The Bhagavata Purana

by G. V. Tagare | 1950 | 780,972 words | ISBN-10: 8120838203 | ISBN-13: 9788120838208

This page describes What the Avadhuta learnt from the Nine-Preceptors which is chapter 8 of the English translation of the Bhagavata Purana, one of the eighteen major puranas containing roughly 18,000 metrical verses. Topics include ancient Indian history, religion, philosophy, geography, mythology, etc. The text has been interpreted by various schools of philosophy. This is the eighth chapter of the Eleventh Skandha of the Bhagavatapurana.

Chapter 8 - What the Avadhūta learnt from the Nine-Preceptors

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

[Full title: What the Avadhūta learnt from the Nine-Preceptors from the Boa-Constrictor to Piṅgalā]

The Brāhmaṇa continued:

1. Pleasure as well as pain engendered by the senses may be experienced in the celestial and internal regions by all embodied beings. A wise man, therefore, should not hanker after them, O King,

2. Like a boa-constrictor lying without any effort or activity, a sage should subsist himself on whatever food (providentially) comes to him (without any effort), irrespective of its taste (whether extremely delicious or distasteful) or of the quantity obtained (whether much or little).

3. If no food comes to the lot of a sage who vows to live only on the food that Providence sends to him, he should not exert for it, but like his (preceptor)—huge serpent, should lie down for days together without food but should not strive for it.

4. Though endowed with a body full of physical strength, mental energy and soundness of sense-organs, the sage should lie down remaining actionless yet sleepless. He should not strive to do anything for food, though he may possess powers of his sense-organs.

5. Like the limitless, unfathomable, uṇperturbable deep sea of clear translucent water, the sage should be quiet, absorbed in meditation, unviolable, inscrutable, unaffected by time, space, etc. and unperturbed by passions.

6. Just as a sea does not overflow its limit when rivers in floods fall into it, nor does it dry up with the drying up of rivers, the sage should not feel elated when his desires arc fulfilled nor be depressed at disappointments, but should be completely devoted to Nārāyaṇa (and not pay attention to worldly objects).

7. On seeing a women, a veritable deluding potency of God, a person who has control over his senses is fascinated with her alluring gestures and movements and like a moth flying into the fire, falls into dark hell.[1]

8. With his mind enticed by women, (wearing) gold ornaments, rich dress, and other things created by the deluding Potency of the Lord (Māyā), the infatuated person, losing his discrimination, regards them for his enjoyment and ruins himself like a moth in the fire.

9. Without causing any trouble to any nouseholder, a sage should accept food only in small quantities and that too, barely sufficient for the maintenance of his body. In this respect he should follow the course of a bee.

10. Just as a bcc collects honey from flowers big or small, a skilful and clever person should assimilate the essence of the Śāstras great and small.

11. A recluse should not accept alms with a view to storing (a part of) it, for the evening or for the next day. He should use no other vessel than his palms (for accepting food) and his stomach (as storage). He ought not to be a hoarder like the bee.

12. A recluse should not lay by any food for the evening or for the morrow. If he were to do so like a bee, he will perish along with his store.

13. A mendicant should not touch, even with his foot, a young woman (doll made of wood), for he will be bound (with passion) like an elephant fettered while touching a female elephant!

14. A wise person should never try to contact a woman (of another person) for he should know that she is his veritable death, just as an elephant is killed by more powerful tuskers.

15. Wealth hoarded by greedy misers painstakingly is neither enjoyed by them nor it is given in charities but it is enjoyed by another powerful person (knowing the location of the treasure) and that also by still another even as a gatherer of honey knows the place of the honeycomb (the store of honey) by external indications and misappropriates it.

16. Just as a honey-gatherer (is the first enjoyer of honey collected by bees) a recluse is the first to enjoy the fruit (i.e. food prepared by householders) of the wealth amassed by the householders with great pains and which they expect to enjoy.

17. From the deer which got ensnared by being beguiled with the music (musical notes) of the hunter, an ascetic living in a forest should learn the lesson that he should not listen to vulgar songs (creating erotic passions). (He should rather listen to songs about the Lord).

18. It was while enjoying the vulgar dance, instrumental music and songs of young women that Ṛṣyaśṛṅga, the son of a female deer (from sage Vibhāṇḍaka) became a toy in the hands of those women.

19. A person being tempted by alluring tastes through his uncontrolled tongue, loses his reasoning capacity and meets his end like a thoughtless fish allured by baits.

20. By observing fast wise persons quickly bring under control all their senses except the tongue (the sense of taste) which grows all the more powerful during famishment.

21. Even if a person has controlled all other senses (except the tongue), he cannot really be said to have subdued them, till he has conquered the sense of taste. When the sense of taste is subdued, all the senses become controlled.

