6. On the occasion or the termination of a great kalpa age, when there remains That Entity (the Tat sat) of God, it cannot be said to be a void, as I will now explain to you. Attend Ráma and hear.
7. Like images carved in bas-relief upon a pillar, was this world situated in relievo of That Entity, and cannot be said to have been a void.[6]
8. Again when there was the representation of the plenitude under the appellation of the world at any place (in the essence of God), and be it real or unreal, it could not have been a void and vacuity.
9. As a pillar with carved or painted figures, cannot be said to be devoid of them; so Brahma exhibiting the worlds contained in him, can not become a void. (i.e. As a pillar is not devoid of figures which has carved images on it; so Brahma is not a void, having the worlds contained in him. This is a negative enthymem).
10. But the world contained in Brahma, becomes both something and nothing; as billows in calm waters may either exist or not exist. (So the appearance and disappearance of the worlds in Brahma, like those of the little billows in a quiet lake, prove their existence and non-existence at the same time, as it is predicated of the Chaos or the Mahápralaya. Gloss).[7]
11. Again it happens that certain figures are marked on some insensible trees in some places by the hand of time, which people mistake for images; so it comes to pass that certain figures of evanescent matter, occur in the eternal mind, which men mistake for the real world.
12. This comparison of the figured pillar and tree and the world, is a partial and not complete simile; the similitude here referring only to the situation of the transient world in the substance of the permanent Brahma (like the appearance of false figures in the firmly fixed pillar and on the standing tree).
13. But this appearance of the world is not caused by another (as in the case of the pillar, figures and pictures carved and painted by the hands of the statuary and painter). It rises, lasts and sets spontaneously and of itself in the self-same essence of Brahma (as the figures in the tree or the waves of the Ocean). It is the property of the divine soul and mind to raise and set such imageries in them by turns, like the creations of our imagination.[8]
14. The meaning of the word void (súnya) instead of no void (asúnya) or existence, is a fiction as false as inanity is a nullity in nature. Something must come out of something, and never from a void nothing; and how can nothing be reduced to nothing in the end—mahápralaya (súnyatá súnyate katham)? (Ex nihilo nihil fit, et in nihilum nihil reverti posse).
15. In answer to your second question it has been said “there was darkness neither.” Because the divine light of Brahma (which existed before creation), was not like the light of a material luminary (which is followed by darkness). The everlasting light was not to be obscured by darkness, like the sunshine, or moon-light or the blazing of fire or the twinkling of stars or our eyes.