Krishna's Lineage

by Simon Brodbeck

  9 This is the celebrated celebration of the deeds of Vishnu the marvel-being, who should be celebrated. Listen as I celebrate it.

  10 After Vritra had been killed, my boy, and while the krita age was in progress, there was a war that’s famous across the three worlds: the war over Tārakā. 11 In that war all the vicious Dānavas, proud of their armies, pounded the gods, light-elves, dark-elves, serpents, and celestial singers. 12 The gods were sustaining heavy losses in the battle. They were being driven back, short of firepower, and their minds went out to their saviour, the lord god Nārāyana.

  13 At that time there were clouds the colour of dead coals covering the sky, hiding the sun, the moon, and all the planets— 14 fearsome and noisy clouds, punctured by salvos of flickering lightning. The seven winds blew, smiting each other with their blasts. 15 The sky was flying with lightning and burning rain, with a fiery thunderbolt-force wind, and with fearsome portents. It howled as if it was being burned. 16 Thousands of burning meteors fell, and the very sky-going chariots of the gods fell sideways, lurching up and down. 17 Under the sign of these portents beautiful things became ugly, and the worlds were as endangered as they are when the four ages have fully elapsed. 18 Everything was sinking into darkness, and nothing could be discerned. The ten directions lost their lustre and were suffused by a thick gloom. 19 The beautiful dark goddess appeared, dressed in a black cloud. With the sun subdued, the sky didn’t shine: it was covered by grim darkness.

  20 Lord Hari scattered the dark stormclouds with his two arms and displayed a wonderful dark-bodied form.

  21 He looked like a cloud of kohl, with clouds growing on his body. He was dark in energy and appearance, like a dark mountain. 22 He wore bright yellow garments and ornaments of refined gold, upon a body of smoky darkness. It was as if he were the fire that blazes at the end of the age. 23 He had four strong shoulders on either side, the hair on his head was hidden by a crown, his hands were golden, and he was carrying weapons. 24 He was like a lofty mountain peak bathed in the rays of the sun and the moon. One hand was happy to hold his sword Nandaka the Delighter, he had arrows that were venomous snakes, 25 he had various spears and a sticking-up plough, and he held a conch shell, a discus, and a mace. Vishnu the mountain had patience for his foothills, fortune for his forests, and the Shārnga bow for his peaks, 26 and he was on a chariot that was pulled by bay horses and decorated with the eagle standard. Its wheels were the sun and moon, and the supporting axle between them was Mount Mandara. 27 The reins of that rare chariot were the serpent Ananta, its pulling-pole was Mount Meru, the blossoms that decorated it were the various stars, and its driving seat was the planets and constellations.

  28 That’s what the gods saw in the sky when they were overwhelmed by the Daityas: the god who provides safety in the midst of dangers, standing on a chariot that was built in the celestial regions. 29 Led by Shakra, the gods all put their palms together in respect, gave out a cheer of victory, and sought protection from the protector.

  30 Vishnu loves the deities, and after hearing what they told him he made up his mind to destroy the Dānavas in a great battle. 31 So, standing in the sky in his supreme form, Vishnu made this speech and promise to all the deities: 32 Calm down, bless you. Don’t be afraid, bands of Maruts. I’ve conquered all the Dānavas. Take back the triple-world.

  33 Vishnu is true to his word, and so the gods were reassured by what he said. They became supremely happy, as if they’d obtained the finest nectar. 34 Then the darkness lifted, the clouds disappeared, benign breezes blew, the ten directions became clear, 35 the beautiful heavenly bodies paid their respects to the moon, the bright lights paid their respects to the sun, 36 the planets didn’t oppose one another, the floods abated, the three paths (the path through the sky, and so on) became free of dust, 37 the rivers flowed as they should, the oceans stopped tossing about, people’s internal organs functioned properly, 38 the great seers stopped worrying and continued their quiet recitations of the Veda, the sacrificial offerings tasted sweet, the fire god became benevolent, 39 and the people got on with their duties with gladness in their hearts, because they’d all heard the words of Vishnu, promising to destroy their enemies.

  33. The Army of the Demons

  1 Vaishampāyana said:

  The Daityas and Dānavas were hard to beat in battle, and after they’d heard about the danger that Vishnu posed, they made extensive preparations for the fight.

