20. Among them each fucceeding element acquires the quality of the preceding; and, in as many degrees as each of them is advanced, with fo many properties is it faid to be endued. 21. HE too firft affigned to all creatures diftinct names, diftinct acts, and diftinct occupations; as they had been revealed in the preexifting Véda.

HE, the fupreme Ruler, created an affemblage of inferior Deities, with divine attributes and pure fouls; and a number of Genii exquifitely delicate; and he prefcribed the facrifice • ordained from the beginning.

23. From fire, from air, and from the fun he milked out, as it were, the three primordial • Védas, named Rich, Fajush, and Saman, for the 'due performance of the facrifice.

HE

24. 'He gave being to time and the divifions of time, to the ftars alfo, and to the planets, to ' rivers, oceans, and mountains, to level plains, ' and uneven valleys.

25. To devotion, fpeech, complacency, defire, and wrath, and to the creation, which fhall prefently be mentioned; for He willed the exiftence of all thofe created things.

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26. For the fake of diftinguishing actions, He made a total difference between right and wrong, and enured these fentient creatures to pleasure and pain, cold and heat, and other oppohite pairs.

27. With very minute transformable portions, called mitris, of the five elements, all this perceptible world was compofed in fit order; 28. And in whatever occupation the fupreme Lord firft employed any vital foul, to that occu

•pation

<

pation the fame foul attaches itself spontaneously, when it receives a new body again and again:

29. Whatever quality, noxious or innocent, harth or mild, unjuft, or juft, falfe or true, He ⚫ conferred on any being at its creation, the fame quality enters it of courfe on its future births;

30. As the fix fealons of the year attain. refpectively their peculiar marks in due time and of their own accord, even fo the feveral acts of each embodied spirit attenit na!u< rally.

31. That the hunan race might be multiplied, He caufed the Brahmen, the Chatriya, the Vaifya, and the Súdra (fo named from the • fcripture, protection, wealth, and labour) to pro-ceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh and his • foot.

32. Having divided his own fubftance, the mighty Power became half male, half female, or nature active and paffive; and from that female he produced VIRAJ:

33. Know Me, O moft excellent of Brahmens, to be that perfon, whom the male power VIRAJ, having performed auftere devotion, produced by himself; Me, the fecondary framer of all this vifible world.

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

35. MARICHI, ATRI, ANGER AS, PULASTYA, PULAHA, CRATU, PRACHETAS, or DACSHA, VASISHT'HA, BHRICU, and NA RADA:

36. They, abundant in glory, produced feven other Menus, together with deities, and

B 3

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the manfions of deities, and Maharfhis, or great Sages, unlimited in power;

37. Benevolent genii, and fierce giants, bloodthirsty savages, heavenly quirifters, nymphs and demons, huge ferpents and fnakes of fmaller fize, birds of mighty wing, and feparate companies of Pitris, or progenitors of mankind;

38. Lightnings and thunder-bolts, clouds and • coloured bows of Indra, falling meteors, earthrending vapours, comets, and luminaries of various degrees;

39.

Horfe-faced fylvans, apes, fish, and a • variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and C 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 ftaC 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 those creatures here below, that I will now declare to you, together with their order in refpect " to birth.

43. Cattle and deer, and wild beafts with two rows of teeth, giants, and blood-thirsty savages, and the race of men, are born from a fecundine: 44. Birds are hatched from eggs, so are fnakes, crocodiles, fish without fhells, and tor< toifes, with other animal kinds, terreftrial, as chamelions, and aquatick, as hell-fifb:

45. From hot moisture are born biting gnats, lice, fleas, and common flies; these, and whatever is of the fame clafs, are produced by heat. 46. All

46. All vegetables, propagated by feed or by flips grow from fhoots: fome herbs, abounding in flowers and fruits, perifh when the fruit is

mature;

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

48. There are fhrubs with many stalks 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. Thefe animals and vegetables, encircled with multiform darkness, by reafon of paft actions, have internal confcience, and are sensible of pleasure and pain.

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

51.

HE, whofe powers are incomprehenfible, C having thus created both me and this univerfe, ' was again absorbed in the fupreme Spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of repose.

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52. When that Power awakes, (for, though 'flumber le 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 fpirit, then the whole fyftem fades away;

53. For, while he repofes, as it were, in calm fleep, embodied fpirits, endued with principles

of action, depart from their feveral 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 flum

• bers;

55. Then too this vital foul of created bodies, with all the organs of fenfe and of action, remains long immerfed in the firft idea or in dark• nefs, and performs not its natural functions, but migrates from its corporeal frame:

56. When, being again composed of minute elementary principles, it enters at once into < vegetable or animal feed, it then affumes a 6 new form.

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

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.

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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 Rifhis 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 perfectly understanding the fcripture, each giving birth to a race of his own, all exalted in dignity, eminent in power; 62. SWARO'CHISHA, AUTTAMI, TA'MASA, RAIVATA