Verse 1

¹The path of turning back was told at the beginning by you, revered one, as it is: through Brahman reached by a yoga taken step by step, in which the round of birth ends. ²And the path marked by going forward, whose field is the three strands, sage: that bringing forth of the strands, again and again, for one in whom nature has not yet dissolved. ³The many hells marked out by wrongdoing have been described, and the first period of a Manu, Svayambhuva's, has been set out, and from it ⁴the line of Priyavrata and Uttanapada and their doings; the islands, the lands, the seas, the mountains, the rivers, the gardens and the trees;

⁵the standing of the earth's circle, by its parts and marks and measures, and of the lights and the hollows, and how the all-pervading one brought all this forth. ⁶Now, greatly favoured one, you should explain this to me: how a man may not have to go to the hells and their many fierce torments.