Rāma said:
O Lord! (Having heard You declare that You are the Creator of the world) a great wonder wells forth in me. You are the Lord with the moon on Your crest, with three eyes and as radiant as pure crystal. ||1||
You have a form with limited stature bearing masculine appearance, accompanied by Mother Pārvatī and sport here itself with Your entourage of attendants. ||2||
How is it that You (create, protect and dissolve) the world made of five elements and consisting of the animate and inanimate? Tell me, O Lord, the beloved of Pārvatī, should You have concern for me. ||3||
The Lord said:
Listen, Rāma, the high-souled one and of noble observances! I will tell you that which is difficult to comprehend even for the Gods, (and which can be understood) only by continence and by effort, and through which you will with ease cross to the other shore of the sea of births and deaths. ||4||
The five elements, the fourteen worlds, the oceans, the mountains, the demons, and the sages; those that are seen as unmoving, like trees, and those that move (creatures), the Gandharvas, the Pramathas, the Nāgas, all these are My glorious manifestations. ||5-6||
In ancient days, the Gods like Brahmā, desirous to see My personal form, churned (the ocean) as a team, (using) the
The Gods, standing in front of Me, praised Me with folded palms. On seeing Me thus, the Gods were deluded by Me, and the intelligence of Brahmā and the other celestial beings was obscured. ||8||
Remaining ignorant, they repeatedly asked Me: “Who are You?” Then I told the Gods: “I am that primordial Being. O Gods! I was the first of all! I am so even at the present, and I will be so in the future too. There is nothing other than I in this world. ||9-10||
O Leaders of Gods! There is nothing whatever other than Myself, either permanent or impermanent. Faultless, I am the Lord of the Vedas and of Brahmā. ||11||
O Leaders of Gods! I extend unto the south, unto the north, unto the east, and the west, above and below. I am the terminal and the intermediate directions. ||12||
I am the Sāvitrī and the Gāyatrī, I am woman, man, and neuter; the meters of Triṣṭup, Jagatī, Anuṣṭup, Paṅkti and the three Vedas. ||13||
I am the truth among all (the phenomena), the tranquil, the three household fires, scriptural study and ritual, the Preceptor, the speech, the secret, the heaven and the Lord of the world. ||14||
I am the foremost, the pre-eminent among all the Gods, greatest of knowers of truth, am the Lord of the waters, am the noblest, the supreme One with six attributes, the Ruler (Īśa), the Light, and the first cause of the all. ||15||
I am the Rg Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sāma Veda, the Atharvaṇa, full of sacred mantras, and similarly the distinguished Angiras all originate from
I am the Itihāsas, the Purāṇas, I am the kalpa (rituals), and the performer of the rituals. I am the Narasamsi (hymn of Rudra); I am the Gātha (hymn praising Vedic ritual). I am meditation and the secret wisdom. ||17||
I am the Vedic verses, the aphorisms (Sūtras), the sub-commentaries; I am the commentaries. Similarly, I am the sciences, the Vedic sacrifices, the oblation and the substances offered. ||18||
I am the giver as well as the gift; I am this world and the world hereafter; I am the imperishable and the perishable; I am control of senses and of the mind; I am the indweller of the senses. ||19||
I am the hidden secret in all the Vedas; I am the forest and I am the unborn. I am the nourisher and the pure; I am the middle and anything beyond it. I am the exterior as well as the interior; I am the front and the imperishable. ||20||
And I am light as well as darkness. I am the subtle elements and the senses. I am the intellect and the ego. Verily, I alone am all the objects of experience. ||21||
I am Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśa. I am Umā, Skanda, and Vināyaka. I am Indra, Agni, and Yama. I am Nirṛiti, Varuṇa and Vāyu. ||22||
I am Kubera and Iśāna, the worlds of Bhu, Bhuva, Svaha, Maha, Jana, Tapa and Satya. And I am the earth and I am the waters, the fire and air. ||23||
I am space; I am the sun, the moon and the stars. The planets, too, am I. I am the vital breath (prāṇa) and time, similarly death and immortality. I am the physical matter too. ||24||
I am the past and the future. I am the universe in its entirety. I am the sum and substance of everything. For those who silently chant, I am the Praṇava (OM) at the beginning. I am the vyahāritis: bhu, bhuva, svaha in the middle; and then the Gāyatri at the end. I am of the form of the extended universe. ||25||
I am the eaten and the drunk. I am, too the done and the undone. I am the superior and the inferior. I am the Sun and the Refuge of all. ||26||
I am the good of the world; I am the Divine imperishable and the subtle. I am the very self of Prajāpati (Brahmā). I am the sacred, the benign, the ungraspable and the first. ||27||
I alone am the withdrawer. I am the container of the luminous fire of deluge. I am established in the hearts of all as Divinity and vital power. ||28||
I am the very Praṇava (Omkāra) consiting of three morae (a, u, m) whose head is the north, feet the south and the middle is all that is in between. ||29||
I am truly the Praṇava (Omkāra), one, eternal and ancient because I lead (pious souls) upwards (to heaven) and send them down (when their merit is exhausted). ||30||
