Maitreya wanted the making itself. “Tell me fully,” he said to Parashara, “how at the start of creation Brahma made the gods, the rishis, the pitris, the danavas, human beings, the animals and the trees, everything that lives on the earth, in the sky and in the water, each with its own gunas, its own nature and its own form.” Parashara said, “Maitreya, hear with attention how Bhagavan, who pervades all, made this creation.” At the start of the kalpa, as Brahma meditated on creation the way he had made it in kalpas before, the first thing to appear came without forethought, out of a lapse of attention, and tamas ruled it. From that great being arose avidya, ignorance jointed in five places: tamas, which is plain unknowing; moha, delusion; mahamoha, the great delusion that is the hunger for pleasure; tamisra, which is anger; and andhatamisra, the blind darkness that clutches at its own life. As he went on meditating, a fivefold creation rose out of that darkness, without knowledge, dark inside and out, inert: the trees, the shrubs, the creepers, the spreading plants and the grasses. Because Varaha had established these rooted things first of all, they are called mukhya, the chief, and this creation is called the mukhya sarga after them.
Brahma looked at what had come and saw that it could serve no purushartha, no end worth striving for, and he meditated on another creation. There arose the tiryak-srotas, the beings whose current runs crosswise, as the wind moves: the animals and the birds. These are mostly filled with tamas and know nothing; they take the wrong road for want of discrimination; they hold false knowledge to be true knowledge; they are full of themselves and proud; they carry the twenty-eight vadhas, the disabilities of sense and understanding; they take the small pleasure inside them for the whole; and they do not know one another’s ways. This too, he judged, could serve no purushartha, and he meditated again, and a third creation arose, sattvic, the urdhva-srotas, whose current flows upward and whose beings dwell in the upper worlds. They love the pleasures of the senses, they see within and without, they know within and without. This third is the deva-sarga, the creation of the gods, and when it appeared Brahma was greatly pleased. Then he looked at the three together, the rooted things, the beasts and the gods, and saw that none of them could serve purushartha either, and he meditated on a creation that would be excellent and would serve it. As Brahma, whose resolve is truth, thought this, there appeared out of the avyakta, the unmanifest prakriti, the creation called arvak-srotas, whose current flows downward; its beings live here below, on the earth, and that is why they bear the name. In them sattva, rajas and tamas are all abundant together. So they are full of sorrow, and ceaselessly active, and they know within and without, and they are sadhakas, able to reach the end they set themselves. These beings are the humans. Those were six creations. The first of Brahma’s creations is the creation of mahat, the great principle; the second is the creation of the tanmatras, the subtle elements, also called the bhuta-sarga; the third is the vaikarika sarga, called the aindriyaka, the creation of the senses. These three arose with forethought and are the prakrita sargas, the creations of prakriti. The fourth is the mukhya sarga, in which the mountains and the trees and all unmoving things stand. The fifth is the tiryak-srotas, also called the tiryak-yoni, the womb of the animals, insects among them. The sixth is the urdhva-srotas, the deva-sarga. The seventh is the arvak-srotas, the manushya-sarga. The eighth is the anugraha sarga, the creation of grace, which is sattvic and tamasic at once. These five are the vaikrita sargas, the modified creations, and the first three the prakrita. The ninth is the kaumara sarga, which is prakrita and vaikrita at once. “So I have told you the nine sargas, prakrita and vaikrita, which are the root of the world, the work of Jagadishvara the creator as he creates. What more do you wish to hear?”
Beings Born from Brahma’s Body
Maitreya said, “You have told me the creation of the gods and the rest in brief. Now I wish to hear it in detail from your lotus-mouth.” Parashara said, “Maitreya, every being is bound by the good and bad karma it did before. At pralaya all of them dissolve, and the samskaras that karma left in them do not dissolve with them.” When Brahma began creating, four kinds of beings arose, from the gods down to the unmoving things, and all of these were born of mind alone. Then, wishing to create four kinds, gods, asuras, pitris and human beings, and the waters with them, he used his own body. As Prajapati fixed his mind on creation and went to work, tamas increased in him, and so the asuras came first, out of his thighs. He left that body filled with tamas, and the body he had abandoned became night. He entered another body, and the wish to create made him glad, and from his mouth came the gods, in whom sattva rules. He left that body too, and it became day, filled with sattva. This is why the asuras are strong at night and the gods by day. Then he took another body, partly sattvic, and thinking of himself as a father he created the pitris, the ancestors, from his side; the body he laid down became sandhya, the twilight that lies between day and night. He took yet another body, partly of rajas, and from it came the humans, in whom rajas rules; he soon left that one, and it became jyotsna, the light of early morning, the sandhya that comes first. So at morning the humans are strong and at evening the pitris. Night, day, morning and evening, these four, are the bodies of Brahma, and the three gunas rest upon them.
