SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM: CANTO 5- CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3: Rishabhadeva's Appearance in the Womb of Merudevî, the Wife of King Nâbhi

(1) S'rî S'uka said: 'Nâbhi, the son of Âgnîdhra, desiring to have sons with Merudevî who was childless, with great attention offered prayers in worship of the Supreme Lord Vishnu, the enjoyer of all sacrifices. (2) When he assuredly with great faith and devotion and a pure mind was worshiping, manifested the Supreme Lord out of His love to fulfill the desires of His devotees, Himself in His most beautiful, unconquerable form that is pleasing to the mind and eyes with its captivating beautiful limbs, although that could not be achieved with the introductory pravargya ceremony as was initiated, and the ingredients, the right place and time, the hymns, the priests, the gifts to the priests and by means of the regulative principles themselves. (3) After He manifested Himself most obviously in His four-handed form very bright, as the topmost of all living beings, with a yellow silk garment and the beauty of the S'rîvatsa mark He has on His chest, His conchshell, lotus flower, disc, flower garland, the Kaustubha-jewel and His club and such as are characteristic for Him, and radiating brilliantly with the helmet, earrings, bracelets, girdle, necklace, armlets, ankle bells etc. that ornamented His body, felt king Nâbhi, the priests and the others themselves like poor people having obtained a great treasure and with great regards and everything of worship they reverentially bent their heads. (4-5) The priests said: 'Please accept again and again, o most exalted one, the offering in worship of our respects, the obeisances of us, Your servants. Thus we are able to act thus far being instructed by the exalted ones; what man, whose mind not in the least capable is absorbed in the transformations of material nature, is capable of ascertaining, of the Supreme Controller above the influence of the material world, all the names, forms and qualities belonging to His position here! By most auspiciously speaking of the excellence of Your transcendental qualities, which wipe out all the sinful actions of mankind, we may know You but partially. A Vishnu to worship

(6) It is by the worship indeed of Your servants, who in great ecstasy with faltering voices do their prayers, performing with water, fresh twigs of green, tulasî leaves and sprouts of grass, that You become satisfied. (7) Everything else of all the concern here about the things of use required in this, we acknowledge, is because of Your greatness not even needed. (8) All the spiritual virtues - Your actual identity - self-sufficiently, undoubtedly at every moment, directly and without ever stopping do increase endlessly; but, o Lord, the always desiring of us in this for the blessings of material pleasure, may only exist for the purpose of obtaining Your grace. (9) Although You, personally, by the abundance of Your causeless mercy and glory desiring to lay open the spiritual path [called apavarga], have come here and are presently seen like one can see any ordinary person, do we fall short in our worship for You for we, o Lord of lords, are as fools ignorant about that ultimate welfare of You. (10) This then, because of in this sacrifice of the saintly king Nâbhi having become, o Lordship, o best of the benefactors, the object of the vision of us Your devotees, is no doubt the greatest benediction indeed, o most worshipable One. (11) You are to them, of whom the endless impurity, having attained Your qualities, has been removed by the strength of detachment and the fire of knowledge, You are to those sages who self-satisfied, incessantly recounted all the good of You in telling Your stories, the supreme bliss produced. (12) Still we somehow or other stumble along, hungrily fall down and yawn because of feeling misplaced and so on, and also are we of ourselves unable to remember You in the fever of our deathstruggle; may it be possible that we utter Your names and speak of Your activities and attributes, for they have the potency to drive away all our sins. (13) Moreover aspires this pious king to be blessed by You with offspring, a son that he hopes to be exactly like You: a supreme controller of the benedictions of heaven and the path leading there; even though this king with You, the great love of the worship, with his idea of children as the ultimate goal of life, behaves like a poor man who asks a person of wealth and charity for a little grain. (14) Who, without respect for the feet of the great ones, is within this world of Yours not conquered by the unconquerable illusory energy of which one cannot find the path; who is in his intelligence not bewildered by the material enjoyment that is like poison; who is in his nature not checked by that stream? (15) Because of indeed Your again being invited in this arena of sacrifice as the performer of many wonders - please tolerate out of Your sameness to all and everything therefore us, the ignorant ones, who, not very intelligent of disrespect for the divinity of You as the God of Gods, are aspiring a material outcome.'

(16) S'rî S'uka said: 'The Supreme Lord, the lead of the wise, thus extolled by the unbound recitation performed by them to whose feet even the emperor of Bhâratavarsha [India] bowed down, then spoke. (17) The Supreme Lord said: 'Alas, pleased as I am by you o sages whose words are all true, is that benediction you have been asking for - that there may be a son of Nâbhi that is like Me -, a thing most difficult to achieve; being One without a second am I the only one equal to Me, but nevertheless, with the brahminical of what you said not being false, ought that of Me to come true, for it was voiced by the divinity of the class of the twice-born. (18) Since there's no one equal to Me to be found, shall I therefore by personal expansion into a plenary portion of Myself, advent in the wife of Âgnîdhra's son.'

(19) S'rî S'uka said: 'Thus having spoken to the husband in the presence of Merudevî, disappeared the Supreme Lord. (20) O grace of Vishnu [Parîkchit], in order to please King Nâbhi did the Supreme Lord, this way being propitiated by the best of the wise, appear in the original form of pure goodness of an avatâra in his wife Merudevî, in a desire to show the great of the renounced, the withdrawn and the studious order [the sannyâsîs, the vânaprasthas and the brahmacârîs] the ways of the principles of dharma [righteousness, the religion, the true nature].