Verse 47

⁴²It is he who upholds this world, the Bhagavan taking the form of dharma; and holding the world in its place, he nourishes it by beasts and men and gods and the rest. ⁴³Then, as the Rudra who is the fire of time, in time he draws in what he has sent forth out of himself, as the wind draws in a bank of clouds. ⁴⁴So the Bhagavan, most blessed of all, has been told of as being thus and thus. But the wise do not hold the supreme one fit to be seen as being thus and thus. ⁴⁵For the supreme one there is no rule laid down in his acts of birth and the rest. They are laid on him by maya, and are spoken of in order to deny that he is the doer.

⁴⁶This age of Brahma, with its lesser ages inside it, has been set out; in it the rule is a common one, and the sendings forth are both from nature and from what has been changed. ⁴⁷The measure of time, and the shape of what marks off an age, I shall explain further on, as I said. Now hear about the lotus age.