I am called Praṇava because in the act of sacrifice I am Brahmā (directing the sacrifice) make (the Rtviks) render obeisance to the brāhmaṇas (or Rg, Yajus and Sāma Vedas). ||31||
Just as ghee pervades a piece of meat and makes the body (of the eater) grow, I (pervade) similarly all the worlds; therefore, the Pervader of all am
Because Brahmā and Viṣṇu, and other Deities did not see the beginning or end to My form (Jyotirliṅga), I am called the Infinite. ||33||
Since I save My devotee from the ocean of dread of being born in a womb, old age, death and the cycle of births and deaths, I am called the Savior. ||34||
I dwell as the soul in the four kinds of bodies (born of womb, of egg, of sweat and of the earth). Taking a subtle form I live in the heart. Hence, I am called subtle. ||35||
I illuminate the devotees immersed in the primeval darkness (of ignorance) with my incomparable light, like a flash of lightening. Therefore, I am known as lightening. ||36||
Since I alone create and dissolve the worlds, make (the souls) go from one world to another and bestow grace, I am the only supreme Lord. ||37||
Since there is no second to that transcendent Brahman, which withdraws all the beings into itself, I (that Brahman) alone exist as Rudra. ||38||
Since I rule all the worlds with My wondrous powers, I am the Iśāna (Ruler) of this world, the Lord and the witnessing eye. ||39||
(The scriptures extol Me) as Iśāna, as Indra, as Brahmā and the Lord of all at all times, and the Lord of disciplines and knowledge. Hence, I am called Iśāna. ||40||
I behold all beings; I teach the knowledge of the Self and the path (to that knowledge). I pervade everything. Therefore, I am called Bhagavān. ||41||
I perpetually create, protect and dissolve all the worlds and enliven them all. And hence I am the great Lord. ||42||
He, that great Lord, glories by the stupendous powers and the yoga of self-knowledge. He creates and protects all that exists. I am that (Lord). ||43||
This Lord am I, present everywhere. I was prior to everything else. It is I who is in the womb; it is I who is born and that which is to be born. I have faces in every direction. I am the indwelling spirit in beings. ||44||
I have eyes everywhere; I have faces in all directions; My arms are everywhere; My feet everywhere. With my arms and feet I command the production, as one secondless Lord, of the earth and the heaven. ||45||
Those wise men who directly see Me as abiding in their own self, in the center of their heart, of the size of a tip of the hair; as of the form of the universe; as the source of the Vedas, and to be worshipped always, for them alone there is peace eternal, and not others. ||46||
I alone stand as the basis of the world of māyā. All the fivefold elements are fully pervaded by Me. One who enquires in this way about Me, the Lord, the Supreme Person, and the Governor (of the universe) attains peerless peace. ||47||
The marks of mind implicit in the vital airs are said to be hunger, thirst and restlessness. Those who cut asunder the thirst which is responsible for all the activities and fixing the mind in Me through reason, and meditate on Me, get the peace eternal and not others. ||48||
Knowing Me as Brahman, the bliss, from where speech along with the mind recoil unable to reach it, one does not fear anything whatsoever. ||49||
Hearing my words on the supreme knowledge as a means to release, chanting My names, giving themselves to meditating on me, the Gods – all of them – at the end of their lives attained union with Me in days of yore. From such a knowledge all the things are seen everywhere by them as manifestations of My glory. ||50-51||
From Me alone everything is born. In Me, everything is established. In me, everything is resolved. I am that Brahman which is secondless. ||52||
I alone am the subtler than the subtlest; similarly I am the greatest. I am the world and am pure (unsullied by creation). I am the most ancient. I am the complete being. I am the sovereign. I am the golden One and of the very form of auspiciousness (Śivam). ||53||
I (grasp) without hands and (walk without) feet; I am that inestimable power; I see without eyes; I hear without ears. I am every manifest form and there is no one who knows Me. I am ever the consciousness. ||54||
I am alone the One who revealed by all the Vedas. I am the author of Vedānta, and I am alone the knower of the Vedas. There is no merit or demerit in Me; there is no destruction for Me; nor are there births, bodies, senses and intellects for
The earth, water, fire, air nor space (the five elements) find no place in Me. Thus knowing the nature of the supreme Self indwelling in the cave of the heart, partless and secondless, witness unto all, devoid of cause and effect, one attains the pure supreme Self (that I am). ||56||
O Rāma of great intelligence! One who knows Me truly, he alone and none else, in all the worlds attains the fruit of liberation.” ||57||
Thus ends the sixth chapter called the Glory of God in the Śiva-Gītā which is an upaniṣad delivering Brahma-vīdyā and a yoga śāstra occurring as a dialogue between Śiva and Rāma in the Padma Purāṇa.
|| ॐ नमः शिवाय ||
Also see: Siva-Gita Intro and Chapter VII.
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