Then Brahma took another body of rajas, and in that body hunger arose in him, and from the hunger, kama, desire. Standing in darkness, Prajapati created a creation out of hunger, and what came were beings of great ugliness, bearded and moustached, and the hunger that had made them turned on their maker, and they ran at Brahma himself to eat him. Among them, those who cried, “Do not do this. Protect him,” were called rakshasas, the protectors; and those who cried, “We will eat,” were called yakshas, from their wish to eat. At the sight of what they did, the hair fell from Brahma’s head and then climbed back onto it. Because they climbed, those strands were called sarpa, and because they fell, ahi, and these are the serpents. Then the maker of the world, angered, created beings full of anger, kapisha in color, a yellow darkened with black, very fierce by nature, eaters of flesh. And as he sang, the gandharvas sprang at once from his body; they came into being uttering speech, and from that they have their name.
When all these were made, Bhagavan Brahma, moved by the karma those beings had done before, created the birds as he pleased, from his own vayas, his age. Then from his chest came sheep; from his mouth, goats; from his belly and his sides, cows; from his feet, horses, elephants, donkeys, wild cattle, deer, camels, mules, the nyanku antelope and the rest. From the hairs of his body came the oshadhis, the plants that bear fruit and root. Having made the animals and the plants at the start of the kalpa, Brahma joined them to yajna at the start of the Treta age. Cow, goat, man, sheep, horse, mule and donkey are the seven animals of the village. The animals of the forest are seven too: the beasts of prey, the tiger and its kind; the two-hoofed wild cattle; the elephant; the monkey; fifth, the birds; sixth, the creatures of the water; seventh, the things that crawl. From his first mouth, the eastern one, Brahma brought forth the Gayatri, the Rik, the Trivrit-stoma, the Rathantara saman and the Agnishtoma yajna. From the southern mouth, the Yajus, the Trishtubh meter, the Panchadasha-stoma, the Brihat saman and the Ukthya. From the western mouth, the Sama, the Jagati meter, the Saptadasha-stoma, the Vairupa and the Atiratra. From the northern mouth, the Ekavimsha-stoma, the Atharva Veda, the Aptoryama, the Anushtubh meter and the Vairaja. So all beings, high and low, came from his limbs. That first maker, Prajapati Brahma, having made gods, asuras, pitris and humans, went on at the start of the kalpa to create the yakshas, the pishachas, the gandharvas, the apsaras, humans and kinnaras, rakshasas, animals, birds, deer and snakes, the whole world, lasting and passing, moving and unmoving. Whatever karma each had done in kalpas before, it takes up again when it is created again. Violence and non-violence, softness and hardness, dharma and adharma, truth and falsehood come to them by their former disposition, and that is why these things please them. So Vidhata, the ordainer, himself produced the diversity of beings, of bodies, and of the objects the senses go out to. At the kalpa’s start he fixed the names, the forms and the functions of the gods and the rest by the words of the Veda, and the names and proper works of the rishis and the other beings by the Veda as well. As the seasons return with their signs and names and forms unchanged, so at the opening of each yuga the former states come round again. Driven by the power of creating that is in him and by the power of what is to be created, Brahma creates thus, again and again, at the start of every kalpa.
