12. Then from its powers of perception and sensation it becomes the five senses, to which are added their fivefold organs; upon the perversion of the nice mental perceptions to grossness.
13. As a man roused from his sound sleep, is subject to flimsy dreams; so the pure soul losing its purity upon its entrance in the gross body, is subjected to the miseries that are concomitant with it.
14. Then the infinite world; appearing at once and at the same time (before the view of the mind and outer sight, both in state of dream and on waking); it is said to be an act of spontaneity by some, and that of consecution by others. (Some texts say: God willed,) and it was (so aikshata, fiatet fit, kunfa káná &c.); while others represent the world to be not the work of a day, but of many consecutive days. (Such as so atapshata—God laboured and rested from his labour).
15. I conceived the whole (space and time), in the minutiae of my mind; and being myself as empty air, thought the material world, to be contained in me in the form of intelligence.
16. As it is the nature of vacuum, to give rise to the current air; so it is natural to the mind, to assign a form and figure to all its ideas, by the power of its imagination (whence it is called the creative mind, or inventive imagination, that gives a shape to airy nothing).
17. Whatever imaginary form, our imagination gives to a thing at first, there is no power in the mind to remove it any more from it.
18. Hence I believed myself as a minute atom, although I knew my soul to be beyond all bounds; and because I had the power of thinking, I thought myself as the thinking mind, and no more. (So one knowing himself as the body, at once knows him to be a corporeal being only; as the lion thinking himself as a sheep, bleated and grazed as one of them. So we forget our higher nature).
19. Then with my subtile body of pure intelligence, I thought myself as a spark of fire; and by thinking so for a long time, I became at length of the form of a gross body. (The angels are to be of a bright and fiery body (muri and atashi), and the human body to be of a gross and earthy substance (khaki and martya)).
20. I then felt a desire of seeing all what existed about me, and had the power of sight immediately supplied to my gross body. (Just as a child coming out as blind, deaf and dumb from the embryo, has the powers of seeing and hearing and crying, immediately furnished to it afterwards) (so says Adam in Milton, “As I came to life, I looked at this light and beautiful frame”).
21. In this manner I felt other desires, and had their corresponding senses and organs given to me; and I will tell you now, O race of Raghu, their names and functions and objects, as they are known amongst you.