12.176
Bharadvāja said.
O best of the twice-born, tell me how Brahmā, who is situated in the midst of Meru, creates the various kinds of beings.
Bhṛgu said.
The mind created various kinds of progeny-emission by its own power. For the sustenance of beings, water was created first.
That by which the vital energies of all beings grow, and by whom, when abandoned, creatures perish—by him, this entire universe is pervaded.
The earth, mountains, clouds, and all embodied and transcendent beings—know all this as belonging to Varuṇa; the waters upheld everything once again.
Bharadvāja said.
How did water arise? How indeed did fire and wind come into being? How was the earth created? I have a great doubt about this.
Bhṛgu said.
O Brahman, long ago in the age of Brahma, when the Brahmarṣis had assembled, a doubt about the origin of the worlds arose among those great souls.
The twice-born sages remained motionless, absorbed in meditation and silence, having given up food and subsisting on air, for a divine hundred years.
Their speech, filled with righteousness, reached everyone's ears. There, the divine Sarasvatī manifested from the sky.
Long ago, the sky appeared utterly still and silent, like a mountain, with the moon, sun, and wind vanished, as if everything was asleep.
Then water came into being, and another darkness like the previous one appeared; from that, due to the pressure of the water, the wind arose.
Just as a vessel without a hole is silent, but when the wind fills it with water, it produces sound.
In the same way, when the sky is continuously blocked by water, at the farthest end, the wind, breaking through the surface of the ocean, rises up with a roar.
This wind, born from the pressure of the ocean, moves about; even after reaching the sky, it does not find peace.
In that collision of wind and water, a blazing and powerful flame appears, rising upward and making the sky free from darkness.
When fire, united with wind, rises from the sky, it becomes water. That fire, through its union with wind, attains the state of solidity.
When oil that has fallen in the sky remains separate, it is different; but when it attains the state of aggregation, it becomes like earth.
Earth is to be understood here as the source in which all juices, all fragrances, all oils, and all living beings are produced.