The Four Varnas and Their Worlds
Maitreya said, “You spoke of the arvak-srotas, the humans. Tell me in detail how Brahma created them, with what gunas he made the Brahmins and the other varnas, and what duties he fixed for each.” Parashara answered. When Brahma, whose resolve is truth, wished to create the world, beings in whom sattva ruled came first, from his mouth. Then from his chest came beings ruled by rajas, from his thighs beings marked by rajas and tamas together, and from his feet he made a fourth kind, in whom tamas ruled. These are the four varnas: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, in turn from the mouth, the chest, the thighs and the feet. Brahma made this whole order of four varnas as the best of all means to yajna, the fire-rite, for the gods, satisfied by yajna, send the rain, and the rain satisfies every being; so yajna is the cause of welfare entire. And only those who hold always to their own dharma, who live well and walk the right road, can perform it rightly. By yajna, from this human body, a man gains svarga, gains apavarga, the release from returning, gains whatever place he wishes. The beings Brahma placed in that order of four lived at first in great faith, as they wished, with nothing to obstruct them, pure in heart, born of good family, very pure in their meritorious acts. Because their minds were pure and Shri Hari dwelt in them without a break, they had a pure knowledge, and by it they saw the supreme abode of Bhagavan that bears the name Vishnu. Then Kala, the portion of Bhagavan called Time, which Parashara had described before, set in those beings sins that carry very little pleasure and terrible pain. From that the seed of adharma rose in them, in the form of raga and its kin, born of ignorance and greed, and it destroyed their purushartha. From then on they no longer came by nature to Vishnu’s abode, and the eight siddhis, rasollasa at their head, were theirs no longer. As those siddhis waned and sin grew, every being fell under the dualities, cold and heat, pleasure and pain, and under decline and sorrow. So they raised forts, natural and built, in the desert and on the mountain and in the water, and towns, and kharvatas, the small hamlets on a hillside or a riverbank, and in those towns they built houses fit to keep out cold and heat and the other troubles. Guarded against cold and heat, they made themselves a livelihood: farming and the crafts. Rice, barley, wheat, the small millets, sesame, kangni, jowar, kodo, the small pea, urad, mung, masur, the large pea, kulthi, mustard, chana and san: these seventeen are the oshadhis of the village. Of the village and forest kinds together, fourteen are fit for yajna: rice, barley, urad, wheat, the small millet, sesame, kangni and kulthi, eight from the village; and shyamaka, nivara, wild sesame, gavedhu, venuyava and markata, six from the wild. These fourteen are the material of yajna, and yajna is the chief cause of their arising. With yajna these plants are the supreme cause of the increase of beings, and so those who know this world and the next perform yajna; the daily yajna is the highest benefactor of men and quiets the sins they have done. In those whose minds had swollen with the drop of sin that Kala set, the mind did not turn to yajna at all. They stood against it; they reviled the Vedic teaching, the Veda itself, yajna and the other karmas; evil-souled, ill-conducted, crooked in mind, revilers of the Veda, they were the destroyers of the path of pravritti.
Having settled the means of livelihood, farming and the rest, Prajapati Brahma set limits for the beings by place and by guna: the dharma of the varnas and of the ashramas, the stages of life, and the worlds that wait for every varna that keeps its dharma well. For the Brahmins devoted to their rites, the pitrloka, the world of the ancestors; for Kshatriyas who never turn back in battle, Indraloka; for Vaishyas who keep their dharma, Vayuloka, the world of the wind; for Shudras devoted to service, Gandharvaloka. The eighty-eight thousand munis who hold their seed upward have the same place that is told for the brahmacharis living in a guru’s house. The vanaprasthas, the forest-dwellers, have the Saptarshiloka, the world of the seven rishis; the grihasthas, the householders, the pitrloka; the sannyasis, Brahmaloka; and the yogis content in the experience of the Self, the amara pada, the deathless place, which is moksha. The supreme place of those yogis who live always alone, absorbed in Brahman, is seen by the wise alone. The moon, the sun and the other planets go to their worlds and come back again. Those who meditate on the mantra of twelve syllables, Om and then “namo bhagavate vasudevaya”, homage to the Lord Vasudeva, do not return from moksha, even now. And for those who revile the Vedas, who destroy yajnas and turn from their own dharma, there are the narakas: Tamisra, Andhatamisra, Maharaurava, Raurava, Asipatravana, Ghora, Kalasutra, Avichi and the rest.
The Prajapatis and Svayambhuva Manu
Then, as Prajapati went on meditating, beings born of mind arose with bodies and senses, formed from the elements of his own body, and at that time conscious beings came forth out of the inert body of the wise Brahma. All that Parashara had described before, from the gods down to the unmoving things, the moving and the unmoving in their three gunas, arose in the same way. And when those beings of the great-minded Prajapati did not increase through sons and grandsons, he made other sons, born of his mind and like himself: Bhrigu, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Angira, Marichi, Daksha, Atri and Vasishtha. In the Puranas these nine are reckoned nine Brahmas. Then he brought forth nine daughters, Khyati, Bhuti, Sambhuti, Kshama, Priti, Sannati, Urja, Anasuya and Prasuti, and gave one to each of those great souls, saying, “She is your wife.”
Sanandana and the others whom Brahma had created first wanted nothing, and so they would not engage in progeny or in samsara at all. They had knowledge, they were without passion, and there was no envy in them. Brahma saw those great souls indifferent to the making of the world, and a great anger seized him, an anger able to burn the three worlds, and by that anger the whole three worlds blazed, hung with garlands of flame. Then out of his knotted brow, out of a forehead heated with rage, Rudra came forth, shining like the sun at noon. His body was very fierce, half of it a man and half a woman. Brahma said, “Divide your body,” and vanished. Told so, Rudra separated the female part of his body from the male, and divided the male part into eleven, and the female part he divided into many forms: gentle and cruel, calm and unquiet, dark and fair.
