29. And on account of the equality of names and forms there is no contradiction...

29. And on account of the equality of names and forms there is no contradiction, even in the renovation (of the world); as appears from--Sruti and Smriti.

On account of the sameness of names and forms, as stated before, there is no difficulty in the way of the origination of the world, even in the case of total pralayas. For what actually takes place is as follows. When the period of a great pralaya draws towards its close, the divine supreme Person, remembering the constitution of the world previous to the pralaya, and forming the volition 'May I become manifold' separates into its constituent

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elements the whole mass of enjoying souls and objects of enjoyment which, during the pralaya state, had been merged in him so as to possess a separate existence (not actual but) potential only, and then emits the entire world just as it had been before, from the so-called Mahat down to the Brahman-egg, and Hiranyagarbha (Pragâpati). Having thereupon manifested the Vedas in exactly the same order and arrangement they had had before, and having taught them to Hiranyagarbha, he entrusts to him the new creation of the different classes of beings, gods, and so on, just as it was before; and at the same time abides himself within the world so created as its inner Self and Ruler. This view of the process removes all difficulties. The superhuman origin and the eternity of the Veda really mean that intelligent agents having received in their minds an impression due to previous recitations of the Veda in a fixed order of words, chapters, and so on, remember and again recite it in that very same order of succession. This holds good both with regard to us men and to the highest Lord of all; there however is that difference between the two cases that the representations of the Veda which the supreme Person forms in his own mind are spontaneous, not dependent on an impression previously made.

To the question whence all this is known, the Sûtra replies 'from Scripture and Smriti.' The scriptural passage is 'He who first creates Brahmâ and delivers the Vedas to him' (Svet. Up. VI, 18). And as to Smriti we have the following statement in Manu, 'This universe existed in the shape of darkness, &c.--He desiring to produce beings of many kinds from his own body, first with a thought created the waters and placed his seed in them. That seed became a golden egg equal to the sun in brilliancy; in that he himself was born as Brahmâ, the progenitor of the whole world' (Manu I, 5; 8-9). To the same effect are the texts of the Paurânikas, 'From the navel of the sleeping divinity there sprung up a lotus, and in that lotus there was born Brahma fully knowing all Vedas and Vedângas. And then Brahmâ was told by him (the highest Divinity),

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'Do thou create all beings, O Great-minded one'; and the following passage, 'From the highest Nârâyana there was born the Four-faced one.'--And in the section which begins 'I will tell the original creation,' we read 'Because having created water (nâra) I abide within it, therefore my name shall be Nârâyana. There I lie asleep in every Kalpa, and as I am sleeping there springs from my navel a lotus, and in that lotus there is born the Four-faced one, and I tell him "Do thou, Great-minded one, create all beings."'--Here terminates the adhikarana of 'the deities.'