  2 Maya mounted a handsome four-wheeled chariot made of gold. It was indestructible, three furlongs long, and well armed with great weapons. 3 It was fitted with leopardskin and inlaid with splays of jewels and skeins of gold, and it rang with webs of little bells 4 and rumbled like stormclouds. Surrounded by packs of wolves and resplendent with birds, it carried quivers of magical missiles 5 and was stuffed with maces and bludgeons. A splendid great chariot with a strong axle and a fine interior, it was like a mountain, or the ocean in solid form. 6 It was full of golden bracelets, armlets, and earrings,* and had a golden pulling-pole. Topped with flags and banners, it was like Mount Mandara topped by the sun. 7 It looked like a raincloud or a bull elephant, and it had something of the appearance of a flowing mane. Pulled by a thousand bears, it made the noise of a thousand stormclouds. 8 Maya, longing for battle, mounted this divine, shining, flying chariot, this destroyer of enemy chariots, as if he were the blazing sun mounting Mount Meru.

  9 Tāra was driving an iron chariot that was a league wide. It looked like a pile of rocks, or a heap of black kohl. 10 It had eight wheels of black iron, iron shafts and yokes, and an iron pulling-pole. Rumbling like a raincloud, it radiated a discharge of darkness. 11 It was protected by a thick iron mesh with a window in it, and it was full of iron bludgeons, throwing-hammers, 12 harpoons, strap-hammers, and fat chains, dotted with horrifying lances and axes. 13 Tāra mounted that superb chariot yoked to a thousand donkeys. It was like a second Mount Mandara, mobilised on account of his enemies.

  14 Violent Virochana stood there, mace in hand, at the head of his army, like an immovable shining peak. 15 Hayagrīva the Horse-Necked Dānava was driving a chariot fit to grind the ranks of his foes, harnessed to a thousand horses. 16 Varāha stood at the front like a mountain that had put down roots, flexing a huge drawn bow as strong as many thousands of bows. 17 Kshara was longing for the battle: in his self-regard his eyes were crying tears of passion, and his mouth, lips, and teeth were quivering. 18 Manly Tvashtri Dānava mounted an eighteen-horse vehicle and careered around in battle array with his Dānava divisions. 19 Viprachitti’s son Shveta the White stood face-forward for battle wearing white earrings, looking like Mount Shveta the White. 20 Bali’s supreme son Arishta, whose weapons were rocks and boulders, stood there straining for battle, like another mountain holding the earth down. 21 And Kishora the Colt was as over-excited as a colt that’s being urged onwards. He was like a sun that had risen in the middle of the Daitya army.

  22 Lamba the Dangler joined the Daitya battle array wearing dangling clothes and looking like a dangling cloud. He shone like the sun through the mist. 23 Svarbhānu the handsome seizer-demon—who fights with his mouth, using his teeth, lips, and eyes as weapons—stood there smiling at the head of the Daityas. 24 Others came into view riding on horses, or mounted on the shoulders of elephants, or riding on lions or tigers, or on boars or bears. 25 Some travelled on donkeys or camels, or on rainclouds, or on various kinds of bird, or on the wind. 26 Other Daityas were on foot, horrible ones with misshapen faces, one-legged ones and two-legged ones . . .

  They cavorted around, eager for battle. 27 Many Dānavas were growling and slapping their arms. Dānava bulls howled, sounding like wild tigers.

  28 Those Dānavas had done their archery practice. They made threats with fearsome maces and clubs, and with forearms that looked like clubs, 29 and they frolicked with darts, chains, swords, javelins, elephant-hooks, pikes, and blade-hammers, and with weapons that kill a hundred at a time. 30 With all their favourite weapons—rocks, boulders, clubs, discuses—the p
rincipal Daityas made a happy army.

  31 That’s what the Dānava army was like. Mad with battle-fury, the whole army stood facing the gods, like a rowdy army of clouds.

  32 That amazing army, thousands of Daityas strong,

  was like wind, fire, water, clouds, mountains.

  Thrilled at the prospect of multiple battles,

  it looked drunk on the desire to fight.

  34. The Army of the Gods

  1 Vaishampāyana said:

  You’ve heard the details of the Daitya army in that war, my boy. Now hear the details of the entire army of the gods—Vishnu’s side. 2 The Ādityas, Vasus, Rudras, and the mighty Ashvins were harnessed up, in order, with their armies and their followers.

