Chapter 1: On the Creation; with a Summary of the Contents

1. MENU sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object,* the Supreme God ; when the divine Sages approached him , and \ after mutual salutations in due form, delivered the following address :

2. * Deign, sovereign ruler, to apprize us of the sacred laws in their order, as they must be followed by all the four classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees, together with the duties of every mixed class ;

3. 1 For thou, Lord, and thou only among mortals , knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the prescribed ceremonies, of this universal, supernatural Vt!da> unlimited in extent and unequalled in authority.’

4. He, whose powers were measureless, being thus requested by the great Sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them all with reverence, and gave them a comprehensive answer, saying : 4 Be it heard !

5. ‘This universe existed only in the first divine idea yet unex* panded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undesignable, und'scoverable by reason , and undiscovered by revelation , as if it were wholly immersed in sleep : Then the sole self-cxistiqg power, himself undiscerned, but making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles of nature , appeared with undiminished glory, expanding his idea% or dispelling the gloom.

7. ‘ He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even HE, the soul of all beings, whom no being 'can comprehend, shone forth in person.

8. 1 He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed :

9. ‘That, seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams ; and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma', the great forefather of all spirits.

10. ‘ The waters are called ndrd, because they were the production of N«ARA, or the spirit of Go D ; and, since they were his first •1 ayana , or place of motion, he thence is named Narayana, or moving on the waters .

11. ‘From THAT WHICH IS, the first cause, not the object of sense existing every where in substance , not existing to our perception , without beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma'.

12. ‘In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the Creator \ at the close of which by his thought alone he caused the egg to divide itself ;

13. ‘ And from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath : in the midst he placed the subtil ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.

14. ‘From the supreme soul he drew forth Mind, existing substantially though unperceived by sense, immaterial ; and, before mind , or the reasoning power , he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler ;

15. * And, before them both, he produced the great principle of the soul or first expansion of the divine idea ; and all vital forms endued with the’ three qualities of goodness, passion, and darkness ; and the five perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation.

16. * Thus , having at once pervaded, with emanations frr/m the Supreme Spirit, the minutest portions of six principles immensely operative, consciousness and Vie five perceptions. He framed all creatures ; ii

17. 1 And since the minutest particles of visible nature have a dependence on those six emanations from God, the wise have accordingly given the name of s’arira, or depending on sixy that is , the ten organs on consciousness , and the five elements on as many perceptions , to His image or appearance in visible nature :

18. ‘ Thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, and Mind with operations infinitely subtil, the unperishable cause of all apparent forms.

19. ‘This universe , therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of those seven divine and active principles, the great Soul, or first emanation , consciousness , and five perceptions ; a mutable universe from immutable ideas .

20. ‘ Among.them each succeeding element acquires the qua-, lity of the preceding ; and, in as many degrees as each of them is advanced, with so many properties is it said to be endued.

21. ‘He too first assigned to all creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations ; as they had been revealed in the pre-existing VMa :

22. ‘ He, the supreme Ruler, created an assemblage of inferior Deities, with divine attributes and pure souls ; and a number of Genii exquisitely delicate ; and he prescribed the sacrifice ordained from the beginning.

23. ‘ From fire, from air, and from the sun he milked out, as it ivere , the three primordial V/das , named Rich , Yajush , and Sdtnan , for the due performance of the sacrifice.

24. ‘ He gave being to time and the divisions of time, to the stars also, and to the planets, to rivers, oceans, and mountains, to level plains, and uneven valleys,

25. ‘ To devotion, speech, complacency, desire, and wrath, and to the creation, which shall presently be mentioned ; for HE willed the existence of all those created things.

6. ‘ For the sake of distinguishing actions, HE made a total diffidence between right and .wrong, and enured these sentient creatures to pleasure and pain, cold and heat \ and other opposite pairs.

27. ‘With very minute transformable portions, called, matras, 12 ON THE CREATION ; WITH A of the five elements, all this preceptible world was composed in fit order ;

28. ‘And in whatever occupation the supreme Lord first employed any vital soul, to that occupation the same soul attaches itself spontaneously, when it receives a new body again and again :

29. ‘ Whatever quality, noxious or innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, HE conferred on any being at its creation, the same quality enters it of course on its future births ;

30. . ‘ As the six seasons of the year attain respectively their peculiar marks in due time and of their own accord, even so the several acts of each embodied spirit attend it naturally.

31. ‘ That the human race might be multiplied, HE caused the • Bjdhmen , the Cshatriya , the Vaisya, and the Sudra ( so named from the Scripture , protection , zvealth , and labor) to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot.

32. * Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became half male, half female, or nature active and passive ; and from that female he produced VlRA'j :

33. ‘ Know Me, O most excellent of Brahmens , to be that person, whom the male poiver Vira'j, having performed austere devotion, produced by himself ; Me, the Secondary framer of all this visible world.

34. 1 It was I, who, desirous of giving birth to a race of men, performed very difficult religious duties, and first produced ten Lords of created beings, eminent in holiness,

35. ‘ Mari 'chi, Atri, Angira's, Pulastya, Pulaha, Cratu, Prache tas, or Dacsha, Vasisht’ha, Bhrigu, and Na'rada :

36. ‘ They, abundant in glory, produced seven other Menus , together with deities, and the mansions of deities, and Maharshisy or great Sages, unlimited in power ;

37. 1 Benevolent genii, and fierce giants, blood-thirsty savages, heavenly choristers, nymphs and demons, huge serpents and snakes of smaller size, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of Pitris or progenitors of mankind*;- r

38. * Lightnings and thunder-bolts, clouds afid coloured bows of Indra, falling meteors, earth-rending vapours, comets, and luminaries of various degrees ;

339. 1 Horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth ;

40. 1 Small and large reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies, with every biting gnat, and immoveable substances of distinct sorts.

41. * Thus was this whole assemblage of stationary and moveable bodies framed by those high-minded beings, through the force of their own devotion, and at my command, with separate 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 respect to birth.

43. ‘Cattle and deer, and wild beasts with two rows of teeth*, giants, and blood-thirsty savages, and the race of men, are bprn from a secundine :

44. ‘ Birds are hatched from eggs ; so are snakes, crocodiles, fish without Shells , arid tortoises, with other animal kinds, terrestrial as chameleons , and aquatic, as Shell-fish :

45. * From hot moisture are born biting gnats, lice, fleas, and common flics ; these and whatever is of the same class, are produced by heat.

46. ‘ All vegetables propagated by seed or by slips, grow from shoots : some herbs, abounding in flowers and fruits, perish when the fruit is mature ;

47. ‘ Other plants, called lords of the forest, have no flowers, but produce fruit ; and, whether they have flowers also, or fruit only, large woody plants of both sorts are named trees.

48. ‘ There are shrubs with many stalks from the root upwards, and reeds with single roots but united stems, all of different kinds, and grasses, and vines or climbers, and creepers, which spring from a seed or from a slip.

49. ‘These Animals and vegetables, encircled with multiform darkness, by reason of past actions, have internal conscience, and are sensible of pleasure and pain>

50. ‘All transmigrations, recorded*/# Sacred books , from the state of Brahma', • to that of plants, happen continually in this tremendous world of beings ; a world always tending to decay. M

51. ‘He, whose powers are incomprehensible, having thus created both me and this universe, was again absorbed in ( the supreme Spirit, changing the time of energy for the time of repose .

52. ‘When that power awakes, ( fory though Slumber be not predicable of the sole eternal Mindi infinitely wise and infinitely bene - volent, yet it is predicated of Brahma’, figuratively > as a general property of life ) then has this world its full expansion ; but, when he slumbers with a tranquil spirit, then the whole system fades away ;

53. ‘ For, while he reposes, as it were , in calm sleep, embodied spirits, endued with principles of action, depart from their several acts, and the mind itself becomes inert ;

54. * And, when they once are absorbed in that supreme ‘Essence, then the divine soul of all beings withdraws his energy, and placidly slumbers ;

55. ‘Then too this vital soul of created bodies , with all the organs of sense and of action, remains long immersed in the first idea or in darkness, 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 seed, it then assumes a neiv form.

57. ‘ Thus that immutable Power, by waking and reposing alternately, revivifies and destroys in eternal succession this whole assemblage 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 Mari'chi and the nine other holy sages.

59. ‘ This my son BHRIGU will repeat the divine code to you without omission ; for that sage learned from me to recite the whole of it.’

60. BHRIGU, great and wise, having thus been appointed by Menu to promulge his laws, addressed all the Rishis with an affectionate mind, saying : ‘ Hear ! r> t ■ 61. ‘From this Menu, named Swa'yambhuva, or ^Sprung from the self -existing ; cafne,six descendants, *'other MENUS, or perfectly understanding the scripture , each giving birth to a race of his own, all exalted in dignity, eminent in power ;

562. ‘ Swa'ro'chisha, Auttami, Ta'masa, Raivata, likewise and CHA'CSHUSHA, beaming with glory, and Vaivaswata, child of the* sun.

63. ‘The seven MENUS, (or those first created \ who are to be followed by seven more) of whom SWA'YAMBHUVA is the chief, have produced and supported this world of moving and stationary beings, each in his own Antara , or the period of his reign .

