Verse 14

¹⁰He was Rsabha, son of Nabhi by Sudevi, who walked with an even eye the way of the yogin who seems dull: settled in himself, his instruments stilled, wholly loosed from clinging, in what the seers hand down as the station of the highest swans. ¹¹At my sacrificial session the Bhagavan was there with a horse's head, himself the Person of the sacrifice, the colour of heated gold, made of the metres, made of the offering, the self of all the gods; and out of his breathing nostrils came the lovely words. ¹²At the turn of the age he was a fish, found by Manu, made of the earth, the shelter for the whole gathering of the living. He took up the ways of the Veda, which had slipped from my mouth into the water of that great terror, and there he played with them.

¹³In the sea of milk, while the leaders of the gods and the Danavas churned it to get the nectar, the first god took the body of a tortoise and held the mountain on his back, dozing, the itch of it scratched by the turning of the hill. ¹⁴Taking away the great fear of those who live in heaven, he made himself a man-lion, his face terrible with rolling brows and tusks. When the Daitya king rushed at him close by with a mace, he threw him down on his thigh and tore him open with his nails as he struggled.