Prajapati

Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 24 Jul 2011 17:19 and updated at 24 Jul 2011 17:19

VISHNU PURANA NOUN

vp.1.4	Parasara. In what manner the divine Brahma, who is one with Narayana, created progeny, and is thence named the lord of progeny Prajapati(), the lord god, you shall hear.
vp.1.8	"This being, then, knelt down upon the ground, and raising his hands respectfully to his head, said to Mahadeva, Sovereign of the gods, command what it is that I must do for thee. To which Maheswara replied, Spoil the sacrifice of Daksha. Then the mighty Virabhadra, having heard the pleasure of his lord, bowed down his head to the feet of Prajapati; and starting like a lion loosed from bonds, despoiled the sacrifice of Daksha, knowing that the had been created by the displeasure of Devi. She too in her wrath, as the fearful goddess Rudrakali, accompanied him, with all her train, to witness his deeds. Virabhadra the fierce, abiding in the region of ghosts, is the minister of the anger of
vp.3.3	Twenty eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivaswata Manwantara in the Dwapara age, and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in their respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. In the first Dwapara age the distribution was made by Swayambhu Brahma() himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda Veda( vyasa) was Prajapati (or Manu); in the third, Usanas; in the fourth, Vrihaspati; in the fifth, Savitri; in the sixth, Mrityu Death(, or Yama); in the seventh, Indra; in the eighth, Vasishtha; in the ninth, Saraswata; in the tenth, Tridhaman; in
vp.3.10	"When a son is born, let his father perform for him the ceremonies proper on the birth of a child, and all other initiatory rites, as well as a sraddha, which is a source of prosperity. Let him feed a couple of Brahmans, seated with their faces to the east; and according to his means offer sacrifices to the gods and progenitors. Let him present to the manes 1 balls of meat mixed with curds, barley, and jujubes, with the part of his hand sacred to the gods, or with that sacred to Prajapati 2. Let a Brahman perform such a sraddha, with all its offerings and circumambulations, on every occasion of good fortune 3.
vp.3.11	"As preparatory to all established rites of devotion the householder should bathe in the water of a river, a pond, a natural channel, or a mountain torrent; or he may bathe upon dry ground, with water drawn from a well, or taken from a, river, or other source, where there is any objection to bathing on the spot 5. When bathed, and clad in clean clothes, let him devoutly offer libations to the gods, sages, and progenitors, with the parts of the hand severally sacred to each. He must scatter water thrice, to gratify the gods; as many times, to please the Rishis; and once, to propitiate Prajapati: he must also make three libations, to satisfy the progenitors. He must then present, with the part of the hand sacred to the manes, water to his paternal grandfather and great grandfather, to his maternal grandfather, great grandfather, and his father; and at pleasure to his own mother and his mother s mother and grandmother, to the wife of his preceptor, to his preceptor, his maternal uncle, and other relations 6, to a dear friend, and to the
vp.3.11	"Having then rinced his mouth, he is to offer water to the sun, touching his forehead with his hands joined, and with this prayer; Salutation to Vivaswat, the radiant, the glory of Vishnu; to the pure illuminator of the world; to Savitri, the granter of the fruit of acts. He is then to perform the worship of the house, presenting to his tutelary deity water, flowers, and incense. He is next to offer oblations with fire, not preceded by any other rite, to Brahma 8. Having invoked Prajapati, let him pour oblations reverently to his household gods, to Kasyapa and to Anumati 9, in succession. The residue of the oblation let him offer to
vp.3.11	"A householder should also at the perpetual sraddha entertain another Brahman, who is of his own country, whose family and observances are known, and who performs the five sacramental rites. He is likewise to present to a Brahman learned in the Vedas four handfulls of food, set apart with the exclamation Hanta; and he is to give to a mendicant religious student three handfulls of rice, or according to his pleasure when he has ample means. These, with the addition of the mendicant before described, are to be considered as guests; and he who treats these four descriptions of persons with hospitality acquits himself of the debt due to his fellow men. The guest who departs disappointed from any house, and proceeds elsewhere, transfers his sins to the owner of that mansion, and takes away with him such a householder s merits. Brahma, Prajapati, Indra, fire, the Vasus, the sun, are present in the person of a
