मोक्षधर्म पर्व — ब्रह्माको वर्णन

Vyasa said Brahma is the effulgent seed from which existing as it does by itself, has originated the entire universe consisting of two kinds of being, viz., the mobile and the immobile,

At the dawn of His day, waking up, He creates with the aid of Avidya this universe. Mahat or the principle of Greatness at first springs up. That Mahat is speedily changed into Mind which is the soul of the Manifest.

Overwhelming the Intelligence, which is effulgent, with Ignorance, Mind creates seven great entities. Urged by the desire of creating, Mind, which is far-reaching, which has many courses, and which had desire and doubt for its leading signs, beings to create various kinds of objects by modifications of itself. Ether first originates from it. Know that its property is Sound.

From Ether, by modification, originates the bearer of all scents, viz., the pure, and powerful Wind. It is said to possess the property of Touch.

From Wind also, by modification, originates Light endued with effulgence. Beautiful and called also Shukram, it is thus created, possessing the attribute of Form.

From light, by modification, originates Water having taste for its attribute. From Water originates Earth having Scent for its attribute. These are said to represent primary creation.

These, in succession, acquire the attributes of the immediately preceding ones from which they have originated. Each has not only its own special attribute but each succeeding one has the attributes of all the previous ones.

If anybody, perceiving Scent in Water, were from ignorance to say that it belongs to Water, he would make a mistake, for Scent is the attribute of Earth though it may exist in Water and also Wind.

These seven kinds of entities, possessing various kinds of energy, at first existed separately from one another. They could not create objects without all of them acting in a body.

All these great entities coming together, and mixing with one another, form the constituent parts of the body which are called limbs.

On account of the combination of those limbs,-the sum-total, invested with form and having sixteen constituent parts, becomes what is called the body, (When the gross body is thus forined), the subtile principle of greatness, with the unexhausted remnant of acts, then enters that combination called the gross body.

The original Creator of all beings, then having by His Maya divided Himself, enters that subtile form for overloO king everything. And because he is the original Creator of all beings he is called the lord of all beings.

It is he who creates all beings mobile and immobile. After having thus assumed the form the Brahman, he creates the worlds of the gods, the Rishis, the Pitris, and men; the rivers, the Seas and the oceans, the cardinal points, countries and provinces, hills and mountains, and large trees, human beings, Kinnaras, Rakshasas, birds, animals domestic and wild, and snakes.

He creates both kinds of mobile and immobile; and those that are destructible and those that are indestructible. Of theses created objects each gets those attributes which it had during the previous Creation; and each obtains repeatedly the attributes at every subsequent Creation. Having a formed character by either injuriousness peacefulness, mildness fierceness, righteousness or unrighteousness, truthfulness, or untruthfulness, each creature, at every new creation, gets that particular attribute which it had got before. For this the particular attribute attaches to it. same or or

It is the Ordained himself who attaches variety to the great entities to the objects of the senses and to size or bulk of existent matter, and settles the relations of creatures with those various entities.

Of men who had devoted themselves to the science of things, there are some who say that, in the production of effects, Exertion is supreme. Some learned persons hold that Destiny is supreme, and some that it is Nature which is the agent.

Others hold that Acts flowing from Exertion and Destiny, produce effects, helped by Nature. Instead of considering any of these as alone powerful for the production of effects, they say that it is the union of all three that produces all effects.

About this subject, some say that such is the case; some, that such is not the case; some, that both of these are not the case; and some that it is not that the reverse of both are not. These, of course, are the contentions of those who depend on Acts, with reference to objects. They, however, whose see the truth consider Brahma as the causes.

Penance is the greatest good for living creatures. The roots of penance are tranquillity and self-control. By penance one acquires all things that he longs for in his mind.

By penance one attains to that Being who creates the universe. He who thus succeeds in attaining to that Being becomes the powerful lord of all beings.

it is by penance that the Rishis can read the Vedas without interruption. In the beginning the self-create caused those excellent Vedic sounds, that are embodiments of knowledge and that have neither beginning nor end. From those sounds have sprung all sorts of actions.

The names of the Rishis, all things that have been created, the varieties of form seen in things, and the course of all actions, have all originated from the Vedas.

Indeed, in the beginning the Supreme Lord of all beings, ceated all things from the words of the Vedas. Truly, the names of the Rishis, and all else that has been created, are seen in the Vedas. Upon the expiration of his night, the Increate Brahman creates, from models that existed before, all things which are, of course, weil-made by Him.

in the Vedas has been described the subject of the Soul's Liberation, along with the ten means formed by study of the Vedas, adoption of the domestic mode of life. penances, observance of all duties, common to all the modes of life, sacrifices, performance of all acts leading to pure fame meditation which is of three kinds, and that kind of Liberation called success (Siddhi) attainable in this life.

That incomprehensible Brahma which has been described in the words of the Vedas, and which has been described more clearly in the Upanishads by those who have an insight into the Vedas, can be realised by gradually following the practices referred to above.

This consciousness of duality, fraught again with that of pairs opposites, is born only of acts in which he is engaged to a person who thinks he has a body. That person, however, who has attained to Liberation aided by his knowledge, drives off by force that consciousness of duality.

Two Brahmas should be known viz., the Brahma represented by the Vedas and that which is beyond the Vedas and is supreme. One who is conversant with Brahma represented by sound succeeds in attaining to Brahma that is Supreme.

The destruction of animals is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Kshatriyas. The growing of corn is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Vaisshyas. Serving the three other orders is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Shudras. Penance is the sacrifice sanctioned for the Brahmanas.

In the Krita age the perforinance of sacrifices was not required. Such performance became necessary in the Treta age. In the Dvapara, sacrifices have begun to fall off. In the Kali, the same is the case with them,

In the Krita age, worshipping only one Brahma, men regarded the Richs, the Samans, the Yajushas, and the rites and sacrifices that are performed from motives of advantage, as all different from the object of their worship, and practised only Yoga by means of penances.

In the Treta age, many powerful men flourished who governed all mobile and immobile objects.

Accordingly, in that age, the Vedas, and sacrifices, and the distinctions between the several orders, and the four modes of life, existed in a body. On account, however, of the decrease in the period of life in Dvapara, all these, it that age, fall off from that compact condition.

In the Kali age, all the Vedas become so scarce that they are not seen by men. Afflicted by iniquity, they become extinct along with the rites and sacrifices laid down in them.

The righteousness which is seen in the Krita age is now seen in such Brahmanas as are of purified souls and as are devoted to penances and the study of the scriptures.

As regards the other cycles, it is seen that without at once giving up the duties and acts that are consistent with righteousness, men, observing the practices of their respective orders, and conversant with the ordinances of the Vedas, are led, by the authority of the scriptures, and from motives of advantage and interest to perform sacrifices and vows and sojourns to sacred waters and places.

As in the rainy reason a large variety of new objets of the immobile order are caused to come into being by the showers that fall from the clouds, so many new kinds of duty or religious observances are brought about in each new cycle.

As the same phenomena reappear with the reappearance of the seasons, so, at each new Creation of the same attributes appear in each new Brahman and Hara.

I have, before this, spoken to you of Time which is without beginning and without end, which ordains this variety in the universe. It is that Time which creates and destroys all creatures.

All the numberless creatures which exist subject to pairs of opposites and according to their respective natures, have Time for their refuge. It is Time that puts on those forms and it is Time which upholds them.]

I have thus described to you, O son, the topics about which you had asked, viz., Creation, Time, Sacrifices and other rites, the Vedas, the real actor in the universe, action, and the results of action.