64. ‘ Eighteen ninidshas , or twinklings of an eye% are one cdsht'hd ; thirty cdshfhds , one cald ; thirty calds, one mnJiurta : and just so many muJiurtas let mankind consider as the duration of their day and night.

65. 1 The sun causes the distribution of day and# night both divine and Human.; night being intended for the repose of various0 beings, and day for their exertion.

66. ‘ A month of mortals is a day and a night of the pitris or patriarchs inhabiting the moon ; and the division of a month being into equal halves, the half beginning from the full moon is their day for actions ; and that beginning from the new moon is their night for slumber :

67. ‘ A year of mortals is a day and a night of the Gods, or regents of the universe seated round the north pole ; and again their division is this : their day is the northern, and their night the southern, course of the sun.

68. ‘ Learn now the. duration of a day and a night of Brahma', and of the several ages, which shall be mentioned in order succinctly.

69. « Sages have given the name of Crtta to an age containing four thousand years of the Gods ; the twilight preceding it consists of as many hundreds, and the twilight following it, of the same number :

70. In the other three ages , with their twilights preceding and following, are thousands and hundreds diminished by one. • ^v*ne years> In the four human ages just enumerated, 4eing added together, their, sum, or twelve thousand, is called the age of the Goc^ ;

72. ‘And by .reckoning a thousand such divine ages, a day of Brahma may be known : his night also has an equal duration : !6 ON THE CREATION; WITH A

73. ‘ Those persons best know the divisions of days and nights, who understand, that the day of Brahma', which endures to the end of a thousand such ages, gives rise to virtuous exertions ; and that his night endures as long as his day.

74. ‘At the close of his night, having long reposed, he awakes, and, awaking, exerts intellect, or reproduces the great principle of animation , whose property it is to exist unperceivcd by sense :

75. ‘ Intellect, called into action by his will to create worlds, performs again the work of creation ; and thence first emerges the subtil ether, to which philosophers ascribe the quality of conveying sound ;

76. * From ether, effecting a transmutation in form, springs the pure and potent air, a vehicle of all scents ; and air is held endued with the quality of touch :

77. ‘Then from air, operating a change, rises light or firey making objects visible, dispelling gloom, spreading bright rays ; and it is declared to have the quality of figure ;

78. ‘ But from light, a change being effected, comes water with the quality of taste ; and from water is deposited earth with the quality of smell : such were they created in the beginning.

79. 4 The beforementioned age of the Gods, or twelve thousand of their years, being multiplied by seventy-one, constitutes what is here named a Mefiwantara , or the reign of a Menu.

80. ‘ There are numberless Menivantaras ; creations also and destructions of worlds, innumerable: the Being supremely exalted performs all this, with as much ease as if in sport, again and again for the sake of conferring happiness .

81. ‘In the Crtta age the Genius of truth and right, in the form of a bull stands firm on his four feet ; nor does any advantage accrue to men jfrom iniquity ;

82. ‘ But in the following ages, by reason of unjust gains, he is deprived successively of one foot ; and even just emoluments, through the prevalence of theft,* falsehood, and fraud, are gradually diminished by a fourth part. '

83. 1 Men, free from disease, attain all sorts of prosperity and live four hundred years, in the Crtta age ; but, in the T rttd and the SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS. 17 succeeding ages, their life is lessened gradually by one quarter.

84. ‘ The life of mortals, which is mentioned in the V/da, the rewards of good works, and the powers of embodied spirits, are fruits proportioned among men to the order of the four ages.

85. ‘Some duties are performed by good men in the Crfta age; others, in the Trttcl ; some, in the Dzvdpara ; others in the Cali; in proportion as those ages decrease in length.

86. * In the Crita the prevailing virtue is declared to be devotion ; in the Treta , divine knowledge ; in the Dzvdpara , holy sages call sacrifice the duty chiefly performed ; in the Cali, liberality alone. •

87. ‘ For the sake of preserving this universe, the Being supremely glorious allotted separate duties to those, who sprang respectively from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot.

88. ‘To Brahmens he assigned the duties of reading the V/da, of teaching it, of sacrificing, of assisting others to sacrifice, of giving alms, if they be rich , and, if indigent , of receiving gifts :

89. ‘To defend the people, to give alms, to ‘sacrifice, to read the Vt/dat to shun the allurements of sensual gratification, are in few words the duties of a Cshatriya ;

90. ‘To keep herds of cattle, to bestow largesses, to sacrifice, to read the scripture, to carry on trade, to lend at interest, and to cultivate land, arc prescribed or permitted to a Vaisya ;

91. ‘One principal duty the supreme Ruler assigned to a Sitdra ; namely, to serve the beforementioned classes, without depreciating their worth.