22. Formerly, in the city of Videha (i.e Mithilā), there lived a courtesan called Piṅgalā. Please listen to what I have learnt from her O Prince.

23. On one occasion, the public woman adorned herself to exhibit her charms to the utmost, at the proper time, and waited outside the door with the intention of enticing a paramour to a renḍczous.

24. O prominent Person! As she saw men passing by the way, she, being covetous for money, thought them to be wealthy patrons coming to pay her as her paramours.

25. When the passers-by came and went their way (ignoring her), the woman, who earned her living by prostitution, indulged in the (false) hope that some other wealthy man would turn up and could approach her with a rich fee.

26. Tn this way, her inordinate hopes being thwarted, she lost her sleep. She kept on standing at the door, going in and out till it was past midnight.

27. Due to frustration of her hopes of earning money, her mouth parched up, and she became dejected at heart. But the despondency caused by her anxiety engendered a sense of real happiness in her.

28. Now listen from me the song of the woman whose mind was utterly frustrated and disgusted: “Complete indifference to worldly objects is like unto a sword in a man’s hand to cut asunder the cords of desire.”

29. Dear King, just as a man without any spiritual knowledge cannot give up his sense of“mineness”, a person in whose mind the sense of complete dispassion (for worldly objects) has not dawned, will not be able to rid himself of the tics to the body.

Piṅgalā said:

30. Alas! Look at the extent of delusion of mine who have not controlled my mind and senses. Thoughtless as I am, I covet the fulfilment of my desire even from a worthless paramour.

31. Ignoring this eternally proximate paramour (viz. the Indwelling Soul), capable of giving real delight and bestower of sumptuous wealth on me, I, in my infatuation, resorted to a contemptible fellow who is incapable of fulfilling my desires and who confers nothing but misery, fear, grief and delusion.

32. Alas I I have uselessly put my soul to affliction by leading the life of a public woman—the most reproachable trade. By selling myself to a miserly pitiable woman-addict I expected to get wealth and pleasure.

33. What person other than myself would seek (for enjoyment) the male body which is like a house, the framework (like beams and rafters) of which is made of bones, covered with skin, hair and nails, provided with nine doors dissipating filth and full of dirty excretion and urine.

34. In the whole city of Videha (Mithilā), I am perhaps the only foolish and wicked woman who expect to get pleasure (from persons) other than this Acyuta who confers his own self to devotees.

35. He is the beloved-most friend, protector and the very Self of all embodied beings. I shall submit myself to him and enjoy myself with him like goddess Lakṣmī.

36. To what extent can men, subject to birth and death, and gods, who are overtaken by Time, give pleasures to their wives (for all pleasures have a beginning and an end).

37. It appears that Lord Viṣṇu has been pleased with me for some unknown act of mine (in my past life). Hence this dispassion which ultimately leads to happiness has been engendered in my heart, full of evil desires.

38. But for the grace of the Lord the afflictions of an unlucky woman like me would not have caused this feeling of disgust and renunciation which enables a person to cut asunder all attachment, and attains (mental) peace (and spiritual bliss).

39. Respectfully receiving on my head, the blessings (and the grace) of the Lord, I shall rid myself of vulgar desires caused by low associations, and seek shelter in the Supreme Lord.

40. Contented and subsisting on whatever comes to me by the will of Providence, I shall, with full faith in the Lord who is my own Self, enjoy myself with him as my beloved.

41. Who else is capable of protecting a person who has fallen in the deep well of Saṃsāra, and whose eyes (power of discrimination) are blinded by objects of senses and whose person is swallowed by the serpent (boa-constrictor) in the form of Time.

42. When a person observes that this world is practically devoured by the serpent in the form of Time, he becomes alert and is disgusted with all worldly objects. He realizes that his Ātman is the protector of his Self.

The Brāhmaṇa (Avadhūta) said:

43. Coming to this firm conclusion and having thus cut off the evil libidinous craving for paramours, she was established in serenity and took her seat on the bed.

44. Certainly (the state of being haunted by) hope is the greatest misery and freedom from hope is the happiest state, just as when Piṅgalā gave up all hope for a paramour, she enjoyed a happy sleep.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Bhāvāratha Dīpikā quotes a famous verse which describes how a moth, a black-bee, an elephant, a ḍcer and a fish fall a victim severally to the objects of senses like a form, scent, touch, sound and taste and the five symbolic preceptors from this verse onwards are meant to teach detachment from objects of senses.

The verse quoted is as follows:

pataṅga-mātaṅga-kuraṅga-bhṛṅga-mīnā hatāḥ pañcabhir eva pañca /
ekaḥ pramādī sa kathaṃ na hanyate, yaḥ sevate pañcabhir eva pañca

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