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Mahabharata Anushasna Parva (Dana Dharma Parva) Chapter 16
Upamanyu said, 'There was in the Krita age, O sire, a Rishi celebrated under the name of Tandi. With great devotion of heart he adored, with the aid of Yoga-meditation, the great God for ten thousand years. Listen to me as I tell the fruit or reward he reaped of such extraordinary devotion. He succeeded in beholding Mahadeva and praised him by uttering some hymns. Thinking, with the aid of his penances, of Him who is the supreme Soul and who is immutable and undeteriorating, Tandi became filled with wonder, and said these words,—"I seek the protection of Him whom the Sankhyas describe and the Yogins think of as the Supreme, the Foremost, the Purusha, the pervader of all things, and the Master of all existent objects, of him who, the learned say, is the cause of both the creation and the destruction of the universe of him who is superior to all the celestials, the Asuras, and the Munis, of him who has nothing higher, who is unborn, who is the Lord of all things, who has neither beginning nor end, and who is endued with supreme puissance, who is possessed of the highest felicity, and who is effulgent and sinless.
After he had said these words, Tandi beheld before him that ocean of penances, that great Deity who is immutable and undeteriorating, who is without compare, who is inconceivable, who is eternal, and who is without any change, who is indivisible, who is whole, who is Brahma, who transcends all attributes, and who is endued with attributes, who is the highest delight of Yogins, who is without deterioration, who is called Emancipation, who is the refuge of the Mind, of Indra, of Agni, of the god of wind, of the entire universe, and of the Grandsire Brahma; who is incapable of being conceived by the Mind, who is without mutation of any kind, who is pure, who is capable of being apprehended by understanding only and who is immaterial as the Mind; who is difficult of comprehension, who is incapable of being measured, who is difficult of being attained by persons of uncleansed souls, who is the origin of the universe, and who transcends both the universe and the attribute of darkness; who is ancient, who is Purusha, who is possessed of effulgence, and who is higher than the highest.
The Rishi Tandi, desirous of beholding Him who making himself endued with life-breaths, resides in what results from it viz., Jiva, in the form of that effulgence which is called the Mind, passed many years in the practice of the severest austerities, and having succeeded in beholding Him as the reward of those penances, he praised the great God in the following terms.
'Tandi said, "Thou art the holiest of holies [1]and the refuge of all, O foremost of all beings endued with intelligence. Thou art the fiercest energy of all kinds of energy. Thou art the austerest penance of all penances. Thou, O puissant one, art the liberal giver of blessings.
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