{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/db/bk06ch31.htm","path":"hin/db/bk06ch31.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/db/bk06ch31.htm","text":"THE SIXTH BOOK\nChapter XXXI\nOn the glory of M\u00e2y\u00e2\n18-22. O Muni! When my Father learnt the cause of my cares, he smiled and spoke to me in sweet words :-- \u201cO Child! The Devas, the high-souled Munis, the wise ascetics and the Yogis subsisting on air only are not able to conquer this M\u00e2y\u00e2. O N\u00e2rada! The power of M\u00e2y\u00e2 is so very great that I, Visnu and S\u2019ambhu, the Lord of Um\u00e2, none are able to know Her power.\nThat Mah\u00e2m\u00e2y\u00e2 is creating, preserving and dissolving this world by Time, Karma, and Nature and other efficient causes. O Child! Know Her to be inconceivable and unapproachable. O Intelligent One! Do not be sorry nor should you be surprised about M\u00e2y\u00e2\u2019s great strength, for we all are deluded by Her.\n23-25. O Dvaip\u00e2yan! Thus advised by my Father, my wonder disappeared. I then asked permission of my Father Padma Yoni (Lotus-born) and went out on tour round the sacred places of pilgrimages and on my way, seeing by and by the chief T\u00eerthas, I have now come here. Therefore, O Muni! Dost thou relinquish your sorrows for the extinction of the Kuru\u2019s family and remain here and pass your time in great joy and happiness. One must bear the fruits of one\u2019s Karma, good or bad; knowing this fully roam at your will wherever you like.\n26-40. Vy\u00e2sa said :-- O King! Maharsi N\u00e2rada thus kindling knowledge in me, went away; I also thought over his words. On the banks of the river Sarasvat\u00ee, I composed this Dev\u00ee Bh\u00e2gavat to pass away my time during the excellent period of S\u00e2rasvata Kalpa. This Pur\u00e2nam is excellent; it is composed on the authority of the the Vedas; all doubts are removed by it; many nice events are narrated here. Therefore, O King! Not the least doubt should be entertained. As a magician makes the wooden dolls dance in his hands at his will, so this world-enchanting M\u00e2y\u00e2 is making this world, moving and non-moving, dance from Brahm\u00e2 down to the blades of grass and all human beings. O King! Know M\u00e2y\u00e2\u2019s triple Gunas to be the cause of this mind consisting of five organs of senses, that follows the Chitta (mind, buddhi and Ahamk\u00e2ra). Actions arise from the causes thereof; there is no doubt in this; what doubt, then, there can arise that all these creatures of different temperaments will come out of the different Gunas of M\u00e2y\u00e2. Peaceful, terrible and stupid become the persons in contact with the Mayic Gunas. How, then, can they exist, bereft of them? As the cloth cannot exist without threads, so the embodied beings cannot exist in the world without the triple Gunas of M\u00e2y\u00e2. There is no doubt in this. As a pot cannot be made without clay, so these bodies, Devas, human or birds, cannot be created without the Gunas. Brahm\u00e2, Visnu\nand S\u2019iva, too, are possessed of those three Gunas and therefore they become sometimes happy and satisfied, sometimes unhappy and dissatisfied and sometimes they become sad and remorseful as they are then under the influence of one Guna or the other. Brahm\u00e2 happens at times to be full of wisdom and knowledge, his temper peaceful, sweet and pleasant and his soul rapt in Sam\u00e2dhi, when he becomes possessed of S\u00e2ttva Guna; again when he is void of S\u00e2ttva and filled with R\u00e2jo Guna, His temper becomes unpleasant and his appearance gets dark and awful everywhere; and when he becomes grossly T\u00e2masic, He becomes sorrowful and bereft entirely of intelligence.\n41-51. Visnu, when resting in S\u00e2ttva, becomes peaceful, sweet-tempered, and full of knowledge; when R\u00e2jo Guna preponderates in Him, He becomes void of sweetness and becomes awful to all the beings. Rudra becomes, too, peaceful and pleasant under the S\u00e2ttva Guna, awful and void of sweetness under the R\u00e2jo Guna, and becomes sad and stupid under the T\u00e2mo Guna. O King! When Brahm\u00e2, Visnu, Mahes\u2019vara and the solar and lunar Kings, the fourteen lords of Manvantaras, Manu and others are under the control of the mayic Gunas, what to speak of other ordinary mortals, men and the other J\u00eevas. The whole world is under the control of M\u00e2y\u00e2; the Devas, men and all other beings. None should doubt on this point. All the embodied beings labour under the directions of M\u00e2y\u00e2; never can they work independently. This M\u00e2y\u00e2 is again always residing in the Highest Essence, the Samvit or the Universal Pure Consciousness. Thus M\u00e2y\u00e2 is dependent on the Highest Goddess, Who is of the nature of Samvit, and, stimulated by Her, resides in the hearts of all the J\u00eevas. Therefore one ought to meditate, worship and bow down before the Bhagavat\u00ee, the Creatrix of M\u00e2y\u00e2 and Who is of the nature of Samvit, Pure Existence, Intelligence and Bliss. Thus She becomes gracious and merciful and liberates the J\u00eevas, giving them Her realisation and drawing together Her own M\u00e2y\u00e2 away from them. This whole cosmos is nothing but M\u00e2y\u00e2 and the Consciousness (Samvit) of the nature of Br\u00e2hman is the Lord of M\u00e2y\u00e2. For this reason that Beautiful One in the triple worlds, the Dev\u00ee Bhagavat\u00ee is known by the name Bhuvanes\u2019var\u00ee, the Great Lady of the worlds.\n52-60. O King! If the J\u00eevas can fix their hearts on that Samvit, then M\u00e2y\u00e2, born of the real and unreal, is quite unable to do any harm to them. No other Deva than the Bhuvanes\u2019var\u00ee, of the nature of pure existence, intelligence and bliss is able to remove this M\u00e2y\u00e2. O King! Darkness cannot destroy darkness; the Sun, Moon, Lightning or Fire can destroy it. Therefore it is highly incumbent on us to worship the\nLady of M\u00e2y\u00e2, the Samvit, the Mother with a cheerful heart to remove the M\u00e2y\u00e2 and Her Gunas. O King! Now I have narrated to you all the events concerning the killing of Vritr\u00e2sura that you asked. What more do you want to hear now. O One devoted to vows! I have now described the first half of that Pur\u00e2na, which describes in detail the glory of S\u2019r\u00ee Dev\u00ee Bhagavat\u00ee. This Pur\u00e2na, the secret of this Mother of the whole Universe, is not to be disclosed indiscriminately to anybody. Those that are peaceful, self-restrained, devoted, and possessed of Bhakti to the Dev\u00ee, the disciples that are devoted to their Gurus and the eldest son, those are the fit recipients thereof. Whoever reads or hears with greatest devotion this Mah\u00e2pur\u00e2nam, equivalent to the Vedas, fraught with sound proofs and the essence of all talks, becomes, in this world, possessed of great wealth, becomes wise and passes his time in the greatest happiness. There is no doubt in this.\nHere ends the Thirty-first Chapter on the Sixth Book on the glory of M\u00e2y\u00e2 in the Mah\u00e2pur\u00e2nam S\u2019r\u00ee Mad Dev\u00ee Bh\u00e2gavatam of 18,000 verses by Maharsi Veda Vy\u00e2sa.\n[The Sixth Book Finished.]","title":"The Devi Bhagavatam: The Sixth Book: Chapter 31","type":"page"}