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Rabindranath Tagore - Brahmā, Vişņu, Śiva
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I  THE DARK

In a worldless timeless lightless great emptiness
       Four-faced Brahma broods.

nasad asin, no sad asit tadanim;
nasid raja no vioma paro yat.
kim avarivah? kuha? kasya sarmann?
Ambhah kim asid, gahanam gabhiram?

na mytur asid, amrtam na tarhi.
na ratria ahna asit pratekh.
anid avatam svadhaya tad ekam.
tasmad dhanyan na parah kim canasa.

tama asit tamasa gudham agre;
apraketam salilam sarvam a idam.
tuchyenabhu apihitam yad asit,
tapasas tan mahinajayataikam.

Of a sudden sea of joy surges through his heart –
       The ur-god opens his eyes.
       Speech from four mouths
       Speeds from each quarter.
       Through infinite dark,
       Through limitless sky,
       Like a growing sea-storm,
       Like hope never sated,
       His Word starts to move.

Stirred by joy                  his breathing quickens,
       His eight eyes quiver with flame.
His fire-matted hair        sweeps the horizon,
       Bright as a million suns.

From the towering source of the world
       In a thousand streams
Cascades the primeval blazing fountain,
       Fragmenting silence,
       Splitting its stone heart.

kamas tad agre sam avartatadhi
manaso retah prathamam yad asit?
sato bandhum asati nir avindan
hrdi pratisya kavayo manisa 

II  THE MUSIC

       In a universe rampant
       With new life exhalant,
       With new life exultant,
       Vishnu spreads wide
       His four-handed blessing.
       He raises his conch
       And all things quake
       At its booming sound.
       The frenzy dies down,
       The furnace expires,
       The planets douse
       Their flames with tears,
       The world’s Divine Poet
       Constructs its history,
       From wild cosmic song
       Its epic is formed.
       Stars in their orbits,
       Moon sun and planets –
       He binds with his mace
       All things to Law,
       Imposes the discipline
       Of metre and rhyme. 

       In the Manasa depths
       Vishnu watches -
       Beauties arise
       From the light of lotuses.
       Lakshmi strews smiles -
       Clouds show a rainbow,
       Gardens show flowers.
       The roar of Creation
       Resolves into music.
       Softness hides rigour,
       Forms cover power.

tirascino vitato rasmir esam:
adhah svid asid, upari svid asit?
retodha asan, mahimana asan;
svadha avasat, prayatih parastat.

Age after age after age is slave to a mighty rhythm –
       At last the world-frame 
       Tires in its body,
       Sleep in its eyes
       Slackens its structure,
       Diffuses its energy.
       From the heart of all matter
       Comes the anguished cry –
       ‘Wake, wake, great Shiva,
       Our body grows weary
       Of its law-fixed path,
       Give us new form.
       Sing our destruction,
       That we gain new life.’

III  THE FIRE

       The great god awakes,
       His three eyes open,
       He surveys all horizons.
He lifts his bow,             his fell pinaka,
       He pounds the world with his tread.
From first things to last    it trembles and shakes
                  And shudders.
The bonds of nature are ripped.
The sky is rocked by the roar
Of a wave of ecstatic release. 
       An inferno soars –  
       The pyre of the universe.

Shattered sun and moon, smashed stars and planets,
       Rain down from all angles, 
       A blackness of all particles  
       To be swallowed by flame, 
       Absorbed in an instant. 
       At the start of Creation 
       There was a dark without origin,
       At the breaking of Creation
       There is fire without end
In  an all-pervading sky-engulfing sea of burning
       Shiva shuts his three eyes.
       He begins his great trance.

ko adha veda? Ka iha pravocat,
kuta ajata, kuta iyam visrstih?
arvag deva asya visajanena:
atha ko veda yata ababhuva?

iyam visrstir yata ababhuva;
yadi vasa dadhe yadi van na:
yo asyadhyaksah parame vioman
so anga veda, yadi va na veda.
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