Study a Verse

• In the material world, conditioned souls strive to lord it over one another.
• Therefore they cannot understand the pastimes of the actual lords of the universe.
• Such bona fide lords have a wonderfully magnanimous mentality and thus sometimes bow down to the most qualified and saintly among their own subjects.

The purport's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.

Terror and bewilderment → Wonder and surrender. Annihilation gives way to a tender divine vision.

Chapters 9–10 of Canto 12: Mārkaṇḍeya witnesses the deluge and divine child. An editorial reading of the story's mood, not the text itself. See the emotional arc

Chapter 10: Lord Śiva and Umā Glorify Mārkaṇḍeya Ṛṣi

From the chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:

Satisfied with Mārkaṇḍeya’s devotion, Lord Śiva awarded him the boons of renown, freedom from old age and death until the time of universal dissolution, knowledge of all three phases of time, renunciation, realized knowledge and the position of a teacher of the Purāṇas. Those who chant and hear the story of Mārkaṇḍeya Ṛṣi will attain liberation from material life, which is based on the accumulated desires generated from fruitive work.