Chapter Six
Maharaja Pariksit Passes Away
1. Suta Gosvami said: After hearing all that was narrated to him by the self-realized and equipoised Sukadeva, the son of Vyasadeva, Maharaja Pariksit humbly approached his lotus feet. Bowing his head down upon the sage’s feet, the King, who had lived his entire life under the protection of Lord Visnu, folded his hands in supplication and spoke as follows.
2. Maharaja Pariksit said: I have now achieved the purpose of my life, because a great and merciful soul like you has shown such kindness to me. You have personally spoken to me this narration of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, who is without beginning or end.
3. I do not consider it at all amazing that great souls such as yourself, whose minds are always absorbed in the infallible Personality of Godhead, show mercy to the foolish conditioned souls, tormented as we are by the problems of material life.
4. I have heard from you this Srimad-Bhagavatam, which is the perfect summary of all the Puranas and which perfectly describes the Supreme Lord, Uttamahsloka.
5. My lord, I now have no fear of Taksaka or any other living being, or even of repeated deaths, because I have absorbed myself in that purely spiritual Absolute Truth, which you have revealed and which destroys all fear.
6. O brahmana, please give me permission to resign my speech and the functions of all my senses unto Lord Adhoksaja. Allow me to absorb my mind, purified of lusty desires, within Him and to thus give up my life.
7. You have revealed to me that which is most auspicious, the supreme personal feature of the Lord. I am now fixed in knowledge and self-realization, and my ignorance has been eradicated.
8. Suta Gosvami said: Thus requested, the saintly son of Srila Vyasadeva gave his permission to King Pariksit. Then, after being worshiped by the King and all the sages present, Sukadeva departed from that place.
9-10. Maharaja Pariksit then sat down on the bank of the Ganges, upon a seat made of darbha grass with the tips of its stalks facing east, and turned himself toward the north. Having attained the perfection of yoga, he experienced full self-realization and was free of material attachment and doubt. The saintly King settled his mind within his spiritual self by pure intelligence and proceeded to meditate upon the Supreme Absolute Truth. His life air ceased to move, and he became as stationary as a tree.
11. O learned brahmanas, the snake-bird Taksaka, who had been sent by the angry son of a brahmana, was going toward the King to kill him when he saw Kasyapa Muni on the path.
12. Taksaka flattered Kasyapa by presenting him with valuable offerings and thereby stopped the sage, who was expert in counteracting poison, from protecting Maharaja Pariksit. Then the snakebird, who could assume any form he wished, disguised himself as a brahmana, approached the King and bit him.
13. While living beings all over the universe looked on, the body of the great self-realized saint among kings was immediately burned to ashes by the fire of the snake’s poison.
14. There arose a terrible cry of lamentation in all directions on the earth and in the heavens, and all the demigods, demons, human beings and other creatures were astonished.
15. Kettledrums sounded in the regions of the demigods, and the celestial Gandharvas and Apsaras sang. The demigods showered flowers and spoke words of praise.
16. Hearing that his father had been fatally bitten by the snakebird, Maharaja Janamejaya became extremely angry and had brahmanas perform a mighty sacrifice in which he offered all the snakes in the world into the sacrificial fire.
17. When Taksaka saw even the most powerful serpents being burned in the blazing fire of that snake sacrifice, he was overwhelmed with fear and approached Lord Indra for shelter.
18. When King Janamejaya did not see Taksaka entering his sacrificial fire, he said to the brahmanas: Why is not Taksaka, the lowest of all serpents, burning in this fire?
19. The brahmanas replied: O best of kings, the snake Taksaka has not fallen into the fire because he is being protected by Indra, whom he has approached for shelter. Indra is holding him back from the fire.
20. The intelligent King Janamejaya, hearing these words, replied to the priests: Then, my dear brahmanas, why not make Taksaka fall into the fire, along with his protector, Indra?
21. Hearing this, the priests then chanted this mantra for offering Taksaka together with Indra as an oblation into the sacrificial fire: O Taksaka, fall immediately into this fire, together with Indra and his entire host of demigods!
