अनुशासनिक पर्व — तण्डिको कथा

Upamanyu said There was in the golden cycle. O sire, a Rishi named Tandi. With devoted heart he worshipped with the help of Yoga meditation, the great God for ten thousand years. Hear me as I tell you the fruit, or reward he reaped of such wonderful devotion. He succeeded in seeing Mahadeva and lauded him by uttering some hymns.

Thinking, with the help of his penances, of Him who is the supreme Soul and who is eternal and undecaying. Tandi became stricken with wonder and said these words,

I scek His refuge whom the Sankhyas describe and the Yogins think of as the greal, the foremost, the Male Being, the pervader of all things, and the Lord of all existent objects, who is the cause of both the creation and the destruction of the universe, who is superior to all the gods, the Asuras, and the Munis, who has nothing higher who is uncreate, who is the Lord of all things. Who has neither beginning nor end, and who is gifted with supreme power, who is possessed of the highest happiness, and who is effulgent and sinless.

After he had said these words, Tandi, saw before him that ocean of penances, that great God who is eternal and undecaying, who is peerless, who is inconceivable, who is eternal, and who is without any change, who is indivisible, who is whole, who is Brahma, who is above all attributes, and who is gifted with attributes, who is the highest delight of Yogins, who is without decrease, who is called Liberation, who is the refuge of the mind, of Indra, of Agni, of the Wind-God, of the entire universe, and of the Grandfather Brahman; who cannot be comprehended by the mind who is without change of any kind, who is pure, who is capable of being apprehended by the understanding only, and who is immaterial as the mind; who cannot be comprehended, who cannot be measured, who is difficult of being attained, by persons of impure souls, who is the origin of the universe, and who is above both the universe and the quality of darkness; who is ancient, who is Purusha, who is gifted with effulgence, and who is higher than the highest.

Desirous of seeing Him who investing himself with vital airs, lives in the individual soul, in the form of that effulgence which is called the Mind, the Rishi Tandin, passed many years practising the severest austerities, and having succeeded in seeing Him as the reward of those penances, he lauded the great God in the following terms.

Tandi said You are the purifier of all purifiers and the refuge of all, o foremost of all beings gifted with intelligence! You are the most dreadful energy of all kinds of energy. You are the austerest penance of all penances.

You, O powerful one, are the liberal giver of blessings. You are the supreme Truth. I bow to you.

I bow to you, O you of a thousand rays, and, O refuge of all happiness! You are the bestower of that emancipation for which, O powerful one, Yatis, standing in fear of birth and death, strive so hard.

The Grandfather Brahman, Indra of a hundred sacrifices, Vishnu, the Vishvedevas, the great Rishis, cannot comprehend your real nature. How then can persons like ourselves expect to comprehend you.

Everything originates from you. Upon you depends everything. You are called Kala, you are called Purusha, you are called Brahma. Celestial Rishis well read in the Puranas, say that you are triune.

You are Adhi Purusha, Adhyatma, Adhi Bhauta, Adhi Daivata, Adhi Loka, AdhiVijnanam, and AdhiYajna.

Wise men, when they succeed in knowing you that lives in themselves and that can be known by the very gods, become freed from all fetters and enter into a state of existence that is above all sorrow.

They who do not wish to know you, are constrained to pass through numberless births and deaths. You are the door of heaven and of Liberation. You are he who brings all beings into existence and withdraw them again into yourself. You are the great giver.

You are heaven, you are liberation, you are desire. You are the anger which inspires creatures. You are Sattwa, you are Rajas, you are Tamas, you are the nether regions, and you are the upper regions,

You are the Grandfather Brahman, you are Bhava, you are Vishnu, you are Skanda, you are Indra, you are Savitri, you are Yama you are Varuna, you are Soma, you are Dhatri, you are Manu, you are Vidhatri, and you are Kubera the Lord of riches.

You are Earth, you are Wind, you are Water, you are Agni, you are Ether, you are Speech, you are the Understanding, you are Steadiness, you are Intelligence, you are the Acts, you are Truth, you are Untruth, you are existent, you are nonexistent.

