seizes the world. Creatures, feeble in strength and life, die by thousands. Then seven blazing suns appear in the firmament and drink up all waters of rivers and seas; all that is moist becomes dry and turns to ash. Thereafter the fire named Saṃvartaka, driven by fierce winds, rises upon the cindered earth, bores through the ground, blazes in the nether regions, and spreads terror among gods and dānavas and yakṣas. It consumes worlds and beings in a moment; with that inauspicious wind it engulfs hundreds and thousands of yojanas; gods, asuras, gandharvas, yakṣas, nāgas, rākṣasas—none are spared.

Seven suns drink ocean’s breath,

Saṃvartaka strides forth as death;

Wind-fanned, the cosmic forests burn,

Till all to ash and embers turn.

“Then in the darkened sky rise vast cloud-hosts like herds of elephants, wreathed with lightning: blue-lotus, water-lily, saffron-gold, crow-egg black, vermilion, lotus-petal bright—some like cities, some like crocodiles and sharks. Terrible their roar; laden with rain they shroud the heavens and drown the mountains and forests and mines. Urged by the Supreme Lord they pour without ceasing for twelve years; they quench the dreadful fire, overtop the continents, sunder the mountains, and earth sinks under the flood. Then, driven by the wind, those clouds wander and withdraw from sight.

They pour and pour for years untold,

Till peaks are split and cities rolled;

The sea o’erlaps its ancient bound,

And earth is one unmeasured sound.

“Then the Self-born, first cause of all, enthroned upon the lotus, drinks in those terrible winds and goes to sleep. Thus closes the night of Brahmā; thus are the signs of dissolution and the wheel of time. And when the Lord awakens, creation flowers again by his unerring will.

He breathes the winds to silence deep,

And on the lotus falls to sleep;

From that still heart, when dawn is due,

The many rise from One anew.”

Vaiśampāyana said:

Thus spoke Mārkaṇḍeya, seer of cycles, whose gaze has watched the births and burnings of the worlds. Hearing his discourse on the yugas, on the evening of Kali, on fire and flood, the son of Dharma bowed, his doubts dissolved like mist at sunrise.

Then Mārkaṇḍeya, ocean of austerities, continued his wondrous vision to the son of Dharma.

“When the universe became a single sheet of deathly water; when mobile and immobile beings, gods and asuras, yakṣas and rākṣasas, men and trees and hunting beasts had vanished; when even the firmament was no more—I alone, O king, wandered upon that shoreless flood. Long did I roam, nowhere finding rest, my heart afflicted for want of any creature to behold.

No sky, no wind, no stellar fire,

No earth to tread, no peak or spire;

One water, endless, cold and bare—

And I, alone, in voiceless air.

“At length I saw, spread over the measureless waters, a vast banyan, its boughs far-flung like a green firmament. Upon a pendant branch there lay a conch, inlaid with a celestial couch; and on that couch a Boy—moon-faced, lotus-eyed, bearing upon his breast the Śrīvatsa, lustrous like the ātasī bloom.

A child upon the ocean’s leaf,

Whose smile unknotted ancient grief;

Yellow-robed, with mark divine—

The goddess’ home in him did shine.

“Though I know the Past and Future by tapas and by grace, I could not fathom how this Boy abided when the worlds were gone. Then that lotus-eyed Child addressed me with sweet words: ‘O Mārkaṇḍeya of Bhṛgu’s line, thou art weary and seekest rest. Enter my body; there is thy appointed abode.’ At once he opened his mouth. A holy dispassion seized me; motionless, I entered.

“What marvels I beheld within! I saw the whole earth: cities and kingdoms; the Gāṅgā, Śatudru, Śītā, Yamunā, Kauśikī; the Carmaṇvatī and Vetravatī; Candrabhāgā, Sarasvatī, Sindhu, Vipāśā, Godāvarī; the Vasvokasarā, Nalinī, and Narmadā; Tāmra, Venā, Suvennā; Kṛṣṇa-vennā, Irāmā, Mahānadī; Vitastā, and the wide-flowing Kāverī; rivers beyond count. I saw the ocean, gem-bearing, shark and crocodile its citizens. I saw the firmament with sun and moon, fire-luminous; the earth with forests and groves.

“I saw brāhmaṇas intent on sacrifice, kṣatriyas protecting the orders, vaiśyas at tillage and trade, śūdras serving the twice-born. I beheld Himavat and Hemakūṭa, Niṣāda and Śveta bright with silver; Gandhamādana, Mandara, Nīla; golden Meru, Mahendra, the Vindhyas, Malaya and Paripātra—mountains adorned with jewels. Lions, tigers, boars, and all creatures of earth; the gods with Śakra foremost, the Sādhyas and Rudras, Ādityas and Vasus, the Aśvins, gandharvas, apsarases, yakṣas; the pitṛs, nāgas and serpents; the hosts of daityas and dānavas; the sons of Siṃhikā and the enemies of heaven—whatever moves or stands I beheld within that boundless frame.

World within world, in him displayed,

The Vedas’ truth in vision laid;

A cosmos cradled, star and sod—

The body of the bodiless God.