22. When Lord Indra, along with his airplane and Taksaka, was suddenly thrown from his position by these insulting words of the brahmanas, he became very disturbed.
23. Brhaspati, the son of Angira Muni, seeing Indra falling from the sky in his airplane along with Taksaka, approached King Janamejaya and spoke to him as follows.
24. O King among men, it is not fitting that this king of snakes meet death at your hands, for he has drunk the nectar of the immortal demigods. Consequently he is not subject to the ordinary symptoms of old age and death.
25. The life and death of an embodied soul and his destination in the next life are all caused by himself through his own activity. Therefore, O King, no other agent is actually responsible for creating one’s happiness and distress.
26. When a conditioned soul is killed by snakes, thieves, fire, lightning, hunger, disease or anything else, he is experiencing the reaction to his own past work.
27. Therefore, my dear King, please stop this sacrificial performance, which was initiated with the intent of doing harm to others. Many innocent snakes have already been burned to death. Indeed, all persons must suffer the unforeseen consequences of their past activities.
28. Suta Gosvami continued: Advised in this manner, Maharaja Janamejaya replied, “So be it.” Honoring the words of the great sage, he desisted from performing the snake sacrifice and worshiped Brhaspati, the most eloquent of sages.
29. This is indeed the Supreme Lord Visnu’s illusory energy, which is unstoppable and difficult to perceive. Although the individual spirit souls are part and parcel of the Lord, through the influence of this illusory energy they are bewildered by their identification with various material bodies.
30-31. But there exists a supreme reality, in which the illusory energy cannot fearlessly dominate, thinking, “I can control this person because he is deceitful.” In that highest reality there are no illusory argumentative philosophies. Rather, there the true students of spiritual science constantly engage in authorized spiritual investigation. In that supreme reality there is no manifestation of the material mind, which functions in terms of alternating decision and doubt. Created material products, their subtle causes and the goals of enjoyment attained by their utilization do not exist there. Furthermore, in that supreme reality there is no conditioned spirit, covered by false ego and the three modes of nature. That reality excludes everything limited or limiting. One who is wise should therefore stop the waves of material life and enjoy within that Supreme Truth.
32. Those who desire to give up all that is not essentially real move systematically, by negative discrimination of the extraneous, to the supreme position of Lord Visnu. Giving up petty materialism, they offer their love exclusively to the Absolute Truth within their hearts and embrace that highest truth in fixed meditation.
33. Such devotees come to understand the supreme transcendental situation of the Personality of Godhead, Lord Visnu, because they are no longer polluted by the concepts of “I” and “my,” which are based on body and home.
34. One should tolerate all insults and never fail to show proper respect to any person. Avoiding identification with the material body, one should not create enmity with anyone.
35. I offer my obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the invincible Lord Sri Krishna. Simply by meditating upon His lotus feet I have been able to study and appreciate this great literature.
36. Saunaka Rsi said: O gentle Suta, please narrate to us how Paila and the other greatly intelligent disciples of Srila Vyasadeva, who are known as the standard authorities of Vedic wisdom, spoke and edited the Vedas.
37. Suta Gosvami said: O brahmana, first the subtle vibration of transcendental sound appeared from the sky of the heart of the most elevated Lord Brahma, whose mind was perfectly fixed in spiritual realization. One can perceive this subtle vibration when one stops all external hearing.
38. By worship of this subtle form of the Vedas, O brahmana, mystic sages cleanse their hearts of all contamination caused by impurity of substance, activity and doer, and thus they attain freedom from repeated birth and death.
39. From that transcendental subtle vibration arose the omkara composed of three sounds. The omkara has unseen potencies and manifests automatically within a purified heart. It is the representation of the Absolute Truth in all three of His phases-the Supreme Personality, the Supreme Soul and the supreme impersonal truth.
40-41. This omkara, ultimately nonmaterial and imperceptible, is heard by the Supersoul without His possessing material ears or any other material senses. The entire expanse of Vedic sound is elaborated from omkara, which appears from the soul, within the sky of the heart. It is the direct designation of the self-originating Absolute Truth, the Supersoul, and is the secret essence and eternal seed of all Vedic hymns.