  3 At the front was much-invoked Indra, the world-guardian with a thousand eyes, the leader of all the gods. He rode a divine elephant. 4 On his left flank was a chariot that ran on magnificent wheels as swiftly as the finest bird, and that was equipped with a golden thunderbolt. 5 Hordes of gods, light-elves, and dark-elves followed behind him in their thousands, brahmin seers and splendid superintending priests praised him, 6 and ranks of rainclouds like moving mountains guarded him, tossed about by rumbling thunder and beset with rainbows and bolts of lightning.

  7 Mounted upon his elephant, glorious Maghavat went around the army. He’s the one that the brahmins sing about when they’re sitting on the ritual ground beside the sacrificial fire, 8 and in heaven the companies of celestial nymphs dance for Indra in their hundreds, while his followers play celestial musical instruments.

  9–10 When it’s fitted out with a flag atop a tall bamboo pole, and harnessed to a thousand horses as swift as the mind or the wind, and driven by Mātali, his driver, Indra’s supreme chariot shines just as the sun shines. Mount Meru is completely covered by the glow, as if it were the sun’s glow.

  11 Yama stood there in the mustered army of the gods, holding up his staff and his hammer of death, frightening the Daityas with his roar.

  12 Protected by the four oceans* and by serpents with flickering tongues, bearing a body made of water, wearing an armband of pearls and shells, 13 brandishing the snares of death, playing thousands of games with horses the colour of moonbeams and sprays of water tossed by the wind, 14 with a body like a great dark jewel, wearing pale flapping clothes, armbands of bright coral, and a heavy string of pearls fastened around his belly, 15 there stood Varuna within the gods’ army holding his snares, longing for the hour of war, like the restless ocean bursting its shore.

  16 Accompanied by gangs of trolls and an army of monsters and dark-elves, Kubera the master and commander of treasuries came into view: the glorious lord and king of kings, a mace in his hand, and a conch and a lotus too. 17 That king of kings is Shiva’s friend, the giver of wealth, a conqueror of aerial chariots, and he’s transported by spirit-elves. He looked magnificent, sitting on his aerial chariot Pushpaka and looking around, bent on war, like Shiva himself in person.

  18 Thousand-eyed Indra was on the east wing, Yama the king of the ancestors was to the south, Varuna was on the west wing, and Kubera, transported by spirit-elves, was to the north. 19 The four powerful world-guardians were responsible for the four directions. Each protected his own quarter of the gods’ army.

  20 The sun god has a chariot that moves through the air pulled by seven horses, blazing with splendour and dazzling rays. 21 That bright doorway to the third heaven travels in an arc from the eastern to the western mountain via the edge of Mount Meru, warming the world continuously, 22 harnessed to a thousand rays and shining with fiery energy. On it the lord of days, the one with twelve forms, moved into the midst of the gods.

  23 Soma the moon has white horses and cool rays. Shining on his chariot, he bathes the world with beams full of cold water. 24 The cool-rayed lord of the brahmins is the god who enters into conjunctions with the constellations, whose body is marked with the shadow of a hare, who reduces the darkness of night 25 and keeps the heavenly bodies moving around the sky. He’s the rich flavour in drinks, the protector of herbs, the reservoir of nectar, 26 the people’s primary portion, the cold refreshing drink. The Dānavas saw Soma standing there, with frost as his weapon.

  27 The god who’s the breath in all creatures, but in people is split into five; who travels on seven paths through the three worlds, preserving them; 28 whose source entered the seven notes and comes forth in songs; whom they call the ruler of fire, the master, the origin of all, 29 the supreme element, the bodiless one, the sky-traveller, the swift traveller, the source of sound— 30 that’s Vāyu the wind god, the life of all beings. He blew hostile with rainclouds, fierce with a fury of his own, making the Daityas shudder.

  31 The Maruts, the gods, the light-elves, and the companies of sylphs disported themselves with swords that shone like serpents that had shed their skins. 32 The chief snakes became the arrows of Indra and the gods and flew through the sky with open mouths, discharging a virulent poison fashioned from fury. 33 And the mountains sided with the ranks of the gods, ready to attack the Dānava army with their peaks and their crags and their hundred-branched trees.