vp.3.13	parts of the hand sacred to the gods and to Prajapati, balls of food 2, with curds, unbruised grain, and jujubes; and should perform, on every accession of good fortune, the rite by which the class of progenitors termed Nandimukha is propitiated 3. A householder should diligently worship the Pitris so named, at the marriage of a son or daughter, on entering a new dwelling, on giving a name to a child, on performing his tonsure and other purificatory ceremonies, at the binding of the mother s hair during gestation, or on first seeing the face of a son, or the like.
vp.6.2	Riches" are accumulated by men in modes not incompatible with their peculiar duties, and they are then to be bestowed upon the worthy, and expended in constant sacrifice. There is great trouble in their acquisition; great care in their preservation; great distress from the want of them; and great grief for their loss. Thus, eminent Brahmans, through these and other sources of anxiety, men attain their allotted spheres of Prajapati and the rest only by exceeding labour and suffering. This is not the case with women: a woman has only to honour her husband, in act, thought, and speech, to reach the same region to which he is elevated; and she thus accomplishes her object without any great exertion. This was the purport of my exclamation, Well done! the third time. I have thus related to you what you asked. Now demand the question you came to put to me, in any way you please, and I will make you a distinct reply."
vp.6.5	When the child is about to be born, its face is besmeared by excrement, urine, blood, mucus, and semen; its attachment to the uterus is ruptured by the Prajapati wind; it is turned head downwards, and violently expelled from the womb by the powerful and painful winds of parturition; and the infant losing for a time all sensation, when brought in contact with the external air, is immediately deprived of its intellectual knowledge. Thus born, the child is tortured in every limb, as if pierced with thorns, or cut to pieces with a saw, and falls from its fetid lodgment, as from a sore, like a crawling thing upon the earth. Unable to feel itself, unable to turn itself, it is dependent upon the will of others for being bathed and nourished. Laid upon a dirty bed, it is bitten by insects and musquitoes, and has not power to drive them away. Many are the pangs attending birth, and many are those which succeed to birth; and many are the sufferings which are inflicted by elemental and superhuman agency in the state of childhood. Enveloped by the gloom of ignorance, and internally bewildered, man knows not whence he is, who he is, whither he goeth, nor what is his nature; by what bonds he is bound; what is cause, and what is not cause; what is to be done, and what is to be left undone; what is to be said, and what is to be kept silent; what is righteousness, what is iniquity; in what it consists, or how; what is right, what is wrong; what is virtue, what is vice. Thus man, like a
vp.6.7	undefinable by words, and is to be discovered solely in one s own spirit. That is the supreme, unborn, imperishable form of Vishnu, who is without (sensible) form, and is characterised as a condition of the supreme soul, which is variously modified from the condition of universal form. But this condition cannot be contemplated by sages in their (early) devotions, and they must therefore direct their minds to the gross form of Hari, which is of universal perceptibility. They must meditate upon him as Hiranyagarbha, as the glorious Vasava, as Prajapati, as the winds, the Vasus, the Rudras, the suns, stars, planets, Gandharbas, Yakshas, Daityas, all the gods and their progenitors, men, animals, mountains, oceans, rivers, trees, all beings, and all sources of beings, all modifications whatever of nature and its products, whether sentient or unconscious, one footed, two footed, or many footed; all these are the sensible form of Hari, to be apprehended by the three kinds of apprehension. All this universal world, this world of moving and stationary beings, is pervaded by the energy of Vishnu, who is of the nature of the supreme Brahma. This energy is either supreme, or, when it is that of conscious embodied spirit, it is secondary. Ignorance, or that which is denominated from works, is a third energy 14; by which the omnipresent energy of embodied spirit is ever excited, and whence it suffers all the pains of repeated worldly existence. Obscured by that energy (of ignorance or
vp.6.7	them: the faculty exists in an ascending degree in Nagas, Gandharbas, Yakshas, gods, sakra, Prajapati, and Hiranyagarbha: and is above all predominant in that male Vishnu() of whom all these various creatures are but the diversified forms, penetrated universally by his energy, as all pervading as the ether.

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