Primary Creation
Prithvi’s queries on Creation and Lord’s answer
Hiranyaksha, a mighty demon abducted Prithvi (Mother Earth) and sunk her into the underworld of ‘Rasatala’. To protect Prithvi Vishnu Incarnated as a Varah (a mighty boar) and liberated the mother earth from the clutches of Hiranyaksha. After being rescued by Lord Vishnu, Prithvi heaved a sigh of relief and looked at her all powerful Saviors and in her curiously asked few question, "How do the process of creation start in the beginning of each Kalpa? What is dissolution? How do whole creations get nurtured? In what order do all the four Yugas occur and how are they calculated? Why the Lord Almighty take incarnation in each yuga?"
The Lord in Varahavatar bursted into laughter and the whole universe, including the deities could be visible to Prithvi through the Lord’s opened mouth. Prithvi became so frightened by this amazing sight that she started trembling in fear. Lord Vishnu then transformed his appearance to alley the fear of Prithvi. Then, Prithvi saw the divine form of lord Vishnu in his meditative sleep taking rest on Sheshnag. She was extremely pleased to see the divine appearance of lord Vishnu and thanked her good fortune. Prithvi, filled with extreme devotion eulogized lord Vishnu.
The Lord being extremely pleased with the eulogy of Prithvi starts talking. “The supreme Almighty is eternal. In the beginning of creation, Ego (ahamkars) as well as the five basic elements- space, water, earth, air and fire manifest themselves from the supreme Almighty. Subsequently, the great element-mahattatva (the collective consciousness), manifested themselves. The collective consciousness then combines with each of the three basic qualities-satva (pure), rajas (dynamic) and tamas (dark) and created itself in three different states. It's combination with the dark quality results into the manifestation of prakriti or nature.The different permutations and combinations of all the three gunas with collective consciousness also result into the creation of different tanmatras (subtle form of matters). From the tanmatras are created the Indrias or sense organs and object of Indriyas as material world.”
“In the beginning there was nothing. The various natural elements like shabda (sound), akash (space), vayu (air), teja(light) and jal (water) created out of nothingness. Subsequently the earth or matterwas created to provide the base for all the living creatures. The combination of elements resulted into an Egg (anda). As the egg grew in size, I manifested myself as Narayana within it. During each kalpa a lotus manifests itself from my navel upon which lord Brahma is seated. I then request Lord Brahma to commence creation. In spite of all his efforts, Lord Brahma could not succeed in commencing his creation. As a result he becomes furious and from his fury manifests a divine child who starts to wail incessantly. The divine child is none other than Rudra who is requested by lord Brahma to begin creation; but the child being incapable of doing that decides to acquire power by doing penance and enters into deep water."
"Lord Brahma then created Prajapati from the great toe of his right foot and Prajapati's consort from the great toe of his left foot. The manifestation of Prajapati and his consort marks the beginning of copulative creation and thus Swayambhuva Manu was born. In course of time population increased. This is the way how creation takes place in each kalpa."
Mother Earth requested lord Varaha to shade some more light on the creational process as her curiosity had still not been totally satisfied. Lord Varaha replied- "At the end of the last kalpa, when the whole universe was engulfed in darkness, Narayana went into his yogic-sleep. After waking up he found the world devoid of anything. Narayana, being the supreme Almighty-the creator, the nurturer as well as the annihilator, decided to commence creation. First of all five types of avidya (false knowledge) manifested from Narayana tamas (darkness), moha (attachment), mahamoha(absolute attachment), tamisra (jealousy) and andhatamisra (anger). After the manifestation of these five avidyas, came into existence immovable things like mountains. These being the primary creations came to be known as "mukhya sarga"/ (main creation). Continuing with his creations, lord Brahma created species that were superior to the earlier creation-animals. This particular creation was called "Tiryaksrota sarga". Brahma continued his creation. Brahma's sixth creation was called Satvik sarga which consisted of the deities who were all virtuous by nature. The creation of human beings was seventh in order and was known as "Arvaaksrota sarga.”
"Brahma's eighth creation was called "Anugrah sarg" in which he created the sages for the benediction of the world. The ninth creation of Lord Brahma was called "Kaumar sarg", the creation of adolescent beings like Sanak,Sanandan, etc. So, these are the nine main types of creation.”