You are the senses, you are what is above Nature, you are immutable. You are superior to existent objects, you are superior to nonexistent objects, you are capable of being conceived, you are incapable of being conceived.

You are at one with what is Supreme Brahma, with what is the highest entity, with what is the end of both the Sankhyas and the Yogins.

Indeed, I have been greatly rewarded by you today on account of your granting me a sight of your form. I have attained the end of the righteous. I have been rewarded with that end which is prayed for by persons whose understanding have been purified by Knowledge.

Alas, so long I was steeped in Ignorance; for this long time I was an insensate fool, since I had no knowledge of you who are the Supreme Deity, you who are the only Eternal Entity as known by all persons.

In course of numberless lives have I at last succeeded in acquiring that Devotion towards you, for which you have shown yourself to me, O you who are ever inclined to favour those who are devoted to you! He who knows you enjoys immortality.

You are always a mystery with the gods, the Asuras, and the ascetics. Brahma is concealed in a cave. The very ascetics cannot see or know him.

You are that powerful god who is the Creator of everything and whose face is turned towards all directions. You are the soul of all things you see all things, you pervade all things, and you know ali things.

You make a body for yourself. You bear that body. You are an embodied Being. You have a body and you are the refuge of all embodied creatures. You are the creator of the vital airs. You possess the vital airs, you are endued with vital airs, you are the giver of the vital airs, and you are the refuge of all beings endued with vital airs.

You are that Adhyatma, which is the refuge of all pious persons who are given to Yogameditation and conversant with the Soul and who seek to avoid rebirth. Indeed, you are that Supreme Lord who is at one with that refuge.

You distribute all ends, happy or miserable, to all creatures. You ordain the birth and death for all created beings.

You are the powerful Lord who grants success to Rishis crowned with success regarding the fruition of their wishes. Haying created all the worlds beginning with Bhu, together with all the dwellers of heaven, you uphold and cherish them all, dividing yourself into your well known eight forms.

Everything originates from you. All things depend upon you. All things, again disappear in you. You are the sole Eternal object.

You are that region of Truth which is sought by the righteous and considered by them as the highest. You are that stoppage of individual existence sought by the Yogins. You are that Liberation which is sought by persons conversant with the Soul.

Beings crowned with success and having Brahman amongst them have concealed you in a cave for preventing the deities and Asuras and human beings from seeing you.

Although you live in the heart, yet are you concealed. Hence, stupefied by you the deities and Asuras and men cannot understand you, O Bhava, truly and in all your details.

O you living in all heart you appear before those persons who succeed in attaining to you after having purified themselves by devotion.

By knowing you one can avoid both death and rebirth. You are the highest object of knowledge. By knowing you no higher object remains for one to know.

You are the greatest object of acquirement. The person that is truly wise, who by acquiring you, thinks that there is no higher object of acquisition. By attaining to you who are greatly subtile and who are the highest object of acquisition, the wise man becomes immortal.

The followers of the Sankhya system, well read in their own system of philosophy and possessing a knowledge of the qualities and of all the topics of enquiry-those learned men who reign over the destructible by attaining to a knowledge of the subtile or indestructible, succeed by knowing you in freeing themselves from all fetters.

Persons well read in the Vedas consider you as the one object of knowledge which has been explained in the Vedanta. These men, given to the suppression of vital airs, always meditate on you and at last enter into you as their highest end.

Riding on the car of OM, those men enter inter into Maheshvara. You are the solar door of the celestial road.

You are the lunar door, of that which is called the road of the Pitris. You are Kashtha, You are the points of the horizon, you are the year, and you are the cycles.

You are the sovereignty of the heavens, you are the sovereignty of the Earth you are the Northern and the Southern solistices. In days of yore the Grandfather Brahman sang your praises.

O you who are called blue and red, by reciting various hymns and urged you to create living creatures. Brahmanas conversant with Richs praise you by uttering Richs, considering you as unattached to all things and as shorn of all forms. In sacrifices, Adhvaryus, pour libations, uttering Yajushas in honour of you who are the sole object of knowledge, according to the three well-known ways.