  34 Hrishīkesha, the god who has the lotus in his navel, and who took the three steps; the lord of the whole world, whose path is black, like the fire at the end of the age; 35 who rests on the ocean, who killed Madhu, who’s honoured at rituals, who eats the oblations; the essence of the elements earth, water, and space, the dark one who destroys the foe and establishes peace— 36 in the war against the demons he, the bearer of discus and mace, raised his supremely potent foe-destroying discus, and it was like the sun rising into fire. It was like the orb of the sun rising, together with its halo. 37 In his left hand he held the great mace, the ruin of all demons. Dark in form, it deals death to the foe. 38 The glorious lord had Garuda the enemy of snakes as his standard, and in his remaining hands he carried a multitude of shining weapons, the Shārnga bow and so on.

  39 He mounted the bird. Kashyapa’s son Garuda flies faster than the wind, and makes the sky anxious as he passes through it. He eats snakes, 40 and he looked splendid with a snake chief in his beak. He was set free after his nectar escapade.* Mighty like Mount Mandara, 41 he’s shown his valour hundreds of times in the wars between gods and demons. During his mission for the nectar, great Indra branded him with his thunderbolt. 42 He has a comb and a plume, and he’s decorated with earrings of refined gold and clothed in feathers of different colours, like a mineral-bearing mountain. 43 A gemstone hangs on his broad chest, glittering with the same glow as the cool-rayed moon, and garlanded with the hood of the dangling snake. 44 When he blots out the sky with his fine-feathered wings while having fun in the heavens, his wings are like two rainclouds with two rainbows at the end of the age. 45 And his huge hulk can be housed hiding in the guise of Vishnu’s banner, decorated with pennants of blue, red, and yellow.

  46 Glorious Hari mounted for battle onto Aruna’s younger brother, the supreme bird Garuda, the eagle. In his own form, Hari was the eagle. 47 The ranks of gods and the assembled sages followed the mace-wielder and praised him with songs that contained powerful incantations.

  48 That army was tightened up by Kubera Vaishravana, headed by the sun’s son Yama, tossed about by Varuna king of the waters, and splendid with Indra king of the gods. 49 It was cleansed by the rays of the moon and all prepared for battle. Ringing with a driving wind, blazing with fire, 50 and covered in the power of shining Vishnu the patient conqueror, that mighty mustered army moved in for the mêlée.

  51 In his speech of praise there, Brihaspati Āngirasa said: Success to the gods!

  Ushanas said: Success to the Daityas!*

  35. The Origin of the Aurva Fire

  1 Vaishampāyana said:

  Then a tumultuous battle took place between the armies of the gods and the demons, each seeking victory over the other. 2 Armed with all kinds of weapons, the Dānavas and the deities came together like mountains fighting against mountains. 3 The battle between gods and demons was beyond amazing. It
was a meeting of virtue and vice, pride and propriety.

  4 There were chariots blazing, steeds being urged onwards, warriors leaping through the air on all sides with swords in their hands, 5 clubs being hurled, arrows being fired, bows being drawn, hammers being thrown. 6 It was a terrible battle, a mess of gods and Dānavas that made the world tremble, as if it were drawing the age to an end.

  7 In that encounter the Dānavas pounded the gods led by Indra, using bludgeons thrown by hand and rocks thrown hard. 8 In that great battle the mighty Dānavas looked likely to prevail, and as the gods were struck down by them they suffered injuries and lost heart. 9 Mashed up by masses of missiles, their skulls shattered by bludgeons, their chests split open by Daityas, they lost lots of blood from their wounds. 10 Caught in nets and traps and immobilised by arrows, they succumbed to Dānava sorcery and found themselves unable to move. 11 The gods’ army looked to have been stopped in its tracks by the demons. Its weapons deactivated, it behaved as if it were lifeless.

  12 Untying bonds of sorcery and breaking arrows with his thunderbolt, many-eyed Shakra tackled the terrible Daitya army. 13 He struck down the Daityas at the front, and then he plunged the great Dānava army into darkness using a net-of-darkness missile. 14 Cast into terrible darkness through the brilliance of much-invoked Indra, they couldn’t perceive each other, or the gods, or their mounts.

  15 Freed from the bonds of sorcery, the principal gods energetically attacked the shadowy forms of the Daitya hosts. 16 Weakened and woozy, their forms blue-black in the darkness, the ranks of Dānavas fell like the mountains did when their wings were cut off.*17 With its Daitya leaders obscured, the Dānava army looked like an ocean of darkness, or a palace shrouded in gloom.