“The waters are called Nara, because they were the production of Nara,
   or the spirit of God; and hence they were his first ayana, or place of
   motion; he hence is named Nara yana, or moving on the waters.

   “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.

   “And from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth
   beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions,
   and the permanent receptacle of waters.

“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.

“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.

   “Thus, having at once pervaded with emanations from the Supreme Spirit
   the minutest portions of fixed principles immensely operative,
   consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all creatures.

   “Thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, and
   mind with operations infinitely subtile, the unperishable cause of all
   apparent forms.

“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.

   “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.

“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.

   “The very birth of Brahmans is a constant incarnation of Dharma, God of
   justice; for the Brahman is born to promote justice, and to procure
   ultimate happiness.

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

   “The Brahman who studies this book, having performed sacred rites, is
   perpetually free from offence in thought, in word and in deed.

   “He confers purity on his living family, on his ancestors, and on his
   descendants as far as the seventh person, and he alone deserves to
   possess this whole earth.”