33. Know Me, O moft excellent of Brábmens, to be that person, whom the male power VIRAJ, having performed auftere devotion, ' produced by himfelf; Me, the fecondary framer ⚫ of all this visible world.

16

34. It was I, who, defirous of giving birth to a race of men, performed very difficult religious duties, and first produced ten Lords of * created beings, eminent in holiness,

35. MARICHI, ATRI, ANGIRAS, PULÁSTYA, PULAHA, CRATU, PRACHETAS, or DAC SHA, VASISHT HA, BHRIGU, and NA'RADA:

36. They, abundant in glory, produced 'feven other Menus, together with deities, and ⚫ the manfions of deities, and, Maharfhis, or great Sages, unlimited in power;

-6

37. Benevolent genii, and fierce giants, blood-thirsty savages, heavenly quirifters, nymphs and demons, huge ferpents and fnakes of smaller fize, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of Pitirs, or progenitors of • mankind;

6

38. Lightnings and thunder-bolts, clouds ' and coloured bows of INDRA, falling meteors, earth-rending vapours, comets, and luminaries ⚫ of various degrees;

39. 'Horfe-faced fylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and 'ravenous beafts with two rows of teeth;

40.

Small and large reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies, with every biting gnat, and immoveable fubftances of diftinct 'forts.

41.

Thus was this whole affemblage of sta* tionary and moveable bodies framed by those

high-minded beings, through the force of their ' own devotion, and at my command, with se< parate actions allotted to each.

42. • Whatever act is ordained for each of 'thofe creatures here below, that I will now de'clare to you, together with their order in re'spect to birth.

43. 'Cattle and deer, and wild beafts with 'two rows of teeth, giants, and blood-thirsty favages, and the race of men, are born from a • fecundine:

४

44.

• Birds are hatched from eggs; fo are fnakes, crocodiles, fish without shells, and tortoifes, with other animal kinds, terreftrial, as chameleons, and aquatick, as fhell"fish:

• From hot moisture are born biting gnats, 45. lice, fleas, and common flies; these, and what' ever is of the fame clafs, are produced by · heat.

46. • All vegetables, propagated by feed or by flips, grow from fhoots: fome herbs, abound

ing in flowers and fruits, perish when the fruit ⚫ is mature;

47. 'Other plants, called lords of the forest, have no flowers, but produce fruit; and, whether they have flowers also, or fruit only, large woody plants of both forts are named trees.

48. There are shrubs with many ftalks from the root upwards, and reeds with fingle roots but united stems, all of different kinds, and graffes, and vines or climbers, and creepers, 'which spring from a feed or from a flip.

49.

• These animals and vegetables, encircled ⚫ with multiform darkness, by reafon of past 'actions, have internal confcience, and are fen'fible of pleasure and pain.

50. All tranfmigrations, recorded in facred books, from the ftate of BRAHMA', to that of plants, happen continually in this tremen'dous world of beings; a world always tending to decay.

51. HE, whofe powers are incomprehen'fible, having thus created both me and this univerfe, was again abforbed in the fupreme Spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of repofe.

52. When that power awakes, (for, though •Лlumber be not predicable of the fole eternal Mind, infinitely wife and infinitely benevolent,

·

yet it is predicated of BRAHMA', figuratively, as

a general property of life) then has this world ' its full expansion; but, when he slumbers with a tranquil fpirit, then the whole system fades

away;

53. For, while he repofes, as it were, in 'calm fleep, embodied fpirits, endued with principles of action, depart from their several acts, ' and the mind itfelf becomes inert;

54. And, when they once are abforbed in 'that fupreme effence, then the divine foul of all beings withdraws his energy, and placidly Лlumbers;

55. Then too this vital foul of created bodies, 'with all the organs of fenfe and of action, re'mains long immerfed in the first idea or in darkness, and performs not its natural func'tions, but migrates from its corporeal frame:

6

56. • When, being again compofed of minute elementary principles, it enters at once into vegetable or animal feed, it then affumes a new • form.

57. • Thus that immutable Power, by waking ' and repofing alternately, revivifies and destroys • in eternal fucceffion this whole affemblage of locomotive and immoveable creatures.

16

58. HE, having enacted this code of laws,

⚫ himself taught it fully to me in the beginning:

afterwards I taught it MARICHI and the nine • other holy fages.

59. This my fon BHRIGU will repeat the 'divine code to you without omiffion; for that fage learned from me to recite the whole of • it.'.

60. BHRIGU, great and wife, having thus been appointed by MENU to promulge his laws, addreffed all the Rishis with an affectionate mind, faying: Hear! ·

61. FROM this MENU, named SWA'YAMBHUVA, or Sprung from the felf-exifting, came fix defcendants, other MENUS, or per*fectly understanding the Scripture, each giving 'birth to a race of his own, all exalted in dignity, eminent in power;

62.

SWA'RO'CHISHA, AUTTAMI, TA'MA'SA, RAIVATA likewife and CHA'CSHUSHA, beaming with glory, and VAIVASWATA, child of the fun.

63.

6

• The feven MENUS, (or thofe first created, who are to be followed by feven more) of whom 'SWA YAMBHUVA is the chief, have produced and fupported this world of moving and stationary beings, each in his own Antara, or the period of his reign.

64. Eighteen niméfhas, or twinklings of an eye, are one casht' bá; thirty cáshť bás, one calá; thirty calás, one muhúrta: and just so many