92. * Man is declared purer above the navel ; but the selfexisting Power declared the purest part of him to be the mouth :

93. 1 Since the Brdhmen sprang from the most excellent part, since he was the first born, and since he possesses the Vthla, he is by righl the chief of this whole creation. • •

94. ‘ Him the JBeing, who exists *of Jiimself, produced in the beginning from his own mouth ; th4at, having performed holy rites, he might present clarified .butter to the Gods, and cakes of iS ON THE CREATION ; WITH A riee to the progenitors of mankind, for the preservation of this world :

95. ‘What created being then can surpass Him, with whose' mouth the Gods of the firmament continually feast on clarified butter, and the manes of ancestors, on hallowed cakes ?

96. ‘ Of created things the most excellent are those which are animated ; of the animated, those which subsist by intelligence ; of the intelligent, mankind ; and of men, the sacerdotal class.

97. * Of priests, those eminent in learning ; of the learned, those who know their duty ; of those who know it, such as perform it virtuously ; and of the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a perfect acquaintance with scriptural doctrine.

98. ‘The very birth of Brdhmens is a constant 'incarnation of Dherma, God of Justice ; for the Brdhmen is born to promote justice, and to procure ultimate happiness.

99. ‘ When a Brdhmen springs to light, he is born above the world, the chief of all creatures, assigned to guard the treasury of duties religious and civil.

100. ‘whateyer exists in the universe, is all in effect, though not in form , the wealth of the Brdhmen; since the Brdhmen is entitled to it all by his primogeniture and eminence of birth :

101. ‘The Brdhmen eats but his own food ; wears but his own apparel ; and bestows but his own in alms : through the benevolence of the Brdhmen , indeed, other mortals enjoy life.

102. ‘ To declare the sacerdotal duties, and those of the other classes in due order, the sage Menu, sprung from the self-existing, promul'ged this code of laws ;

103. ‘A code, which must be studied with extreme care by every learned Brdkmen> and fully explained to his disciples, but must be taught by no other man of an inferior class .

104. ‘ The Brdhmen , who studies this book, having performed sacred rites, is perpetually free from offence in thought, in word, and in deed : t

105. He confers purity’ on his living family, on his ancestors, and on hie descendants, as fir as the seventh person ; and He alone Reserve* to possess this whole earth. SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS. 19

106. ‘ This most excellent code produces every thing auspicious ; this code increases understanding ; this code procures fame and long life ; this code leads to supreme bliss.

107. ‘In this book appears the system of law in its full extent, with the good and bad properties of human actions, and the immemorial customs of the four classes.

108. ‘Immemorial custom is transcendent law, approved in the sacred scripture, and in the codes of divine legislators: let every man, therefore, of the three principal classes, who has a due reverence for the Supreme spirit which dwells in him , diligently and constantly observe immemorial custom :

109. 'A man of the priestly, military, or commercial class, who deviates from immemorial usage, tastes not the fruit of the Vtda ; but, by an exact observance of it, he gathers that fruit in perfection.

110. ‘ Thus have holy sages, well knowing that law is grounded on immemorial custom, embraced, as the root of all piety, good usages long established.

111. ‘The creation of this universe ; the forms of institution and education, with the observances and behaviour of a student' in theology ; the best rules for the ceremony on his* return from the mansion of his preceptor ;

112. ‘The law of marriage in general, and of nuptials in different forms ; the regulations for the great sacraments, and the manner, primevally settled, of performing obsequies ;

113. ‘The modes of gaining subsistence, and the rules to be observed by the master of a family ; the allowance and prohibition of diet, with the purification of men and utensils ;

114. ‘ Laws concerning women ; the devotion of hermits, and of anchorets wholly intent on final beatitude, the whole duty of a king, and the judicial decision of controversies,

115. ‘With the law of evidence and examination; laws concerning husband and wife, cannbns of inheritance ; the prohibition of gainings and the punishments of criminals ;

116. %‘ Rules ordained for the mercantile and servile classes, with the origin of those, that are mixed *, the duties and rights of all the classes in time .of distress for subsistence ; and the penances for expiating sins ; ON EDUCATION ; OR

117. 4 The several transmigrations in this universe, caused by offences of three kinds, with the ultimate bliss attending good actions, on the full trial of vice and virtue ;

118. ‘All these titles of law, promulgated by Menu, and occasionally the customs of different countries, different tribes, and different families, with rules concerning heretics and companies of traders, arc discussed in this code.

119. ‘Even as Menu at my request formerly revealed this divine Sdstra , hear it now from me -without any diminution or addition.