19. You have come a great way, to this far distant place; and as you must have been tired with your long journey, please to sit yourself in this seat. 20. As he said these words, I saluted him saying, I hail thee my lord; and then sat on the jewelled seat, he pointed out to me. 21. And then he was lauded by the assembled gods, and holy spirits standing before him, and received their pújá presents and adorations, according to the rules and rites of courtesy. 22. Then as the praises and prayers of the assembled host, was all at an end in a moment; the venerable bráhmana was accosted and bespoken unto me in the following manner. 23. How is it, O venerable sir, that this nymph has recourse to me, and tells me to enlighten you both with true knowledge, when you are acquainted whatever is past, and all that is to take place in future. 24. You sir, are lord of all, and fully acquainted with all knowledge; what is it then that this silly woman wants to learn from me, and this is what I want to learn from you. 25. Why was she produced by you to become your spouse, and was never taken to spousal by your indifference towards her. 26. The Bráhmana replied:—Hear me saint to tell you, how it came to be so with us; because it is right and fit to acquaint everything in full to the wise and good. 27. There is an unborn and imperishable entity from all eternity, and I am but a spark of that ever sparkling and effulgent intellect. 28. I am of the form of empty air or vacuum, and situated for ever in the supreme spirit; and am called the self-born in all the worlds, that were to be created afterwards. 29. But in reality I am never born, nor do I ever see or do anything in reality; but remain as the vacuous intellect in the intellectual vacuity of the selfsame entity. 30. These our addresses to one another in the first and second persons (lit. as I, thou, mine, thine &c.), are no other than as the sounds of the waves of the same sea dashing against each other. 31. I who was of this nature (of a clear wave in the sea of eternity), became disturbed in time by feeling some desire rising in me, and seeing that maid amidst the blaze of my intellect. 32. I thought her as myself, though she appears as another person to you and others; and though she is manifest before you, yet lies as hidden in me as my veryself. 33. And I find myself as that imperishable entity, which abides in me as I abide in the supreme soul; I find my soul to be imperishable in its nature, and to be delighted in itself as if it were the lord of all. 34. Though I was thus absorbed in meditation, yet the reminiscence of my former state (as the creative energy of God or Brahmá); produced in me the desire of reproduction, and yonder is the incarnate divinity presiding over my will. 35. She is the presiding divinity over my will, that is standing here manifest before you; she is neither my wife nor have I betrothed her as such.