My own Nature, Mine, the māyā made of the three qualities, is the womb, the cause, of all beings. Because it is greater than all its effects and bears its own modifications, the womb is itself distinguished as the great Brahman. In that womb, the great Brahman, I, the Lord, who hold the power of the two Natures, field and field-knower, lay, deposit, the seed, the seed of the birth of Hiraṇyagarbha, the seed that is the cause of the birth of all beings; that is, I join the field-knower, which follows the form of the adjuncts ignorance, desire and action, with the field. From that laying of the seed comes the arising, the origination, of all beings, by way of the arising of Hiraṇyagarbha, O Bhārata.

Into the great Brahman called nature, which is Mine and is the womb of the whole world, I place the germ. The insentient nature, indicated in 'earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, understanding, and egotism, this is My eightfold-divided nature; this is the lower', is, by being the cause of the changes, the great principle, egotism, and the rest, called 'the great Brahman'. In revelation too matter is sometimes indicated as Brahman: 'He who is all-knowing, who knows all, whose austerity is made of knowledge, from Him this Brahman, name and form, and food, are born'. The nature indicated in 'other than this, know My higher nature, become the soul' as of the form of the heap of the conscious is here, by being the seed of all living beings, indicated by the word 'germ'. Into that insentient great Brahman that is the womb I place the germ of the form of the heap of the conscious; I join, to the insentient nature that has become the field of experience, the conscious nature that is the heap of the host of enjoyers. This is the meaning. Then, from that conjunction of the two natures, made by My resolve, comes the coming-to-be of all beings, from Brahma down to a clump of grass. The Lord says that the effect-state conjunction of the conscious and insentient natures too was made by Me alone.

'The great Brahman' is prakriti, and she is distinguished as Shri, Bhu and Durga; while Uma, Sarasvati and the rest are other living beings, joined with a portion of her. So the Kashayana scripture says, 'Shri, Bhu and Durga are the great maya, who is the bringing-forth of the worlds and the binder of the world; Uma, Vac and the rest are other living beings, her portions; thus she is sung, in her own form, throughout all the Vedas'. 'My womb' means the womb whose purpose is the placing of the seed, not the mother, as the rest of the sentence shows. So the Sharkaraksha scripture in the Samaveda says, 'the womb of Vishnu, whose purpose is the holding of the seed, is the great maya, free of all sufferings; yet, in order to delude, she shows herself as if suffering, together with Vishnu'. Hence the suffering of Sita and the rest is all a mere mock-showing. So the Kurma Purana says, 'and this is not the earth'; and the Saukarayana scripture says, 'this earth is one thing, and that is His shadow, the lowest of beings, for she is the one womb of beings'. The Anabhimlana scripture says, 'the great-grandmother of the worlds took on, by her own will, the state of a servant'; and what is told in the Matsya Purana too is by her own will. The thing denoted by the words 'the great Brahman' too is just prakriti, as that same text says, 'two are the great Brahman-powers, prakriti and the great Lord'.