“Long centuries I wandered there, living on forest fruits, seeking the limit of his being; but the end I could not find. Awe-stricken, I sought refuge in that boon-giving Deity by thought and deed. Then, by a gust of wind, I was borne forth through his open mouth and set again upon the banyan bough—and there he sat as before: the Child with Śrīvatsa shining, yellow-clad, measureless in energy, who had swallowed the universe.

“He looked upon me and smiled: ‘O best of munis, thou hast sojourned within me and art fatigued. Hear now.’ In that instant a new sight dawned in me; the world’s enchantment fell away. I bowed to his feet—bright as burnished copper, soft with rosy toes—and worshipped him whose eyes are lotuses and whose soul is all.

‘O Lord,’ I said, palms joined, ‘declare thyself and this high wonder! Within thy body I beheld gods, dānavas, yakṣas, gandharvas, nāgas—the whole that moves and the whole that rests. By thy grace my memory has not failed in that immensity. At thy will I came forth; not by mine. Who art thou, sinless One, abiding as a Boy, having devoured all that is? Why is the universe within thee? How long shalt thou remain thus? Out of a brāhmaṇa’s rightful curiosity, I entreat thee—tell me all, exactly as it is—this vision inconceivable and sublime.’

O Lotus-eyed, whose play is time,

Whose silence ends and seeds each clime,

Unveil thyself, O Endless Sea,

That I may know what is—and Thee.”

Vaiśampāyana said:

Thus addressed, that Deity of deities, the foremost of speakers, consoled the seer with gentle words and prepared to reveal the mystery of his own Māyā.

Vaiśampāyana said:

Then Mārkaṇḍeya spoke:

“The Divine Boy addressed me, saying:

‘O Brāhmaṇa, even the gods know me not truly. Yet, pleased with thee, I shall declare how I created the universe. In ancient days I called the waters Nara; and because they are my eternal ayana, or home, I am called Nārāyaṇa, the Water-Homed.

I am the Source of all things, eternal and changeless. I am the Creator and Destroyer, I am Viṣṇu, I am Brahmā, I am Śakra the lord of gods. I am Vaiśravaṇa, I am Yama, I am Śiva, I am Soma, I am Kaśyapa the progenitor. I am Dhātṛ and Vidhātṛ, Sacrifice embodied. Fire is my mouth, earth my feet, sun and moon my eyes; heaven is my crown, space my body, air my mind. From my arms, thighs, and feet arose the four orders—brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, and śūdras. From me issue the Ṛk, Sāman, Yajus, and Atharvan, and into me they return.

I am the sacrifice, gift, and rite,

The Vedas’ sound, the fire’s light;

The womb of worlds, the timeless sea—

All forms are mine, yet none know me.

‘It was I who became the serpent Śeṣa and bore the earth; I who became the boar and raised her when she sank; I who became the fiery mare that drinks up the ocean. The stars are but the pores of my skin; the oceans my robe and my couch. Lust, wrath, joy, fear, and delusion—all are but forms of me. Governed by my ordinance, men move within my body, thinking themselves free, but swayed by my will.

Those who master wrath and lust, who study the Veda and live in peace, who are gentle and pure and devoted in meditation—these worship me and gain that reward which no wicked man can win.

When dharma wanes and sin grows strong,

I shape myself, the world to right;

In varied forms through ages long,

I guard the just, I slay the night.

‘In Kṛta I am white, in Tretā I am yellow, in Dvāpara red, in Kali I am dark. When the end comes, I take the form of Death and consume the worlds. Alone I set the wheel of Time in motion; I am the formless, infinite Self; the bearer of conch, discus, and mace; the wielder of the three strides that cover the universe.

When morality fades and fierce beings arise, I am born in the houses of the virtuous, taking human form to restore balance. By my own māyā I create gods, men, gandharvas, yakṣas, immobile and mobile things—and by my own hand I withdraw them.

For a thousand cycles of the yugas I sleep upon the lotus, overwhelming creatures in insensibility. And until Brahmā awakens, I remain, though ancient, in the form of a child, preserving creation within myself.’

I am the womb of death and birth,

The seed, the flame, the rain, the earth;

I am the sleeper and the dawn,

The Self by whom all worlds are drawn.

Mārkaṇḍeya said:

“Thus spoke the Lord, and vanished from my sight. Then I beheld creation begin anew at the awakening of Brahmā. O son of Kuntī, that Boy whom I saw, bearing the Śrīvatsa, attired in yellow robes, is this very Janārdana, your kinsman and protector. By his boon I remember the ages and Death has no power over me.

This Kṛṣṇa of the Vṛṣṇis is the ancient Hari, Dhātṛ and Vidhātṛ, the highest Lord, Govinda, father and mother of all creatures. Seek refuge in him, ye sons of Pṛthā.”

Vaiśampāyana said:

Thus addressed, the sons of Pāṇḍu, the twins, and Draupadī, all bowed low to Janārdana. And that tiger among men, deserving of every honour, consoled them with words of surpassing sweetness.