In plain words
At birth the mother's womb is a fire-pit; in this very pit this body is formed with limbs of many kinds. When the fire of the womb comes to its end, the fire of the pyre burns this body to ashes.
Fire itself makes the forms. Fire itself wipes the forms out. There is nothing in this world beyond fire, he answered. Still, to have it rightly proved that he was a knower of Brahman, many of those in the assembly went on putting many questions. Next Uddālaka rose: “Yājñavalkya! Can you say how many grahas there are?” he asked. Today we keep naming grahas such as Rāhu and Ketu. In those days there were none of these names. Then Yājñavalkya said that prāṇa, speech, the tongue, the eye, the ears, the hand, the mind and the skin: these are the eight grahas. With that Uddālaka sat down. In those days at Emperor Janaka's court there was Gārgī, a peerless woman scholar, a great knower of Jñāna, a jewel among great and virtuous women. In a gentle voice and with sweet words she asked, “Yājñavalkya! Can you tell how many gods there are?” From the good, only good words come. Without pondering this way or that, he answered: 3,306 gods. Then Gārgī asked whether he could reduce these gods further and tell them, and next, when she put it to him to close the matter with 33 gods: 8 Vasus, 11 Rudras, 12 Ādityas, one Indra, one Prajāpati. These are the 33 gods, he said. Again she would not let it go. “Yājñavalkya, can you reduce them from 33 gods to 6 and tell them?” she asked. He told her. Agni, Vāyu, Prakṛti, Āditya, the orb of Āditya and Dyuloka, he answered. She was gifted with still greater intelligence. She was herself a knower of Brahman. Not satisfied with this, she asked whether it could be turned into three. The three worlds are the very forms of the Trimūrti, he said. The world of the gods, the world of men, the world of the daityas. For the world of the gods, dama; for the world of men, Dharma; for the world of the daityas, dayā: these are the gods, he said. But Gārgī was not one to rest content with that much. Again she put a question. Can this be turned into two? she asked. Prāṇa and food, he said. She put another knotty question: “Can two gods be turned into one and a half gods?” she said. The paṇḍits and ṛṣis in the assembly were greatly flustered at this question. There may be two gods, there may be three, there may be six. Can there be one and a half gods? A misgiving came over everyone. Being a great knower of Brahman, Yājñavalkya said, Vāyu. She questioned him again. If it is Vāyu, it is a single god; it cannot become one and a half gods, can it? she asked.