42. It is by my pristine destiny that this tree has grown here for my residence, therefore, O sage! I can have no release from this body of mine to come to my desirable end. (_i.e._ the soul like a bird is destined by its prior acts, to endless transmigrations in material bodies, which are compared to its habitable trees, and from which it can have no release, although it pines for its dis-embodied liberation, as a decrepit old man wishes to get loose of his loathsome body). 43. It is by appointment of the predestination, that the same tree has grown here in the form of the _kalpa_ arbour, which preserves the beauty even now, as it did at the time when my father Chanda had been living. 44. Being thus pre-ordained by destiny I was settled in this place, when there had been no distinction of the quarters of heaven as the north or east, nor of the sky or mountain. 45. Then the north was on another side, and this Meru was in another place; I was then one and alone, and devoid of any form or body, and was as bright as the essence, which is never shrouded by the darkness of night. 46. After awaking from the insensibility of my trance (at the beginning of another _kalpa_ creation or of my generation), I saw and recognized all the objects of creation (as one comes to see and know the things about him after waking from the forgetfulness of his sleep); and knew the situations of the Meru and other hills and dales from the positions of the stars, and the motions of heavenly bodies. 47. The site of the polar circle of Meru and the course of the planets being changed in different creations, there ensues an alteration of the points of the compass, and a difference in the sides of the quarters; therefore there is nothing as a positive truth, except our conception of it such and such. 48. It is the vibration of the soul, that displays these wonderful conceptions in the mind; and excites the various phenomena in nature. It converts a son to a father and makes a son of the father, and represents a friend as a foe and again shows a foe in the light of a friend. (Hence there is no such thing as a positive certainty, but becomes transmutable to one in opposite nature, as the father supports the child in its youth, and is supported by the boy in his dotage). 49. I remember many men to become effeminate, and many women also to grow quite masculine; and I have seen the good manners of the golden age to prevail in Kali [yuga], and those of Iron-age gaining ground in its preceding ages. 50. I have seen also many men in the Tretá and Dwápara Yugas or the silver and brazen ages of the world, that were ignorant of the Vedas and unacquainted with their precepts; and followed the fictions of their own invention which led them to heterodoxy. 51. I remember also O Brahman! the laxity of manners and morals among the gods, demi gods and men since the beginning of the world.