"Divisions of the Creation:"

 

 

 

 

 

Skandham-3.1,

Chapter-10,

Slokam- 1 to 29.

 

Divisions of the Creation:

 

(1) Vidura said: 'How many sorts did the grandfather of all creatures on this planet create to the body and mind of the Almighty after the disappearance of the Supreme Personality? (2) For the purpose of all that I asked you about, o powerful one, kindly describe all of them, o greatly learned one, from the beginning to the end and be so kind to remove all my doubts'."

 

(3) Sûta said [see Canto 1]: "O son of Bhrigu [Saunaka], the great sage, the son of Kusara [Maitreya] thus enlivened by Vidura felt pleased and thus replied the questions from the core of his heart.

 

(4) Maitreya said: 'And so did Brahmâ perform for a hundred celestial years penances for the sake of the soul, engaging Himself as was told him by the unborn One, the Supreme Lord. (5) In that saw he, who was born from the lotus, that by the inherent power of the natural forces [eternal time] the wind separated the waters on which the lotus was situated. (6) By his penance he surely had won in transcendental knowledge and had matured in his self-awareness and practical knowledge, and with that power he took in the wind along with the water. (7) Then he saw how widespread the lotus was on which he was situated; from the action all the world that was previously submerged had now separated and was open to his creation, so he found. (8) Entering into that whorl of the lotus, in his activities encouraged by the Supreme Lord, he divided the one into three worlds and from that He could create the fourteen of them [see also 2.5.42]. (9) Concerning these the highest person in the universe had no other motivation than setting the duties all round to the mature stage of the interest of the individual localities where the souls had their living.

 

(10) Vidura said: 'You spoke to the variety of different forms of the Lord, the wonderful actor, of
the eternal of time, o brahmin; can you please describe us what the factual appearance of it is, o Lord?'

 

(11) Maitreya said: 'It is the source of the interactions to the modes of nature, it is undivided and unlimited and the instrument of the Original Person who created the material life of the soul through His pastimes. (12) The phenomenal which for sure is there as the same energy of Vishnu, separated itself from the Spirit by the Supreme Lord in the form of time [kâla], which is considered His unmanifest [impersonal] feature. (13) As it is at present, so it was in the beginning and to the end it will also continue to be the same.

 

(14) Of the creation there are nine different kinds to the eternal of time according the three material modes of nature [goodness, passion, and ignorance], the three qualities of matter [material knowledge, movement and inertia] and the three kinds of annihilation [that of the plants, who end with the universe, that of the lower animals who go extinct and that of the higher beings that end in the Lord]. (15) The first one [the mahatattva, of the goodness] is nothing but the total of creation that emanated from the Lord with the interacting of its three modes. The second one [of passion] is but the false ego of the awakened activities of the material ingredients and their interrelating [their 'knowledge']. (16) The created of matter itself is the third kind [that of ignorance] that is only of sense perception to which fourth there is to the matter of the senses the practical basic of material knowledge. (17) The interaction to the mode of goodness gives the godly [of movement] to the material creation which with the sum total of mind forms the fifth kind to which sixth there is the darkness of creation [the inert of matter] that makes fools of masters. (18) Next to the first six creations of the material energy [of nature or the Lord] there are the secondary creations; just hear concerning those from me about the the powerful one that is the incarnation of the mode of passion [Brahmâ] and about the pastimes of that brain of the Supreme Lord.

 

(19) The seventh principle of creation concerns six kinds of beings that do not move themselves: trees bearing fruit without flowers, plants and bushes that exist until the fruit has ripened, the creepers, the pipe-plants, creepers without support and fruit trees that do blossom. (20) Those [unmoving] beings seek their subsistence upwards, are almost unconscious with a mere feeling within and are of many varieties. (21) The eight creation are the species of lower animals, they are of twenty-eight different kinds and are considered to be without knowledge of destiny, of an extreme ignorance, of a discrimination by smell and of a poor memory of heart [conscience]. (22) O purest one, the cow, the goat, the buffalo, the antelope, the hog, the gavaya [a type of oxen], the deer, the sheep and the camel all have split hooves. (23) The ass, the horse, the mule, the gaura, the sarabha-bison and the wild cow so have only one toe, o Vidura and just let me tell you now of the animals with five nails. (24) They are the dog, the jackal, the fox, the tiger, the cat, the rabbit, the sajâru-porcupine, the lion, the monkey, the elephant, the tortoise, the iguana ['four legged snake'], the alligator and others. (25) The heron, the vulture, the crane, the hawk, the bhâsa [another kind of vulture], the bhallûka, the peacock, the swan, the sârasa [indian crane],the cakravâka, the crow, the owl and others are the birds. (26) The ninth kind that [also] stocks its belly, o Vidura, is of one species: the humans; in them the mode of passion is very prominent, they are very busy to their misery but think themselves always happy.

 

(27) Surely to the latter three kinds of creatures the devoted incarnates [as the tenth kind, the godly ones], o good one, which is different for the previously mentioned kinds of creations from the divine of nature. The sons of Brahmâ [the Kumâras, the brahmins] are of both kinds [named the vaikrita, incarnations of devotion and prâkrita, of nature only].

 

(28-29) The creation of the devoted ones is of eight kinds: (1) the demigods, (2) the forefathers, (3) the atheists, (4) the celestial beings, angels and the saints (5) the protectors and the giants (6) the celestial singers (7) the spirits guiding to the good and bad and the ones dwelling in heaven and (8) the superhuman beings and others. All the ten types of creation I described you, o Vidura, are created by Brahmâ, the creator of the universe. (30) Hereafter I will explain the different descendants of the Manu's and that way how the Creator infused with the mode of passion in the different ages creates with an unfailing determination to the Lord who from Himself as Himself came by His own energy.