BHAGAVATA PURANA by Menon Ramesh

Author:Menon, Ramesh [Menon, Ramesh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4. The Devi.

Sri Suka said, “Thus, in Mathura, everything was as before – Vasudeva in fetters, and all the doors of the prison shut fast and bolted.

Now the little girl child began to wail beside Devaki. The prison guards awoke and word flew to Kamsa that Devaki’s eighth child had been born – the news he awaited in dread. Kamsa leaped out of his bed, terror seizing him that the one who would kill him had arrived.

His hair wild, Kamsa ran straight to the prison where he held Devaki and Vasudeva. He was in such panic that he often stumbled and almost fell. His eyes on fire he burst into that chamber. Devaki hugged the baby girl tightly to her.

She cried piteously to the monstrous king, her cousin, ‘Kamsa, she is a girl, spare her! All my sons were born like brilliant flames and you put out their lives, one after the other. This child is a girl, spare her for my sake. Aren’t you my brother, aren’t you gentle at all? Aren’t you a kshatriya? Noble Kamsa, how will she harm you? Let her life be your gift to me. Oh I beg you, spare her!’

The demon snatched the infant roughly from his cousin’s arms. Growling, he whirled the child round by her little legs and dashed her head savagely against the stone floor. But lo, at that moment the child vanished out of his hands. In her place, they saw the Goddess of eight arms, tremendous and fearful.

She wore unworldly raiment, jewels, garlands and perfumes. She carried a bow, a trident, a shield, a sword, a conch, a chakra, a lotus and a mace in each of her eight hands. Siddhas, Charanas, Gandharvas, Apsaras, Kinnaras and Uragas sang her praises: She, the Goddess, Vishnu’s consort.

Kamsa cowered from the vast vision, thinking his death had come. Looming over the prison, the city, the world, she said to him in a terrible voice, ‘Fool, what shall it profit you to kill me? The one who has come to kill you has been born and he is not here. Seek him out, if you can! Stop murdering innocent children.’

With a laugh, the Devi Yogamaya vanished from there, but she manifested herself across the Holy Land in myriad forms, as countless idols and images, which are known by numberless names.

Kamsa stood trembling before Devaki and Vasudeva. Suddenly, he ordered his guards to free Devaki and Vasudeva from their shackles. He folded his hands before them, apparently in great humility, and said, ‘Devaki my precious sister, Vasudeva my brother! Oh, I am a horrible sinner. Like a rakshasa who kills his sons, I killed all your children. There is no sinner like me and I dare not think what narakas, what hells, lie in store for me.

I was pitiless, a butcher of my own kin – ah, I am like a living corpse, worse than a brahmana slaughterer. I believed the wretched asariri and it seems that not only mortals but the beings of heaven also lie.

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