Persons of purified understandings, who are conversant with Samans, sing you with the help of Samans. Those twice born, again, who are conversant with the Atharvans, hymn you as Rita, as Truth, as the Highest, and as Brahma. You are the highest cause of the Sacrifice. You are the Lord, and you are Supreme.

The night and day are your organs of hearing and organ of sight. The fortnights and months for your head and arms. The seasons are your cnergy, penances are your patience and the year is your anus, and thighs, and feet.

You are Death, you are Yama, you are Hutasha, you are Kala, you are gifted with speed of destruction, you are the prime cause of Time and you are eternal Time.

You are the Moon and the Sun, with all the stars and planets and the atmosphere that fills space. You are the polestar, you are the constellation called the seven Rishis, you are the seven regions beginning with Bhu.

You are Pradhana and Mahat, you are Unmanifest, and you are this world. You are the universe beginning with Brahma and ending with the lowest vegetable creation. You are the beginning of all creatures. You are identical with the existent and the non-existent.

You are the eight Prakritis. You are, again, above the eight Prakritis. Every thing that exists, represents a portion of your divine Self.

You are the Supreme Eternal Happiness. You are the end of all things. You are the highest existence of the Righteous.

You are that state which is freed from every anxiety. You are Eternal Brahma. You are that highest state which forms the meditation of persons wellread in the auxiliary branches of the Vedas.

You are the highest Kashtha, you are the highest Kala. You are highest Success, and you are the highest Refuge.

You are the highest Tranquility. You are the highest stoppage of Existence, By attaining to you, Yogins think that they have acquired the highest success.

You are Contentment, you are Success, you are Shruti, and you are the Smriti, You are that Refuge of the Soul which Yogins seek, and you are that indestructible Prapti which men of knowledge seek.

You are forsooth, that End which is sought by persons given to sacrifices and those who pour sacrificial libations, moved by particular desires, and who make large presents on such Occasions.

You are that high End which those persons seek who consume and search their bodies with austere penances with continued recitations, with those rigid vows and fasts which belong to their peaceful lives, and with other means of selfaffliction.

O Eternal One, you are the End of those who are unattached to all things and who have given up ail acts.

Upamanyu said You, O Eternal One, are that End of those who seek Liberation from rebirth, who give up all enjoyments, and who desire the annihilation of the elements. You are that high End, O illustrious one, which cannot be described, which is pure, which is the immutable one, and which is theirs who are given to knowledge and science. These are the five Ends described in the Vedas and the scriptures and the Puranas. It is through your favour that persons acquire those ends, or if they fail to attain to them it is through your favour being denied to them. It was thus that Tandi, who was a heap of penances, lauded Ishana. And he sang also that high Brahma which in days of yore was sung by the Creator himself. Thus lauded by that utterer of Brahma, viz., Tandi, Mahadeva, that illustrious and powerful god who was accompanied by his wife Uma, said these words.

Tandi said Neither Brahman, nor Indra, nor Vishnu, nor the Vishvedevas, nor the great Rishis, know you. Pleased at this Shiva Said the following words.

The Holy one said You shall be indestructible and eternal. You shall be freed from all sorrows. You will have great fame. You will be gifted with energy. You will get Spiritual knowledge.

All the Rishis shall seek you, and your son, through my favour, shall become the author of Sutras, O foremost of twice born ones.

What wishes of yours shall I grant today? Tell me, O son, what do you seek. At this, Tandi Joined his hands and said O Lord, let my devotion to you be steady.

Upamanyu said Having given to Tandin these boons and received the adorations of both the gods and the Rishis, the great Deity disappeared there and then.

When the illustrious Deity, O lord of the Yadavas, thus disappeared with all his followers, the Rishi came to my hermitage and said to me all that had taken place.

Do you hear O foremost of men, for your success, all those celebrated names that Tandi said to me.

The Grandfather had at one time recited ten thousand names of Mahadeva. In the Scriptures, a thousand names of the god occur.

These names are not known to all. O you, who is above destruction, In days of yore, the Grandfather Brahman uttered these names for worshipping the great Deity. Having acquired them through the favour of the Grandfather Tandi communicated them to me.