Homage is offered to Shiva, the Supreme Lord beyond all, whose essence transcends time, bondage, and liberation. He is neither man nor nature nor the universe itself, yet his wondrous and diverse forms pervade all. In reverence, his greatness is acknowledged. A question arises: by what measure, in this present age, is the span of life determined? And what is the ultimate limit of time, which itself is counted and measured? The answer unfolds: the first unit of life is called a nimeṣa—the blink of an eye. Time’s limit, which is counted and measured, reaches up to the state beyond tranquility. A nimeṣa is defined as the closing of the eyelids. Fifteen nimeṣas make one kāṣṭhā. Thirty kāṣṭhās form a kalā. Thirty kalās make a muhūrta. Thirty muhūrtas, it is said, comprise a day and night. A month, consisting of two fortnights, is made up of thirty such days and nights. The ancestral day and night is a month, composed of the dark and bright fortnights. From these months, six constitute a solstice. Two solstices are considered a year, and thus, by this worldly measure, the human year is remembered. This is the divine day and night as established by scripture: the southern solstice is night, and the northern solstice is day. A divine month is reckoned as thirty days and nights; likewise, a year of the gods is twelve such months. It is taught that a divine year equals three hundred and sixty human years, and so is known among people. By this divine measure, the reckoning of yugas proceeds, and the sages know that there are four yugas in the land of Bharata. First is the yuga called Kṛta, then comes Tretā, then Dvāpara, and finally Kali. These are the four yugas in their entirety. The Kṛta Yuga is four thousand years long, with a dawn and dusk of hundreds of years each, and a twilight of similar measure. In the other three yugas, including their dawns and twilights, each is shorter by one quarter, with hundreds and thousands accordingly. Thus, the four yugas together total twelve thousand divine years, and a thousand such four-yuga cycles is called a kalpa. Seventy-one cycles of four yugas make a manvantara; in one kalpa, there are fourteen such cycles of Manus. By this sequence, hundreds and thousands of kalpas and manvantaras, along with their progeny, have passed away. Because they are unknowable and innumerable, it is not possible to describe them all in detail, nor to recount them in order. A kalpa is called a day of Brahmā, who is born from the unmanifest. A thousand kalpas are said to make a year of Brahmā. Eight thousand years is said to be a yuga of Brahmā; a thousand such yugas is a savana of Brahmā, the lotus-born. A thousand savanas, multiplied threefold and again threefold, is reckoned as the complete time of Brahmā, the supreme lord. During his day, fourteen Indras pass; in a month, four times twenty, together with hundreds. In a year, there are five thousand and forty; forty thousand and five hundred thousand in their lifespan. A day of Brahmā is a day of Viṣṇu; likewise, a day of Viṣṇu is a day of Rudra; and a day of Rudra is a day of Īśvara, the ever-named. The same number applies directly to Śiva, and so also to Sadāśiva: forty thousand and five hundred thousand in lifespan. For him who has no day, creation is called his day, and dissolution is called his night; but truly, for him there is neither day nor night—so it should be understood. This is a figurative explanation, given for the benefit of the worlds, the beings, their lords, their forms, and the gods and asuras. The senses, their objects, the five great elements, the subtle elements, the source of the elements, and intellect, together with their presiding deities—all these remain during the day of the wise Supreme Lord. At the end of the day, they dissolve, and at the end of the night, the universe arises again. Salutation is offered to that great Śaṅkara, the soul of the universe, whose power is action, time, and nature; whose command alone governs all this, and which cannot be transgressed. The inquiry continues: how does the Supreme Lord, having created and then withdrawn this entire world, perform his supreme play by his command? What is that which first came into being? By whom is all this pervaded? And by whom again is all this consumed, whose belly is vast? Power is the first to arise, surpassing the state beyond peace. Then comes māyā, then the unmanifest, from Śiva, the lord endowed with power. From the power comes the state beyond peace, then, in sequence, the state of peace; from that, the state of knowledge, and from that, the state of foundation arises. From the state of foundation, the state of withdrawal arises in order. Thus, in summary, the creation prompted by the Lord has been described. In the natural order, these arise; in the reverse, they dissolve. Beyond the fivefold method prescribed, another creator is not accepted. Therefore, this entire universe is pervaded by the five energies; that unmanifest cause, which is established by itself, is what is intended. It is agreed that it creates from the great principle down to the particular; yet, even there, neither the unmanifest nor the self possesses agency. Because nature is insentient and the person is unknowing, everything from the primary substance down to the atom is without consciousness.