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 fta'tionary and moveable bodies framed by those

high-minded beings, through the force of their

' own devotion, and at my command, with feparate 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 refpect to birth.

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

44. Birds are hatched from eggs; fo ⚫are fnakes, crocodiles, fish without shells, and tortoises, with other animal kinds, terreftrial, as chameleons, and aquatick, as fbell' fish :

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

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

ing in flowers and fruits, perish when the fruit

• is mature;

47.

Other plants, called lords of the foreft, ⚫ have no flowers, but produce fruit; and, whe'ther they have flowers also, or fruit only, large woody plants of both forts are named trees. 48. There are fhrubs 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 fpring 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 incomprehenfible, having thus created both me and this univerfe, was again absorbed 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 expanfion; but, when he flumbers with 'a tranquil spirit, 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 itself 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 flumbers;

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 functions, but migrates from its corporeal frame:

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56. • When, being again composed 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.

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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, addressed all the Rishis with an affectionate mind, faying: Hear!

61. FROM this MENU, named SwA'YAMBHUVA, or Sprung from the Self-existing, came fix defcendants, other MENUS, or perfectly understanding the fcripture, each giving ⚫ birth to a race of his own, all exalted in dignity, eminent in power;

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62.

SWARO CHISHA, AUTTAMI, TA'MASA, RAIVATA likewife and CHA'CSHUSHA, beaming with glory, and VAIVASWATA, child ' of the fun.

63. The feven MENUS, (or thofe firft created, who are to be followed by feven more) of whom 'SWA YAMBHUVA is the chief, have produced ' and supported 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 cáfht' há; thirty cáshť'bás, one calá; 'thirty calás, one muhúrta: and just so many

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mubúrtas let mankind confider as the duration of their day and night.

65. The fun causes the distribution of day ' and night both divine and human; night being

intended for the repofe of various beings, and day for their exertion.

66. A month of mortals is a day and a night of the Pitris or patriarchs inhabiting the moon and the divifion of a month being into equal halves, the half beginning from the full moon is their day for actions; and that beginning from the new moon is their night for flumber; 67. A year of mortals is a day and a night of the Gods, or regents of the universe feated • round the north pole; and again their division is this: their day is the northern, and their night the fouthern, courfe of the fun.

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68. Learn now the duration of a day and a night of BRAHMA', and of the feveral ages, which shall be mentioned in order fuccinctly. 69. Sages have given the name of Crita to an age containing four thousand years of the Gods; the twilight preceding it confifts of as hundreds, and the twilight following it, of the fame number:

many

70. In the other three ages, with their twilights preceding and following, are thousands

⚫ and hundreds diminished by one.