The seven great seers, Bhṛgu and the rest, of an earlier time, belonging to ages past; and the four Manus, well known as the Sāvarṇas: they have their being in Me, their thoughts turned to Me, endowed with the power that is Viṣṇu's, born of the mind, brought forth by My mind alone. Of these Manus and great seers is the creation in the world, these creatures marked as moving and unmoving.

The seven great seers of old, the great seers Bhrigu and the rest who, in the past aeon, born of the mind of Brahma, were for the setting going of the ceaseless creation; and the four Manus called the Savarnikas who were for the setting going of the ceaseless standing, in whose lineage-line all these creatures in this world were born, and who, every moment, until the dissolution, are the begetters and the protectors of their offspring; those Bhrigu and the rest, and the Manus, are 'of My state of being': those whose state of being is just that which is My state of being are 'of My state of being'; they stand in My judgment, conform to My resolve. This is the meaning.

'The earlier ones' are the seven seers, named in the Moksha-dharma, 'Marici, Atri and Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, and the greatly splendid Vasishtha' (Mahabharata 12.335.28); for they are spoken of in all the Puranas. The first four are the Manus beginning with Svayambhuva, and these creatures are their offspring; for it would not be apt to say 'these are the creatures of those yet to be'. The division and the pre-eminence belong to them just by their being first. The Gautama supplementary hymns say, 'he who knows the Svayambhuva, the Rocisha, the Raivata and the Uttama is one rich in offspring'. The later ones are born from the earlier, and so the earlier have the pre-eminence, and among the unborn there is the eldership. The Tamasa is not mentioned, since he is a descent of the Lord, and that is well known in the Bhagavata. That all the Manus are mind-born is stated in the Bhagavata, 'then, at the end, He created from His mind the Manus, the makers of the world'. Their being the sons of another comes about even without His giving up His body; the proof is that texts of both kinds would otherwise not hold together, and this is established too by the qualifier 'earlier'. 'Those whose being is from Me' are the mad-bhavas; the sense is that those born from the mind of Brahma are themselves born from Me alone.