Then, for the protection of the beings, Brahma made the first Manu, Svayambhuva, the self-born, in his own likeness. Svayambhuva Manu took as his wife Shatarupa, who had come into being alongside him and had been made sinless by tapas. From the goddess Shatarupa he begot two sons, Priyavrata and Uttanapada, and two daughters, Prasuti and Akuti, who had beauty and generosity and every virtue. He gave Prasuti in marriage to Daksha and Akuti to Ruchi Prajapati. Ruchi took her, and from that pair were born the twins Yajna and Dakshina, and from Yajna and Dakshina twelve sons, who in the Svayambhuva manvantara were the gods called the Yamas. Daksha begot twenty-four daughters on Prasuti. Thirteen of them, Shraddha, Lakshmi, Dhriti, Tushti, Medha, Pushti, Kriya, Buddhi, Lajja, Vapu, Shanti, Siddhi and Kirti the thirteenth, were taken as wives by Dharma. The eleven younger ones, Khyati, Sati, Sambhuti, Smriti, Priti, Kshama, Santati, Anasuya, Urja, Svaha and Svadha, went in turn to the munis Bhrigu, Shiva, Marichi, Angira, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Atri and Vasishtha, and to Agni, and to the Pitaras.
From Dharma’s wives his sons were born, and their names are their natures. Shraddha, faith, bore Kama; Lakshmi bore Darpa, pride; Dhriti bore Niyama; Tushti bore Santosha; Pushti bore Lobha, greed. Medha bore Shruta; Kriya bore Danda, Naya and Vinaya; Buddhi bore Bodha; Lajja bore Vinaya; Vapu bore Vyavasaya; Shanti bore Kshema; Siddhi bore Sukha; Kirti bore Yasha. These are the sons of Dharma, and Rati bore to Kama a son, Harsha, joy, Dharma’s grandson. Adharma’s wife was Himsa, violence. She bore him a son, Anrita, falsehood, and a daughter, Nikriti, deceit, and from those two came the sons Bhaya and Naraka, fear and hell, with their wives Maya and Vedana, illusion and pain. Maya bore Mrityu, death, the destroyer of all beings. Vedana bore to Naraka, who is also called Raurava, a son named Duhkha, sorrow; and from Mrityu came Vyadhi, Jara, Shoka, Trishna and Krodha: sickness, old age, grief, thirst and anger. All of these are made of adharma and are called duhkhottara, because sorrow is where they end. They have neither wife nor offspring; all of them hold their seed upward. And these, Parashara said, are the very terrible forms of Bhagavan Vishnu, and they are the cause of the world’s nitya-pralaya, the dissolution that never stops. The Prajapatis, Daksha, Marichi, Atri, Bhrigu and the rest, are the cause of the world’s nitya-sarga, the creation that never stops, and the Manus with their valiant, righteous, heroic sons, the kings, are the cause of its nitya-sthiti, the continuance that never stops. Maitreya said, “You have named nitya-sthiti, nitya-sarga and nitya-pralaya. Tell me their nature.” Parashara said, “The all-pervading Bhagavan Madhusudana, whose course nothing checks and whose self no thought can reach, works the origin, the continuance and the destruction of the world without pause, through these forms of Manu and the rest.”
“The pralaya of all beings is of four kinds: naimittika, prakritika, atyantika and nitya. The naimittika is the Brahma-pralaya, in which Brahma, lord of the world, lies down to sleep at the end of the kalpa. In the prakritika pralaya the brahmanda, the cosmic egg, dissolves back into prakriti. The yogi’s dissolving into the Paramatma through knowledge is the atyantika pralaya, the absolute one; and the destruction of beings that goes on by day and by night is the nitya-pralaya. Creation is of three kinds as well. The creation of mahat and the rest out of prakriti is called the prakrita sarga; the creation of the moving and unmoving world, by Brahma, after the lesser pralaya, is called the dainandini sarga, the creation of his day; and the daily arising of beings is called the nitya-sarga by those skilled in the Puranas. So Bhagavan Vishnu, who brings the beings forth, dwelling in all bodies, works the origin, the continuance and the dissolution of the world. These Vaishnavi powers, of creation, of continuance and of destruction, move by day and by night equally in every body. These three great powers are of the three gunas, and whoever passes beyond those three gunas attains the supreme pada and does not fall again into the wheel of birth and death.”
Source: the Vishnu Purana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)