After the creatures had multiplied and the Grandsire had become well pleased, the first-born rose from the water and beheld the living creation.  He saw that diverse kinds of creatures had been created and that they had multiplied by their own energy.  At this sight, Rudra became angry and caused his procreative limb to disappear in the bowels of the Earth.  The unfading Brahma, soothing him by soft words, said unto him, “O Sharva, what wert thou doing so long within the water?  For what reason, also hast thou caused thy limb of generation to disappear in the bowels of the Earth?” Thus questioned, that lord of the universe wrathfully answered the lord Brahman, “Somebody else has created all these creatures!  What purpose then would be served by this limb of mine?  I have by my austerities, O Grandsire, created food for all these creatures.  These herbs and plants also will multiply like those that will subsist upon them!” Having said these words, Bhava went away, in cheerlessness and rage, to the foot of the Menjavat mountains for practising severer austerities.”

18

The holy one said, “After the krita-yuga had elapsed, the gods, desirous of performing a sacrifice, duly made preparation for one according to the directions laid down in the Vedas.  They collected clarified butter and the other requisites.  And they not only devised what the requisites of their sacrifice should be, but also determined those amongst themselves that should have a share in the sacrificial offerings.

Not knowing Rudra truly, the celestials, O king, assigned no share for the divine Sthanu.  Seeing that the celestials assigned to him no share in the sacrificial offerings, Sthanu, clad in deer skins, desired to destroy that Sacrifice and with that object constructed a bow.  There are four kinds of Sacrifices:  the loka Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of special rites, the eternal domestic Sacrifice, and the Sacrifice consisting in the gratification derived by man from his enjoyment of the five elemental substances and their compounds.  It is from these four kinds of Sacrifice that the universe has sprung.  Kapardin constructed that bow using as materials the first and the fourth kinds of Sacrifices.  The length of that bow was five cubits.  The sacred (mantra) “vashat,” O Bharata, was made its string.  The four parts, of which a Sacrifice consists, became the adornments of that bow.

Then Mahadeva, filled with rage, and taking up that bow, proceeded to that spot where the celestials were engaged in their Sacrifice.  Beholding the unfading Rudra arrive there attired as a brahmacari and armed with that bow, the goddess Earth shrunk with fear and the very mountains began to tremble.  The very wind ceased to move, and fire itself, though fed, did not blaze forth.  The stars in the firmament, in anxiety, began to wander in irregular courses.  The Sun’s splendour decreased.  The disc of the Moon lost its beauty.  The entire welkin became enveloped in a thick gloom.  The celestials,