56. They saw the watery expanse to be ten times greater than the earth, and enveloping it in the shape of the crust of the walnut fruit. 57. Then there is a latent heat which is ten times as great as the water, and the circumambient air which is as much greater than the water; and then the all encompassing vacuum of which there is no end. 58. There is no beginning, middle or end of that infinite space; and it is productive of nothing, like a barren woman of her offspring. 59. It is only an extended expanse, infinite, calm and without beginning, middle or end, and is situated in the Supreme spirit. 60. Its immensity is as immeasurable as if a stone is flung with full force from its top, or if the phœnix would fly up to it with all his might, or if he would traverse through it in full velocity, it is impossible for him to reach from one end to the other, in a whole Kalpa age. CHAPTER XXX. DESCRIPTION OF THE MUNDANE EGG—(BRAHMÁNDA). They passed in a moment beyond the regions of the earth, air, fire, water, and vacuum, and the tracks of the ten planetary spheres. 2. They reached the boundless space, whence the universe appeared as an egg (ovum). 3. They beheld under its vault millions of luminous particles floating in the air (nebulæ). 4. These were as innumerable bubbles, floating on the waters of the unlimited ocean of the sphere of the Intellect. 5. Some of them were going downward, and others rising upward; some turning round, and others appeared to their understanding to remain fixed and immovable. 6. These different motions appeared to them with respect to their own situations, as they saw them in their different sides. 7. Here there were no ups and downs and no upside or below, nor any going forward or backward. Here there are no such directions as men take to be by the position of their bodies. 8. There is but one indefinite space in nature, as there is but one consciousness in all beings; yet everything moves in its own way, as wayward boys take their own course. 9. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, why do we call upward and downward, forward and backward, if there are no such things in space and nature. 10. Vasishtha said:—There is but one space enveloping all things, and the worlds which are seen in the infinite and indiscernible womb of vacuity, are as worms moving on the surface of water. 11. All these bodies that move about in the world by their want of freedom (_i.e._ by the power of attraction), are thought to be up and down by our position on earth. 12. So when there is a number of ants on an earthen ball, all its sides are reckoned below which are under their feet, and those as above which are over their backs. 13. Such is this ball of the earth in one of these worlds, covered by vegetables and animals moving on it, and by devas, demons and men walking upon it.